PUBLICATIONS AND CURRICULUM VITAE

updated September 2024

 

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Brian Mossop

Postal address: 14 Monteith Street, Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1K7, Canada

Telephone: landline 1-416-929-6049;  cell 1-647-856-1946

e-mail: 1) brmossop@yorku.ca 2) kaybea@rogers.com

Web page: http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop

 

I am a former practitioner and a current teacher and researcher in the field of translation. I was a full-time professional translator (French to English) from 1974 to 2014. Post-retirement, I continue to teach translation part-time, lead professional development workshops on revision, and write about translation. I also do occasional freelance work and volunteer work.

 

See an interview with me and two articles of mine at the Routledge Translation Studies Portal http://routledgetranslationstudiesportal.com/featured-authors.php

 

 

Index

 

How I came to translation

Selection of published translations

Interviews

Forthcoming publications

Upcoming revision workshops and webinars

Active projects

Projects on hold

Unpublished papers

Publications in Translation Studies

Publications by topic

Education

Relevant employment

Translation-related interests

Languages other than English

Professional accreditation and activities

Software

Pastimes

 

 

How I came to translation

 

In 1950, when I was 4 years old, my mother taught me to read, curled up on the living room couch; thus did I acquire, in a highly pleasurable manner, one of the translator’s vital skills. We had just immigrated from Britain, and I was living through my second ‘interlingual’ experience: communicating with playmates in Toronto who spoke Canadian English rather than my first language, a dialect of east-end London, England.

 

My first such experience was in our London home, where I spoke the dialect in question (which I had learned from my aunt, uncle and older cousins, with whom we lived due to the housing shortage in post-war England). My mother, however, spoke what was known in those days as the Queen's English or BBC English; she had trained as a legal secretary and had stopped speaking that east-end dialect. Meanwhile, my father spoke Canadian English; he had come to London for work in the late 1930s, and had been serving in the British army since 1939.

 

When I was 8, my father decided to pay for private French lessons. At that time, fifteen years before the era of official bilingualism began in Canada, French was not offered in the schools of Ontario before age 14, though there was a weekly television program "Speaking French" on which Jean-Paul Vinay dispensed French lessons for curious Anglophones.

 

As a child, I was very interested in the natural sciences, especially astronomy and medicine, perhaps influenced by my father, an engineer with a master's degree in physics. Then at age 16, I began to learn German, Latin and Ancient Greek, and my interest shifted, rather suddenly, to languages. When I later became a translator, I happily found myself in both worlds, translating journal articles by Quebec scientists for their English-Canadian counterparts whose reading knowledge of French was not good enough.

 

I spent the school year 1964-65 in Europe, improving my French and German: first at the Canadian college in Neuchâtel in French Switzerland (where I did my final year of secondary school) and then at a textile factory near Geislingen-an-der-Steige in southern Germany, where I worked during the summer of 1965.

 

As an undergraduate at the University of Toronto in 1965-69, I studied French and Russian with a minor in German. It was in a German class in the first week of my first year that I became aware that there was a discipline called linguistics. In the summer of 1966, while attending the Linguistic Society of America’s annual institute at the University of California in Los Angeles, where Chomsky was lecturing on his just published Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, I read Catford’s also just published Linguistic Theory of Translation. In 1968-9, I took a course on the comparative stylistics of English and French, using Vinay & Darbelnet’s famous book. However I had no special interest in translation at that time.

 

I spent 1967-8 in southern France, with a one-month ‘language holiday’ in Moscow in the summer of 1968, organized by the French Communist Party’s youth league. I took an introduction to linguistics from (comrade) Georges Mounin at the University of Aix-Marseille. I don’t recall him mentioning translation, but I do recall his lack of enthusiasm for the intellectual excitement concerning linguistics as a science pilote, which was at its height in France at that time. One aspect of this excitement was that many French intellectuals were harking back to a remarkable group of Russian thinkers about language and literature in the 1920s and 1930s, including Jakobson, Tynjanov, Shklovsky, Eichenbaum, Voloshinov, Bakhtin and Vygotsky—thinkers whose work would be a  source for Descriptive Translation Studies in the 1970s. Voloshinov’s history of represented speech in literature, though it does not discuss translation, was later to be the source of my idea, about which I have written several articles since the early 1980s, that the act of translating can be conceived, in its linguistic aspect, as an instance of quoting.

