marcus tomalin

This talk considers how specifically language-based AI systems (for example, speech recognition, machine translation or smart telecommunications interfaces) have affected and transformed modern society. In an age when we spend large parts of our daily lives communicating with our smartphones and Virtual Personal Assistants such as Siri, Cortana, and Alexa, we need to consider how these technologies actually impact our lives. While these intelligent systems can certainly have a positive impact on society (e.g. by promoting free speech and political engagement), they also offer opportunities for distortion and deception. Unbalanced data sets used to train automated systems can reinforce problematical social biases; automated Twitter bots can drastically increase the spread of fake news and hate speech online; and the responses of automated Virtual Personal Assistants during conversations about sensitive topics (e.g. suicidal tendencies, religion, sexual identity) can have serious consequences. We will explore some of these issues as well as discuss opportunities to implement these systems and technologies in ways that may affect more positively the kinds of social change that will shape modern digital democracies in the immediate future. A talk by Dr Stephanie Ullmann and Dr Marcus Tomalin from the 'Giving Voice to Digital Democracies' project at CRASSH.

This talk considers how specifically language-based AI systems (for example, speech recognition, machine translation or smart telecommunications interfaces) have affected and transformed modern society. In an age when we spend large parts of our daily lives communicating with our smartphones and Virtual Personal Assistants such as Siri, Cortana, and Alexa, we need to consider how these technologies actually impact our lives. While these intelligent systems can certainly have a positive impact on society (e.g. by promoting free speech and political engagement), they also offer opportunities for distortion and deception. Unbalanced data sets used to train automated systems can reinforce problematical social biases; automated Twitter bots can drastically increase the spread of fake news and hate speech online; and the responses of automated Virtual Personal Assistants during conversations about sensitive topics (e.g. suicidal tendencies, religion, sexual identity) can have serious consequences. We will explore some of these issues as well as discuss opportunities to implement these systems and technologies in ways that may affect more positively the kinds of social change that will shape modern digital democracies in the immediate future. A talk by Dr Stephanie Ullmann and Dr Marcus Tomalin from the 'Giving Voice to Digital Democracies' project at CRASSH.

Jeremy Munday (Leeds) Delia Chiaro (Bologna) Moderator: Marcus Tomalin (Cambridge) Diversity, in its diverse forms, has come to characterise those modern nation-states that advocate the socio-political advantages of cultural and ethnic pluralism – and sociolinguistic diversity in particular (whether inter- or intralingual) has received increasing consideration (e.g., Mayoral Asensio 1999, Cotterill and Ife 2000, Stolt 2010, Federici 2011, Hansen-Shirra et al. 2012). Communities subdivide themselves by means of distinctive languages, sociolects, genderlects, dialects, and the like -- and, in different contexts, they deploy different stylistic registers with varying degrees of prestige and validity. Naturally, this situation presents paradigmatic problems for translators, since any extended utterance is unavoidably riven with regional, ethnic, socio-economic, and/or socio-political connotations that are strongly embedded in the culture of the source language. However, this also provides wonderful opportunities too, since translations can help to bring distinct cultures into closer, more sympathetic, contact. In his seminal work A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965), John Catford considered various strategies for translating linguistic variation, noting that all too often a flattening or neutralizing effect predominates. Translation can, therefore, promote homogeneity rather than heterogeneity, often unwittingly. The literary critic Roland Barthes claimed that 'non-standard' forms have generally been treated inadequately by authors and translators alike, mainly because they have too often been deemed peripheral (Barthes 1984, 123). Yet attentiveness to such differences is sometimes unavoidable. It is a brave, if misguided, translator who renders the Italian phrase ‘mi fa cagare!’ literally into (say) Arabic, without considering its pragmatic implications. Nonetheless, such nuances are often hard to approximate. As Gillian Lane-Mercier has observed, all attempted renderings of non-standard forms inevitably reveal ‘the translator’s aesthetic, ideological and political responsibility’ (Lane Mercier 1997, sub-title). Consequently, whenever required to contend with instances of conspicuous linguistic variation, translators must necessarily participate in the fraught task of mediating diversity by means of language – and their decisions reveal much about their underlying worldviews and ideologies. This panel discussion will provide an opportunity to reflect upon the benefits and challenges of creating translations in socio-political contexts where cultural and ethnic diversity predominate

