Research
Research projects, centres and networks in Translation Studies.
Research excellence
In the latest Research Excellence Framework - REF 2021 - our research in Translation Studies was submitted in Modern Languages and Linguistics (Panel D - Arts and Humanities; Unit of Assessment 26).
The results reaffirm Edinburgh’s position as one of the UK’s leading research universities - third in the UK.
As published in Times Higher Education's REF power ratings, this result is based on the quality and breadth of our research in Modern Languages and Linguistics.
Read more about our School's performance in REF 2021
Browse Edinburgh Research Explorer for staff profiles, research outputs and activities
Selected research centres and networks
A network of scholars working on translation, ecology and environment, in part to foster awareness of eco-translation in mainstream debates on climate action. Members are based in a wide variety of disciplines ranging from comparative literature and environmental history to computational science, philosophy and translation studies.
Growing out of conversations started in a group on Emotionally Distressing Research, this is a forum for researchers experiencing the ‘pressure on thinking’ from the ethical dilemmas their research gives rise to. Involving researchers from across the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, including colleagues in German Studies and Translation Studies, it embeds ethical reflection in research culture and collaboration.
Selected research projects
Can translation theory and methods help us study the way religions travel? And to what extent are the linguistic and conceptual elements of translation linked to the articulation of religious identity? Bringing together an international team of academics from the UK, India and Germany, the two-year Conversion, Translation and the Language of Autobiography (CTLA) project asked these questions, investigating the role of translation in the movement of religious ideas and beliefs across cultures and historical periods.
Conversions to Protestant Christianity in India began in the early 1700s and continued through the period of British colonialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many Protestant converts wrote autobiographical narratives on their conversion experience which were translated for wider circulation within India and in Europe and North America. Taking in a range of narratives (tracts, journal articles, letters, obituaries, and autobiographies), the interdisciplinary project explored the translation of Protestant subjectivity across English, German, Marathi and Tamil. The materials collected and interpreted have been of particular use in secondary level teaching, with CPD events for teachers awarded follow-on funding in 2019.
Visit the CTLA project website [external]
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): November 2014 to May 2017
LLC team: Dr Hephzibah Israel (Principal Investigator)
Since the 1970s, the history of ‘whale music’ has mostly been about aestheticisation and the mystification of how cetaceans (dolphins and whales) communicate. This has mainly been for the purposes of environmental awareness raising, but also commercialisation. In her research on the representation of marine mammals’ songs in arts and music, Professor Şebnem Susam-Saraeva focuses on more recent artistic endeavours which instead place emphasis on the materiality of cetaceans’ lives and the many threats they encounter on a daily basis, for example entanglements in fishing gear, captivity, plastic and noise pollution. The objective is to understand how best to introduce a more ethical representation and translation of cetacean communication, as part of the eco-translation movement towards greater interspecies communication and new ways of looking at the more-than-human world.
Watch or listen to Şebnem's lecture on her research at Trinity College Dublin
Find out more about the Eco-translation network
Funded by a Trinity Long Room Hub Visiting Research Fellowship: February to March 2023
LLC team: Professor Şebnem Susam-Saraeva (Principal Investigator)
The aim of this project is to build the capacity of early career researchers based in India to develop world-class research profiles. Specifically, it provides training in Academic Publishing, Research Governance and Organisation, and Engagement, Influence and Impact. To date, the training has comprised two workshops delivered by humanities scholars of South Asian Studies based in India, the UK and Norway. Each scholar has a publishing track record and experience of successfully bidding for academic grants.
Originally envisaged as in-person events, but delivered online due to COVID restrictions, the workshops were organised in partnership with the Highlands Institute, Kohima, Nagaland in the north east of India, and at the Kerala Council for Historical Research, Trivandrum in the southern state of Kerala. Encouraging interaction between postdoctoral and doctoral research scholars, they involved short talks, group exercises, discussion, networking and Q&A. Time was built in for one-to-one consultations on writing samples and post-workshop mentoring. Two in-person events are planned for 2022, subject to COVID restrictions.
Read more about this project on the Centre for South Asian Studies website
Funded by the British Academy: January 2020 to December 2022
LLC team: Dr Hephzibah Israel (Principal Investigator)
Exacerbated by factors such as the social effects of COVID-19 and the refugee crisis in Europe, United Nations figures indicate that one in three women will experience Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in their lifetime. Dr Charlotte Bosseaux has been funded to consider the ways in which the voices of GBV survivors are translated. The project is practice-based, creating two versions of a multilingual documentary that audiences will be asked to assess on the basis of whether the translation techniques used have done justice to survivors' voices. In this way, and through asking interpreters and translators how they feel about their work, the film is underpinned by new research into the ethics of translation.