 

In the early 1970s I was a graduate student of linguistics, doing research on the syntax of Ojibwa, one of the indigenous languages of Canada. My interest in literature continued, but in literature as a kind of language production. Indeed my first publication (put out by small left-wing research centre in 1971) was entitled 'The Metaphysics of Form and Content in Literature', in which I argued that the 'content' of literature could only be discerned by careful study of its linguistic 'form'.

 

My teachers in linguistics included followers of Bloomfield, Halliday and Chomsky. While it’s obvious that Halliday’s approach to language is the one most useful for text analysis (because he talks about how textual units represent the world, how they represent the relationship between writer and reader, and how they organize information into a cohesive whole), this is not useful for understanding a translator’s mental processing (what goes on in the mind while reading the source text and writing the translation). My own preference when it comes to the study of language in general has always been for Chomsky, in particular his emphasis on language as knowledge, on syntax as primarily a tool for thought rather than communication, and on language's biological nature—language as an organ of the brain. I think Chomsky's is the best explanation of language even though it doesn't help with understanding translation (as he himself has written more than once).

 

In 1972 I happened to see a newspaper ad placed by the Canadian federal government as part of its recruiting drive for translators in the aftermath of the passage in 1969 of the Official Languages Act. I wrote the examination, and thus it was that in June 1974, I became a professional translator in the federal Translation Bureau in Toronto. I liked the work so much that I stayed for four decades, till 2014!

 

In 1977, I attended the VIIIth congress of the International Federation of Translators in Montreal, where I heard James Holmes present a paper at one of the theory sessions, just as Descriptive Translation Studies was coming into being with Holmes as a guiding spirit. The following year, I began my ‘career’ as a practitioner-theorist by presenting a talk on ‘linguistics and translation’ to members of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario.

 

 

 

Selection of published translations

 

"General Inventory of Rhenish Brown and Gray Stoneware", translation of "Inventaire général des grès bruns et gris de type rhénan" by Gérard Gusset, in History and Archaeology 38, Parks Canada, 1980, pp 137-206.

 

Interview with Michel Tremblay published in Toronto gay monthly The Body Politic 70, February 1981 -  translation of the interview published in the Montreal gay magazine Le Berdache [volunteer translator].

 

Whaling in the North Atlantic From Earliest Times to the Mid-19th Century, translation of "La pêche de la baleine dans l'Atlantique Nord jusqu'au milieu du XIXe siècle", by Jean-Pierre Proulx, Parks Canada Studies in Archaeology, Architecture and History, 117 pp, 1986.

 

"Reconstruction of Temperature and Pressure for the Hudson Bay Region from 1700 to the Present", translation of "Reconstructions des champs thermiques et barométriques de la région de la Baie d'Hudson depuis 1700" by Joel Guiot, Canadian Climate Centre Report NE 86-11, Toronto: Atmospheric Environment Service, 105 pp, 1986.

 

Studies of the effects of acidification on aquatic wildlife in Canada: Lacustrine birds and their habitats in Quebec, translation of "Études des effets de l'acidification sur la faune aquatique au Canada: les oiseaux lacustres et leurs habitats au Québec", by Jean-Luc DesGranges et al, Occasional Paper 67, Canadian Wildlife Service, 68 pp, 1989.

“Mortality in black spruce stands of fire or clear-cut origin”, translation of “Étude de la mortalité au sein des pessières noires issues de coupes et de feux” by Jean-Martin Lussier, Hubert Morin and Réjean Gagnon, Canadian Journal of Forest Research Vol 32, No 3, 2002, 539-547 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/toc/cjfr/32/3 (original French never published).

