4th Mercator International Symposium
Mercator-Media

Translation of Culture, Culture of Translation: Languages in Film, Television and Literature
Aberyswyth, Wales
26 - 28 October 2005

• Media News - MM
• Legislation News - ML

• Information on the Euromosaic Study - ML
• Minority languages in education in the Czech Republic - ME
• 9th Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages - ME

• Soon Bulletin 62 - ML
• International conference “Geonames 2005” - ME

IV Mercator International Symposium
"Translation of Culture, Culture of Translation: Languages in Film, Television and Literature"

MERCATOR-MEDIA

Dates Announced for the 4th Mercator International Symposium

The 4th Mercator International Symposium will be held on 26, 27 and 28 October 2005 in Aberystwyth, Wales and will have the theme of "Translation of Culture, Culture of Translation: Languages in Film, Television and Literature".

Language transfer, which includes, for the purposes of this symposium, subtitling and dubbing of both film and television as well as literary translation, is a multi-faceted phenomenon from the point of view of minority languages. It can be used to disseminate cultures which find themselves outside the audiovisual and literary ‘mainstream’ and to maximise audience or reader numbers for minority cultural products. Moreover, translation into minority languages not only increases the volume of available material in a marginalised language, but may have a wider cultural impact and contribute to the development of the language as a dynamic creative medium. On the other hand, the effect of ‘importing’ cultural references on a large scale may not always be viewed positively.

This symposium will seek contributions to this discussion from those active as practitioners and policy-makers in the audiovisual and literary fields (producers, directors, broadcasters, subtitlers and dubbers, scriptwriters, publishers, authors, translators) as well as those concerned with these issues in an academic context. While the emphasis will be on autochthonous minority languages (that is to say the languages of groups long-established on their current territory and using a language other than the primary official language of their state or a language in some sense socially and/or politically marginalised) connections may be made with issues of concern to smaller state languages, migrant languages and cultural production originating from beyond the metropolitan mainstream. We shall welcome contributions which make those connections. Key areas of discussion will include (but need not be limited to):

• The politics of translation
• The effects of ‘global’ culture
• Cultural policy and translation
• Language transfer and cultural transfer
• Translation and language planning
• International partnerships
• Digital technology and the internet
• Sign languages in the audiovisual media
• Learners and fluent speakers as audiences/readers
• Children as audience/readers

Abstracts of approximately 500 words or suggestions for panel discussions should be sent (as Word files or as plain text within the e-mail) to george.jones@aber.ac.uk by 1 June 2005. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 1 July 2005.

Written abstracts/proposals submitted for consideration will be accepted in Welsh, English, German or French. Abstracts in other languages can be considered subject to prior agreement with the organising committee.

Full details of registration and programme will shortly appear on the Mercator-Media website http://www.aber.ac.uk/mercator.

• Television programme and website in Catalan in Alguer (Alghero)[+]
• Worlwide Congress to be held for German language media outside Germany, Austria and Switzerland[+]
• Game in Basque for Mobile Telephones [+]
• Basque weekly gets new look [+]
• Community radio stations under no obligation to use welsh[+]

Legislation news - Mercator-Linguistic Rights and Legislation

• Catalan and Valencian will finally not be taught as separate languages in official language schools [+]
• Report on the Russian Federation presented by the CoE [+]
• European Parliament resolution on the regional integration in the Balkans [+]
• New Euromosaic Study published on the languages of the ten new EU member states [+]
• Draft Law on minorities in Romania will see the light soon [+]
• Hearing about new Nordic language Policy [+]

Television programme and website in Catalan in Alguer (Alghero)

The Sardinian regional television channel Cinquestelle Sardegna began this month (April 2005) broadcasting a new programme in Catalan entitled ‘Llunari’ for the city of Alguer. The programme, in the local dialect of Catalan, includes items on traditions, legends and tales as well as proverbs, popular customs, recipes etc belonging to the city. The programme is based on research carried out by school pupils which is part of a project aiming to revive the Catalan language among young people and promote interaction between the pupils and their grandparents’ generation, who are the main source of information for the programme and the ones chiefly retaining the language and traditional customs of the city.

The Alguer local authority has also recently introduced the Catalan language on its official website www.comune.alghero.ss.it/, which had hitherto been in Italian only.