Jeremy Munday (Leeds) Delia Chiaro (Bologna) Moderator: Marcus Tomalin (Cambridge) Diversity, in its diverse forms, has come to characterise those modern nation-states that advocate the socio-political advantages of cultural and ethnic pluralism – and sociolinguistic diversity in particular (whether inter- or intralingual) has received increasing consideration (e.g., Mayoral Asensio 1999, Cotterill and Ife 2000, Stolt 2010, Federici 2011, Hansen-Shirra et al. 2012). Communities subdivide themselves by means of distinctive languages, sociolects, genderlects, dialects, and the like -- and, in different contexts, they deploy different stylistic registers with varying degrees of prestige and validity. Naturally, this situation presents paradigmatic problems for translators, since any extended utterance is unavoidably riven with regional, ethnic, socio-economic, and/or socio-political connotations that are strongly embedded in the culture of the source language. However, this also provides wonderful opportunities too, since translations can help to bring distinct cultures into closer, more sympathetic, contact. In his seminal work A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965), John Catford considered various strategies for translating linguistic variation, noting that all too often a flattening or neutralizing effect predominates. Translation can, therefore, promote homogeneity rather than heterogeneity, often unwittingly. The literary critic Roland Barthes claimed that 'non-standard' forms have generally been treated inadequately by authors and translators alike, mainly because they have too often been deemed peripheral (Barthes 1984, 123). Yet attentiveness to such differences is sometimes unavoidable. It is a brave, if misguided, translator who renders the Italian phrase ‘mi fa cagare!’ literally into (say) Arabic, without considering its pragmatic implications. Nonetheless, such nuances are often hard to approximate. As Gillian Lane-Mercier has observed, all attempted renderings of non-standard forms inevitably reveal ‘the translator’s aesthetic, ideological and political responsibility’ (Lane Mercier 1997, sub-title). Consequently, whenever required to contend with instances of conspicuous linguistic variation, translators must necessarily participate in the fraught task of mediating diversity by means of language – and their decisions reveal much about their underlying worldviews and ideologies. This panel discussion will provide an opportunity to reflect upon the benefits and challenges of creating translations in socio-political contexts where cultural and ethnic diversity predominate

Adrià de Gispert (Cambridge) Marcus Tomalin (Cambridge) In recent years, the art of translation has witnessed an unprecedented technological revolution. For many people, websites such as Google Translate are rapidly becoming the primary resource for obtaining a rough-and-ready translation of a given source-language text. If a Hungarian rendering of the first sentence of this current paragraph is required, then it can be obtained instantaneously: ‘Az elmúlt években, a művészet fordítás tanúja technológiai forradalmat’. The need for long years of patient tussling with conjugations, declensions, and the mysteries of vowel harmony is (seemingly) eliminated. However, few of the so-called ‘naïve users’ of these online translation systems know how they work. And even if they are dimly aware that some kind of modelling is being deployed, they generally do not know how or why it is applied, or whether a given system is rule-based, example-based, or statistical in nature (Trujillo 2012; Bhattacharyya 2015). Yet in order to evaluate the significance of any such systems, it is important to understand how they are trained, what kinds of bilingual corpora are used, and which particular kinds of linguistic patterns are modelled. There are also important distinctions between the kinds of texts translated. Machine translation systems struggle with poetry, but cope more successfully with certain kinds of genre-specific technical writing. This discussion panel will explore different aspects of the impact of recent technology on the art and craft of translation. It will assess the professional contexts of use of machine translation systems, and it will offer a chance to reflect upon the overarching anxiety that such systems pose a potential threat to human-produced translations.

Adrià de Gispert (Cambridge) Marcus Tomalin (Cambridge) In recent years, the art of translation has witnessed an unprecedented technological revolution. For many people, websites such as Google Translate are rapidly becoming the primary resource for obtaining a rough-and-ready translation of a given source-language text. If a Hungarian rendering of the first sentence of this current paragraph is required, then it can be obtained instantaneously: ‘Az elmúlt években, a művészet fordítás tanúja technológiai forradalmat’. The need for long years of patient tussling with conjugations, declensions, and the mysteries of vowel harmony is (seemingly) eliminated. However, few of the so-called ‘naïve users’ of these online translation systems know how they work. And even if they are dimly aware that some kind of modelling is being deployed, they generally do not know how or why it is applied, or whether a given system is rule-based, example-based, or statistical in nature (Trujillo 2012; Bhattacharyya 2015). Yet in order to evaluate the significance of any such systems, it is important to understand how they are trained, what kinds of bilingual corpora are used, and which particular kinds of linguistic patterns are modelled. There are also important distinctions between the kinds of texts translated. Machine translation systems struggle with poetry, but cope more successfully with certain kinds of genre-specific technical writing. This discussion panel will explore different aspects of the impact of recent technology on the art and craft of translation. It will assess the professional contexts of use of machine translation systems, and it will offer a chance to reflect upon the overarching anxiety that such systems pose a potential threat to human-produced translations.