“The Fourth Flag: Labrador is growing out of Newfoundland’s shadow”, Ricochet (online magazine), January 2015 https://ricochet.media/en/303/the-fourth-flag [volunteer translator]

(with Al Daigen) “Development of an experimental 2D hydrodynamic model of Lake Champlain using existing bathymetric data (Task 1-2). Draft report to the International Joint Commission”, translation of "Création d’un modèle hydrodynamique expérimental 2D du lac Champlain utilisant les données bathymétriques existantes (tâche 1-2)".  Environment Canada, 45 pp, 2015. http://ijc.org/files/tinymce/uploaded/LCRRTWG/Task_1-2-Lake_Champlain_2D_modeling_EC-NHS_EN.pdf

(with Al Daigen) "Effects of mechanical site preparation on microsite availability and on growth of planted black spruce in Canadian paludified forests". Forests 10 (8), 16pp, 2019. Some parts of our translation appear unchanged or with very light editing in the published version; other parts saw major rewriting, with additions by the authors.

 

Interviews

 

By Anthony Pym at the European Society for Translation Studies congress in 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu5n-AUluiBlt0OZ-mYq0UbuhQu_M0bSC

or

fb.me/103qmitC6

 

By Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow in Journal of Specialised Translation, Issue 30, July 2018

https://www.jostrans.org/issue30/int_mossop.php

 

By Robin Ayoub, (former) President of the Canadian Language Industry Association, June 2023

 https://youtu.be/hXV0yG0PZwA

 

 

Forthcoming publications

 

"Impact of neoliberalism on public sector translation in Canada" in Translation and Neoliberalism to be published by Springer

 

Revising and Editing for Translators 5th edition 2026, with new chapters on editing with LLM tools, legal revision, literary revision, and an updated chapter on MT post-editing

 

Upcoming revision workshops and presentations

 

"Revision and self-revision" Magistrad online workshop 23 and 30 October 2024

https://epekho.magistrad.com/catalogItemDetails/rev-11-001/16/-1/-1

 

Active projects

 

"Grammaticality judgments and the monitor model of translation" with editors for peer review for edited volume on the question Can translation studies provide useful input for linguistics? to be published by de Gruyter

 

"Revision" - entry commissioned by the editors of the forthcoming 3rd edition of the Encyclopedia of Translation and Interpreting. https://www.aieti.eu/en/encyclopaedia/home/

 

Projects on hold

 

"Andrei Fedorov and Language-based Translation Theory"  -  to be submitted for publication (a rewrite with major new material of "Andrei Fedorov and the Origins and Fate of Linguistic Translation Theories 2013, revised 2019 http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/Fedorov.htm)

 

“Revision workshops: improving quality or improving the bottom line?”

 

“Translating versus glossing: the treatment of metalinguistic statements in translated court decisions”

 

" 'Family status' versus 'condition de famille' in the Canadian Human Rights Act.

 

“Use and non-use of translations by choral singers, conductors and concert-goers” – an interview and questionnaire study. For information on this project, visit http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/MusicProject.htm.

 

 

Translate This – Click

This is a book about translation intended for a non-academic readership. It is not an introduction to Translation Studies but rather an attempt at what Kaisa Koskinen calls “public translation studies”. The purpose is to invite a general readership interested in matters linguistic to think about translation.

 

Making Translation: the view from a translator’s mind

Chapter 1 of this book is available at http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/MakingText.htm (you may need to change the form of Text Encoding in your Web browser).

 

Until a few years ago, translators produced language by composing sentence after sentence on a blank page or screen; now, more and more, they are producing language by editing the output of translation memories or machine translation. The outcome of this process being unknown, this book is about what translation language production has been and still largely is.

 

The proposed starting point is for the theorist to stand ‘behind the translator’ and view language as moving out, rather than, as is most commonly done, stand behind the receiver (reader, teacher, client, critic) and view language as coming in. However this is not an empirical psycholinguistic study. Rather it sets out a vision of translating as a sequence of choices among a dozen different ways of producing language. For example:

-       As I translate a medical text, I write in my own style for a while, but occasionally I try to imitate a doctor’s style to add authenticity: I switch from writing in ‘my voice’ to attempting to imitate the voice of someone like the medical practitioner who will be reading my translation.