Worldwide Congress to be held for German language media outside Germany, Austria and Switzerland

A congress is to be held on 29 and 30 October this year in Brussels for all those involved with German language newspapers, magazines, web pages and radio and television programmes produced outside of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Further information and registration details can be obtained by contacting info@medienmesse.com.

Game in Basque for Mobile Telephones

The first game in Basque for mobile telephones has recently been released. The game, called Mamutxen Eremua, was created by a company known as Animatu, with the support of the culture department of the Basque government.

Basque weekly gets new look

The Basque weekly current affairs magazine, Zabalik, has recently changed its format (appearing in a smaller size) and given a new focus to its contents, namely one giving more attention to ‘weekend’ themes such as concerts, dance, theatre, exhibitions, sport, cinema etc, all of which appear in a complete guide within the magazine.

Community radio stations under no obligation to use Welsh

The UK media and communications regulatory body, Ofcom, is currently in the process of adjudicating applications for broadcasting licences from seven community stations in Wales, with the decisions due to be made by the end of the summer, and, according to its own spokesperson, the regulator has no power to impose any linguistic requirements on the stations concerned. Although five of the seven applicant stations have mentioned Welsh language provision in their applications, most are only talking about a very small percentage of total broadcasting, e.g. 4% in the case of GTFM in Pontypridd in the south of the country and 5% in the case of Brynmawr station of Blaenau gwent in the south-east.

 Soon in the next Bulletin - Mercator-Linguistic Rights and Legislation

The Mercator-Linguistic Rights and Legislation team is currently preparing Bulletin 62, to be published at the end of June. Here is a preview of its contents, which are being translated into several languages:

• European Parliament resolution on working towards a Convention on the protection of the diversity of cultural content and artistic expression.
• Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers on the application of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages by Austria
• As well as new bibliography and links.
  

Activities: Major success of the international conference “Geonames 2005” on indigenous names/minority names and multilingual areas - Mercator-Education

Over 30 experts from countries with linguistic minorities gathered in Leeuwarden, the capital of the province Fryslân, for the third Geonames symposium on the theme of minority toponyms. It was sponsored by and organized in conjunction with the Fryske Akademy, the research institute for the Frisian language which is part of the Netherlands Academy of Sciences, the Netherlands Language Union and Utrecht University. The participants came from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands.
A paper version of the proceedings will be published later. For more information contact:
Arjen Versloot, aversloot@fa.knaw.nl Website: www.fa.knaw.nl

The EUROMOSAIC study on the presence of regional and minority languages in the New Member States, comissioned and published by the European Commission, offers information complementary to that of our section. In September 2004 the extended study covering the ten new Member States of the European Union was performed (EUROMOSAIC III). You will find attachments to the EUROMOSAIC study in our Action Plan and Languages and legislation sections.

The enlargement of the EU with ten new member states in May 2004, brought a lot of new minority language communities into the Union; there are approximately ninety communities which cover about thirty different languages. Articles on the role of such minority languages in pre-primary, primary, secondary and higher education in Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Slovakia were already, and still are online available on the website of Mercator-Education. Now a paper on minority languages in education in the Czech Republic is online available as well.

The Czech Republic is the only one of the new member states that has not yet ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, apart from the Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania). None of these states even signed the Charter. The Polish language minority in the Czech Republic is the only language group with its own (Polish) education system. The main reason for this lies in the fact that the Poles tend to live in concentrated groups in one region, close to the Czech-Polish border. Most other language minorities in are scattered throughout the whole of the Czech Republic. It is striking to see that the Slovak language is hardly represented in school curricula or as a medium of instruction in schools in Czechia. Attempts to set up Slovak schools have failed so far. Still, the Slovak language group is the largest language minority in the Czech Republic, with, according to the 2001 census, 208,723 native speakers.

You will be able to read more about this topic in the article “Minority Language Education in the Czech Republic” at our site. A paper on the situation of the (minority) languages in education on Malta and Cyprus will follow soon (just click on “General information on the languages in the current and new member states of the EU” at www.mercator-education.org). That will be the last paper on minority languages in the new EU member states; we’ve dealt with all ten of them by that time.

The Foundation for Endangered Languages will organise its Ninth Conference in Stellenbosch, South Africa, 18-20 November 2005. The topic will be: Creating Outsiders: Endangered Languages, Migration and Marginalization. Further details can be obtained from FEL board member Tjeerd de Graaf and a call for abstracts can be found at his website on endangered languages at www.mercator-education.org.