Running over 18 months, the project is a collaboration with Saheliya, a Scottish-based charity supporting survivors, the filmmaker Ling Lee, and language professionals recruited via the specialist company Screen Language. As well as establishing which translation method - for example, subtitling or voice-over - is best for translating audiovisual personal narratives, it will provide good practice guidelines for translators, translation companies, filmmakers and charities, including on how to work together effectively on sensitive material.
Read our interview with Charlotte about the Gender-Based Violence project
Find out more about the project on its website
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): January 2022 - July 2023
LLC team: Dr Charlotte Bosseaux (Principal Investigator)
New parents with limited English-proficiency (LEP) often find it difficult to access adequate information about perinatal care in their own language(s), which greatly contributes to poor maternal outcomes. This project examined informed consent during pregnancy, labour and birth for parents with LEP in Scotland, many of whom are recently-arrived refugees and asylum seekers. Co-led by academics in Translation Studies (Dr Şebnem Susam-Saraeva, University of Edinburgh) and Midwifery (Dr Jenny Patterson, Edinburgh Napier University), the project’s main objective was to understand informed consent from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Through a series of expert focus groups and interactive workshops, the project created an environment where the concept of informed consent in multilingual and multicultural settings in Scottish maternity services could be viewed through fresh eyes and from multiple points of view. Participants were drawn from diverse research and practice backgrounds, including midwifery, translating and interpreting, medical anthropology, biomedicine, and other forms of healthcare. Findings were shared through a one-day online colloquium in October 2022, and three practice-based events for midwives and interpreters, including an episode of the Maternity and Midwifery Forum's podcast, Maternity & Midwifery Hour. International peer-reviewed publications are in production.
Watch or listen to the Royal Society of Edinburgh's video about the project on YouTube
Find out more, and listen to the podcast, on the project's website
Funded by a Research Workshop Grant from the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) as part of the RSE Research Awards programme: January 2022 - December 2022
LLC team: Dr Şebnem Susam-Saraeva (Principal Investigator)
Whose Voice is it Anyway? is a series of themed events delving into translation practices. Organised by Dr Charlotte Bosseaux, and held in collaboration with the European Commission, the research-led events bring together academics, students, professional translators, and their audiences. To date, the University of Edinburgh has hosted four events in the Whose Voice… series, variously supported by the Institut Français and Goethe-Institut. As well as talks and panel discussions, the events have featured writers in conversation with their translators.
Each Whose Voice… event deals with a different theme or set of challenges in translation. The first highlighted the importance of voice in many different settings, from interpreting to translating, acting to writing. The second focused on what happens to the voices of women in translation and interpreting, covering territory as diverse as interpreting for the victims of gender-based-violence, translating mommy blogs, and Dalit literature. The third was an evening dedicated to the translation of emotions, with a particular focus on the role of translators and translation when conveying trauma. The most recent event in the series reflected on ethical challenges in a translation and interpreting context drawing on recent research projects and practitioners' experiences.
Read synopses and browse photos from Whose Voice is it Anyway?
Funded by the European Commission
LLC team: Dr Charlotte Bosseaux (Principal Investigator)
Postgraduate research and supervision
Doctorate-level study is an opportunity to expand upon your interests and expertise in a community that really values research; and to make an original, positive contribution to learning in Translation Studies.
One of the most flexible doctoral programmes of its kind in the UK, our PhD enables you to enhance your translation practice while gaining an intellectual and philosophical perspective on the activity of translation, developing you as a self-reflective and theoretically-minded researcher or translator.
Join our community and undertake a specialised research project under the guidance of experienced and well-published supervisors - you can opt to produce an independent thesis, or an extended scholarly translation with commentary.
Find out more about our PhD in Translation Studies
Read our pre-application guidance on writing a research proposal
Beyond the books
Beyond the Books is a podcast that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at research in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures and the people who make it happen.
In Series 2 - Episode 6 host Emma Aviet talked to Dr Charlotte Bosseaux, Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies, about her journey to Edinburgh, her AHRC-funded research on the ethical demands of translating accounts of trauma, and her past research on the uncanny nature of dubbing.
Listen to Series 2 - Episode 6 of Beyond the Books on MediaHopper