-       As I translate an organization’s annual report, I decide to stop producing my own wording and instead paste in a TL sentence which has been proposed by Translation Memory, then make a couple of changes to it.

-       As I translate an in-house newsletter, I find the source text rather boring and I decide to liven it up: “there was a visitor from headquarters this week” becomes “everyone was wondering who the mystery man from headquarters was”.

In all these cases, I am changing the way I am producing language. In the first case, I switch to writing in what I take to be someone else’s style. In the second case, I switch to translating by what amounts to revising, that is, comparing an already done translation to the source text, accepting most of it, but making a couple of changes. In the third case, I switch to expressing my own thoughts rather than those of the source text writer.

 

Additionally I propose that the above kinds of more or less conscious activity of the translator combine with the activity of an unconscious brain process called Rendering, which automatically generates TL material whenever text in L2 is read or heard. This accounts for some of the strangeness of translational language.

 

Chapter 2 is about translators and the linguistic approach to translation. Translators as such (as opposed to poets, journalists, doctors or lawyers who translate) began to achieve recognition with the founding of the International Federation of Translators in 1953. This was reflected, also in 1953, in the first book-length work of translation theory, where Andrei Fedorov argued that a general theory of translation as such, rather than separate understandings of literary, journalistic, medical or legal translation, could be devised by taking  language as the common denominator. However this isolation of language from the particular situations in which translating journalists or lawyers worked meant that translation came to be seen, under the influence of linguistics, as a matter of correspondences between wordings in two languages, rather than someone’s purpose-driven composing activity. This view was reinforced in 1954 by the first public demonstration of machine translation — a technological incarnation of the idea that there can be translation without translators.

 

 

Unpublished papers

 

An Interdiscipline Vanishes: a science fiction (alternative history) approach to understanding the discipline known as Translation Studies 2017

http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/TSVanishes.htm

 

Have there been advances in translation theory? 2015

http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/AdvancesInTS.htm

 

Andrei Fedorov and the Origins and Fate of Linguistic Translation Theories 2013, revised 2019 http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/Fedorov.htm

 

Review of Pym, Exploring Translation Theories 2011 http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/PymExploring.htm

 

An alternative to deverbalization 2003 http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/Deverbalization.htm

 

A socially neutral definition of translating 2003 http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/SociallyNeutralDefinition.htm

 

 

Publications in Translation Studies

 

[A listing by topic follows the listing by date. Items are in their real order of publication, from present to past, disregarding the official year of publication of journals. Items marked CATS were originally presented, in an early form, at one of the annual meetings of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies.]

 

"Do humans and machines translate in the same sense?" (2024) special issue of Translation Spaces online first

 

"Translation and Architecturally Odd Invented Languages in Science Fiction" (2024) Translation Studies 17(2), 265-281. [CATS 2023]

 

"Reading order during bilingual quality checking: an issue in search of studies" (2023) Ampersand vol 11 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215039023000309

 

"Could research help revisers?" (2022) Perspectives 32(2), 319-329

 

"Taking Canadian revision workshops to institutions abroad"  (2022) in Institutional Translator Training, eds. Tomáš Svoboda, Łucja Biel, Vilelmini Sosoni, Routledge

 

"Maze-walkers and echoborgs: reflections on translator metaphors" (2021) [CATS 2021]  Translation Spaces 10(2), 329-348.

 

Review of Éric André Poirier (2020), Initiation à la traduction professionnelle: Concepts clés, Meta 65(2), 521-24.

 

Translation revision and post-editing: industry practices and cognitive processes (2021).

This collection of research articles edited by me and three others is available from Routledge.

 

Review  of Lynne Bowker and Jairo Buitrago Ciro (2019), Machine Translation and Global Research: towards improved machine translation literacy in the scholarly community. TTR 32(2), 250-55.