Professor Delia Chiaro (Department of Interpreting and Translation, University of Bologna) Dr Graeme Ritchie (Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Natural and Computing Sciences, University of Aberdeen) Moderator: Dr Marcus Tomalin (English/Engineering, University of Cambridge) Humour is a universal human trait found across all cultures and throughout history, and one deeply embedded in them. Translating the combination of verbal humour and referential humour, for example, has often been likened to translating poetry: impossible. The imperative of the perlocutionary effect (amusement) complicates matters further, not to mention the fact that, to an extent, a sense of humour is innate and cannot really be learnt. However, the increasing global demand for the translation, or adaptation, of humour in a variety of texts and contexts (literary, film and television, live interpretation, etc.), has produced a growing body of research by scholars and translators from various academic disciplines worldwide (Delabastita, 1996, 1997; Chiaro, 1992, 2005, 2010; Attardo, 2002; Vandaele, 2002; Zabalbeascoa, 1996, 2005, 2016). How should translation render parody when the parodied text is unknown to the foreign audience? If a degree of transgression is inherent in humour, what happens if its target is taboo in the receiving culture? What are the specific ethical implications for the translator? These are some of the questions we will be addressing. The panel will discuss some of the questions that have emerged from the debate, exploring how the translation of humour has been addressed in different cultures and historical periods from a range of theoretical and practical perspectives.

Adriana X. Jacobs (Associate Professor and Cowley Lecturer in Modern Hebrew Literature; Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford) James Montgomery (Sir Thomas Adams’s Professor of Arabic, Executive Editor of the Library of Arabic Literature, AMES, Cambridge) Rowan Williams (Master of Magdalene, Cambridge) Moderator: Marcus Tomalin (English/Engineering, Cambridge) Within the domain of literary translation, poetry has traditionally attracted a great deal of scholarly attention (Holmes 1970, 1988; Lefevere 1975, 1992; Bassnett 1980; Hermans 1985; Eco 2003; Robinson 2010; Jones 2011; Reynolds 2011, Drury 2015). The constraints offered by rhyme and meter may sometimes appear to justify the statement (often attributed to Robert Frost) that ‘poetry is that which is lost in translation’. The notion of translatability frequently seems to defy the very essence of poetry since it is a literary medium in which meaning and structural form seem to be inextricably linked. Even proponents of strikingly different approaches to poetry translation usually agree that any expectation of absolute ‘fidelity’ (whatever that is) must necessarily be qualified or compromised in one way or another. But which aspects of a given poem can be safely jettisoned, and which must be doggedly preserved? Nabokov’s literal approach contrasts with Ezra Pound’s ‘remakes’, and the ongoing debate sparked by Paul Celan’s work offers numerous challenging and conflicting insights. From crib translation to ‘versioning’, from tribute to parody, from Bringhurst’s ‘re-elicitings’ to Queneau’s exercises in style, translation has been an important aspect of creative practice for many influential poets. The panel discussion will explore the role of poetry translation in different cultures and historical periods from a range of theoretical and practical perspectives.

Adriana X. Jacobs (Associate Professor and Cowley Lecturer in Modern Hebrew Literature; Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford) James Montgomery (Sir Thomas Adams’s Professor of Arabic, Executive Editor of the Library of Arabic Literature, AMES, Cambridge) Rowan Williams (Master of Magdalene, Cambridge) Moderator: Marcus Tomalin (English/Engineering, Cambridge) Within the domain of literary translation, poetry has traditionally attracted a great deal of scholarly attention (Holmes 1970, 1988; Lefevere 1975, 1992; Bassnett 1980; Hermans 1985; Eco 2003; Robinson 2010; Jones 2011; Reynolds 2011, Drury 2015). The constraints offered by rhyme and meter may sometimes appear to justify the statement (often attributed to Robert Frost) that ‘poetry is that which is lost in translation’. The notion of translatability frequently seems to defy the very essence of poetry since it is a literary medium in which meaning and structural form seem to be inextricably linked. Even proponents of strikingly different approaches to poetry translation usually agree that any expectation of absolute ‘fidelity’ (whatever that is) must necessarily be qualified or compromised in one way or another. But which aspects of a given poem can be safely jettisoned, and which must be doggedly preserved? Nabokov’s literal approach contrasts with Ezra Pound’s ‘remakes’, and the ongoing debate sparked by Paul Celan’s work offers numerous challenging and conflicting insights. From crib translation to ‘versioning’, from tribute to parody, from Bringhurst’s ‘re-elicitings’ to Queneau’s exercises in style, translation has been an important aspect of creative practice for many influential poets. The panel discussion will explore the role of poetry translation in different cultures and historical periods from a range of theoretical and practical perspectives.