CTIS Research Seminar: Conference Interpreting and the Hegemonic Forces at Work in the Field
| Dates: | 4 February 2016 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 15:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Who is it for: | Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public, University staff |
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| Speaker: | Cornelia Zwischenberger |
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Guest speaker: Cornelia Zwischenberger, Center for Translation Studies, University of Vienna
Instead of analyzing the various hegemonic forces conference interpreters sustain with their work in other fields (Beaton 2007), this paper aims at analyzing the hegemonic forces at work in the field of conference interpreting practice itself. It will present the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) as the hegemon par excellence which governs the entire field. The analysis will take two large-scale studies undertaken among the members of AIIC (Zwischenberger 2013, 2015a; Feldweg 1996) as its starting point.
The paper’s main aim consists of investigating and showing in which ways exactly AIIC operates as a hegemon and how it secures its consensus and high esteem both among insiders and outsiders to the profession. In order to achieve this, the very nature and various components of hegemony will be analysed. It will be proven that AIIC fulfills the various premises to be regarded as the hegemon for conference interpreting. A very specific ideology built on a meta-metaphor or rather “supernorm” (Zwischenberger 2015b) plays a crucial role in the construction of AIIC’s hegemony. This supernorm, however, proves to be ultimately untenable and reveals to be more of a “beautiful lie” (Althusser 1971). At the end of the paper an alternative leading meta-metaphor will be presented on which AIIC ultimately could even better build its hegemony as it would underline the profession’s ethical dimensions and the huge responsibility conference interpreters have to shoulder with their work.
Speaker
Cornelia Zwischenberger
Organisation: University of Vienna
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
A113
Samuel Alexander Building
Manchester