 

"Subjective responses to Translation Memory policy in the workplace", TTR 32(1), 2019, 309-339 [CATS 2017]. Version presented at the annual conference of the Toronto translation agency MultiLanguages:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAPQ_4_LRwM

 

Revising and Editing for Translators, 4th edition 2020

https://www.routledge.com/Revising-and-Editing-for-Translators-4th-Edition/Mossop-Washbourne/p/book/9781138895164

Also available in Korean and in Chinese.

 

“A Translator’s Wanderings in TranslationStudiesWorld”. Semi-autobiographical article commissioned for the 30th anniversary special issue of the journal TTR (30:1-2, 2017 but published May 2019).

 

“ ‘Intersemiotic translation’: time for a rethink?”, Translation and Interpreting Studies 14(1), 2019, 75-94.

 

“Editing in translation: Revision” in An Encyclopedia of Practical Translation and Interpreting, ed. Sin-wai Chan, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2018, 43-72.

 

“When translation is not about meaning”, Babel 63(5), 2017, 1-22.

 

“Judging a translation by its cover”, The Translator 24(1), 2018, 1-16. A limited number of free eprints are available: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/EA62vqi7Tk8Pu3Pfn29v/full

 

“The Missing Style Problem and the Translation of French Erotica into English”, Meta 62(2), 2017, 333-349. [CATS 2010]

 

Wikipedia article “Specialized translation”. I began writing this so-far-unedited and not-yet-complete encyclopedia entry in May 2017. I have been gradually expanding it. Latest addition 5 August 2023 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialized_translation

 

“Invariance orientation: identifying an object for Translation Studies”, with responses by David Katan, Federica Scarpa and Anthony Pym, and my response to the responses. Translation Studies 10(3), 2017, 329-356.  A limited number of free eprints are available: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/5Y7xRe8C4hZpbMWjdHMh/full

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/jDkWfQmbW4TANTYfIj7I/full

 

“Revision” in Gambier, Yves and Luc van Doorslaer (eds.), Handbook of Translation Studies Online. John Benjamins, 2016.  Update of 2011 English along with French and Ukrainian translations at Benjamins website.

 

“ ‘Intralingual translation’: a desirable concept? Across Languages and Cultures 17(1), 2016, 1-24.

 

“Translators and music” in Reflections of a Translated World: Selected Proceedings of the Fifth Graduate Conference in Translation Studies. Toronto: York University School of Translation, 2016, 93-7.

 

Review of A. Pym, On translator ethics: Principles for mediation between cultures, Parallèles 26, 2014, 140-2 (online journal of the Faculty of Translation and Interpretation, University of Geneva, at http://www.paralleles.unige.ch/dernier/numero-26/mossop.html)

 

“Motivation and de-motivation in a government translation service: a diary-based approach”, Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 22(4), 2014. Limited number of free eprints: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ZemEuv7hqgDQDMgCEDRM/full

 

“1974: The Weimar Republic Comes to Gay Toronto” in Translation Effects: The Shaping of Modern Canadian Culture, McGill-Queens University Press, 2014, pp. 399-415. (The article shows how the translation of some texts from 1920s Germany influenced gay liberation in 1970s Canada.)

 

Revising and Editing for Translators, 3rd edition, Routledge, 2014. https://www.routledge.com/products/9781909485013

 

“Singing in Unknown Languages: a small exercise in applied translation theory”, Journal of Specialised Translation 20, 2013. http://www.jostrans.org/issue20/art_mossop.php

Spanish translation available at: http://diarium.usal.es/experimentrado/travesias/jostrans/jostrans20_mossop/

 

Review of Pym, Exploring Translation Theories, originally submitted to TTR but withdrawn due to delay in publishing, 2011. http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/PymExploring.htm or http://usuaris.tinet.cat/apym/publications/ETT/reviews.html

 

“Translators and math: the case of approximators”, Translation Journal 16(3), 2012. http://translationjournal.net/journal/61math.htm

 

“Revision” in Gambier, Yves and Luc van Doorslaer (eds.), Handbook of Translation Studies: Volume 2. John Benjamins, 2011, pp. 135139.

 

Review of CIUTI-Forum 2008: Enhancing Translation Quality, in The  Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5(2), 2011, 359-361.

 

“Seeing Translation from Inside the Translator’s Mind”, in Alvstad, Cecilia, Adelina Hild and Elisabet Tiselius (eds), Methods and Strategies of Process Research, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2011, 57-66.

 

Review of Kate Sturge, Representing Others: Translation, Ethnography and the Museum, in TTR XXII:1, 2009.

 

“Translating what might have been written”, in Baker, Mona, Maeve Olohan and María Calzada Pérez (eds) Text and Context: Essays on Translation and Interpreting in Honour of Ian Mason, Manchester: St. Jerome, 2010.

 

“Positioning Readers”, in Dimitriu, Rodica and Miriam Shlesinger (eds) Translators and Their Readers: In Homage to Eugene A. Nida, Brussels: Éditions du Hazard, 2009, available at http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/Nida.htm

 

“The Translator’s Intervention through Voice Selection”, in Munday, Jeremy (ed.) Translation as Intervention, London: Continuum, 2007. Available to IATIS members at http://www.iatis.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=92:translation-as-intervention&Itemid=84.

 

“Empirical studies of revision: what we know and need to know”, in Journal of Specialised Translation No. 8, 2007, available only online at www.jostrans.org .

 

“Reader Reaction and Workplace Habits in the Translation of French Proper Names in Canada”, META 52:2, 2007, 202-214 [accepted for publication in February 2004]. http://www.erudit.org/revue/meta/2007/v52/n2/index.html

 

Revising and Editing for Translators, 2nd edition, Manchester: St. Jerome, 2007.

 

“Has Computerization Changed Translation?”, META 51:4, 2006, 787-793 [CATS 2003 and submitted for publication in 2003] http://www.erudit.org/revue/meta/2006/v51/n4/index.html

 

Review of A. Pym, The Moving Text: Localization, translation, distribution, in Target 17:2, 2005, 345-351

 

Review of M. Williams, Quality Assessment: an Argumentation-centred Approach, in TTR 17:2, 2004, 185-190 http://www.erudit.org/revue/ttr/2004/v17/n2/index.html

 

“From Culture to Business: federal government translation in Canada”, in The Translator 12:1, 2006, 1-27

 

“Back to Translation as Language” (with E-A. Gutt, J. Peeters, K. Klaudy, R. Setton and S. Tirkkonen-Condit), in Across Languages and Cultures 6:2, 2005, 143-172

 

"What Practitioners Can Bring To Theory: the good and the bad” in Jean Peeters (ed), On the Relationships between Translation Theory and Translation Practice. Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main, 2005, available at www.yorku.ca/brmossop/index.html 

 

Review of A. Chesterman & E. Wagner, Can Theory Help Translators? in Target 15:2, 2003

 

“School, practicum and professional development workshop: toward a rational sequence of topics” in La formation à la traduction professionnelle, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2003, 47-61 [CATS 1999]

 

“What should be taught at translation school?” in Innovation and E-Learning in Translator Training, 20-22. Intercultural Studies Group: Tarragona, 2003, available at http://www.intercultural.urv.cat/publications/elearning/

 

“Personification of Institutions” in Terminology Update 36:1, 2003, available at http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/favart/index-eng.html?lang=eng&lettr=indx_autr8D4Qx-kn2xlI&page=9xEaOsqsc2bk.html#zz8D4Qx-kn2xlI

 

Contribution to round table on Translator Training and the Real World: Concrete Suggestions for Bridging the Gap, in Translation Journal 7:1, 2003 http://accurapid.com/journal/23index.html (available only on-line)

 

“Why should we seek common ground?” Response to ‘Shared Ground in Translation Studies’ by A. Chesterman & R. Arrojo (Target 12:1), in Target 13:1, 2001

 

“The Translation of Hidden Quotations” in Terminology Update 34:2, 2001, available at www.yorku.ca/brmossop/index.html and at http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/favart/index-eng.html?lang=eng&lettr=indx_autr8D4Qx-kn2xlI&page=9gls8-Zog2tI.html#zz8D4Qx-kn2xlI

 

Revising and Editing for Translators, Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 2001

 

Untitled contribution to “Innovation in Translator and Interpreter Training. Report on an on-line symposium”, in Across Languages and Cultures 1:2, 2000, 232-234

 

“The Workplace Procedures of Professional Translators” in Translation in Context, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000, 39-48.

 

“Quality versus Speed” in Circuit 69, automne 2000

 

“What is a Translating Translator Doing?” in Target, 10:2, 1998, 231-266 [CATS 1995]

 

"The Image of Translation in Science Fiction and Astronomy" in The Translator, 2:1, 1996, 1-26, Manchester: St Jerome Publishing [CATS 1993], available at http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/SciFi.pdf 

 

"Training and Development for Professional Translators" in Circuit 49, automne 1995

 

"Understanding Poorly Written Source Texts" in Terminology Update, 28:2, 1995, 4-21, available at http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/favart/index-eng.html?lang=eng&lettr=indx_autr8D4Qx-kn2xlI&page=95D0QuFqwMUE.html#zz8D4Qx-kn2xlI

 

"Goals and Methods for a Course in Translation Theory", in Translation Studies: An Interdiscipline, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1994, 401-409 [CATS 1992]

 

"Translation English", in English Today 9:3, 1993, 62-64, Cambridge University Press.

 

Review of Translation Studies: The State of the Art (van Leuven-Zwart and Naaijkens eds) in TTR 5:2, 1992, 245-250 http://www.erudit.org/revue/ttr/1992/v5/n2/index.html

 

"Goals of a Revision Course", in Teaching Translation and Interpreting, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1992, 81-90

 

"Translating Institutions and 'Idiomatic' Translation" in META:Translator's Journal, 35:2, 1990, 342-355 [accepted for publication in 1987] http://www.erudit.org/revue/meta/1990/v35/n2/index.html

(revised 1990 version available at http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/index.html) 

 

"Objective translational error and the cultural norm of translation" in TTR : Études sur le texte et ses transformations, 2:2, 1989, 65-71 http://www.erudit.org/revue/ttr/1989/v2/n2/index.html

 

"'Write Idiomatically and Translate Ideas Not Words': Three Defects of the Prevailing Doctrine of Translation" in C. Séguinot, ed., The Translation Process, H.G. Publications, School of Translation, York University, 1989, 7-20.

 

"Translating Institutions: A Missing Factor in Translation Theory" in TTR : Études sur le texte et ses transformations, 1:2, 1988, 65-71  [CATS 1988] http://www.erudit.org/revue/ttr/1988/v1/n2/index.html

 

"Who is Addressing Us When We Read a Translation?" in TextConText, 2:2, 1987, 1-22, Heidelberg, Julius Groos Verlag

 

Reviser’s Handbook (English adaptation of Guide du réviseur), Ottawa: Department of the Secretary of State of Canada, 1985 (with Ingrid Roed and Vic Bucens)

 

"The Translator as Rapporteur: A Concept for Training and Self-Improvement" in META:Translator's Journal, 28:3, 1983, 244-278 http://www.erudit.org/revue/meta/1983/v28/n3/index.html

 

"A Procedure for Self-Revision" in Terminology Update, 15:3, 1982, 6-9, available at http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/favart/index-eng.html?lang=eng&lettr=indx_autr8D4Qx-kn2xlI&page=9MDzwkuPrVWs.html#zz8D4Qx-kn2xlI

 

 

Publications by topic

(see above listing by date for links to published items)

 

Scope of Translation Studies

(incl. definition of translation and mistranslation)

 

"Objective translational error and the cultural norm of translation" TTR 2:2, 1989, 65-71

“Why should we seek common ground?” Response to ‘Shared Ground in Translation Studies’ by A. Chesterman & R. Arrojo (Target 12:1) Target 13:1, 2001

"A socially neutral definition of translating" 2003 (unpublished) http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/SociallyNeutralDefinition.htm

“ ‘Intralingual translation’: a desirable concept? Across Languages and Cultures 17(1), 2016, 1-24.

“Invariance orientation: identifying an object for Translation Studies”, with responses by David Katan, Frederica Scarpa and Anthony Pym, and my response to the responses. Translation Studies 10(3), 2017, 329-356.

“Judging a translation by its cover” The Translator 24(1), 2018, 1-16

“ ‘Intersemiotic translation’: time for a rethink?” Translation and Interpreting Studies 14(1), 2019, 75-94.

“A Translator’s Wanderings in TranslationStudiesWorld” TTR 30:1-2, 2017

“When translation is not about meaning” Babel 63(5), 2017, 1-22.

 

Revision

 

"A Procedure for Self-Revision" Terminology Update, 15:3, 1982, 6-9

Reviser’s Handbook (English adaptation of Guide du réviseur), Ottawa: Department of the Secretary of State of Canada, 1985 (with Ingrid Roed and Vic Bucens)

"Goals of a Revision Course" in Teaching Translation and Interpreting, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1992, 81-90

Revising and Editing for Translators, Manchester: St Jerome, 2001

“Empirical studies of revision: what we know and need to know”, Journal of Specialised Translation 8, 2007

Revising and Editing for Translators, 2nd edition, Manchester: St. Jerome, 2007

“Revision” in Gambier, Yves and Luc van Doorslaer (eds.) Handbook of Translation Studies: Volume 2. John Benjamins, 2011, 135139.

Revising and Editing for Translators, 3rd edition, Routledge, 2014

“Revision” in Gambier, Yves and Luc van Doorslaer (eds.), Handbook of Translation Studies Online. John Benjamins, 2016

“Editing in translation: Revision” in An Encyclopedia of Practical Translation and Interpreting, ed. Sin-wai Chan, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2018, 43-72

Revising and Editing for Translators, 4th edition, Routledge, 2020

"Taking Canadian revision workshops to institutions abroad"  2022 in Institutional Translator Training, eds. Tomáš Svoboda, Łucja Biel, Vilelmini Sosoni, Routledge

"Could research help revisers?" 2022 online first in Perspectives

"Reading order during bilingual quality checking: an issue in search of studies" (2023) Ampersand vol 11 Dec 2023

 

 

 

Translating as reporting speech and the rapporteur's voice

 

"The Translator as Rapporteur: A Concept for Training and Self-Improvement"  Meta 28:3, 1983, 244-278

"Who is Addressing Us When We Read a Translation?" TextConText 2:2, 1987, 1-22

“What is a Translating Translator Doing?” Target, 10:2, 1998, 231-266

“The Translator’s Intervention through Voice Selection” in Munday, Jeremy (ed.) Translation as Intervention, London: Continuum, 2007

“Positioning Readers” in Dimitriu, Rodica and Miriam Shlesinger (eds) Translators and Their Readers: In Homage to Eugene A. Nida, Brussels: Éditions du Hazard, 2009

“Translating what might have been written” in Baker, Mona, Maeve Olohan and María Calzada Pérez (eds) Text and Context: Essays on Translation and Interpreting in Honour of Ian Mason, Manchester: St. Jerome, 2010

“Seeing Translation from Inside the Translator’s Mind” in Alvstad, Cecilia, Adelina Hild and Elisabet Tiselius (eds), Methods and Strategies of Process Research, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2011, 57-66

 

Translating institutions

 

"Translating Institutions: A Missing Factor in Translation Theory" TTR 1:2, 1988, 65-71

"'Write Idiomatically and Translate Ideas Not Words': Three Defects of the Prevailing Doctrine of Translation" in C. Séguinot, ed., The Translation Process, H.G. Publications, School of Translation, York University, 1989, 7-20

"Translating Institutions and 'Idiomatic' Translation" Meta 35:2, 1990, 342-355

“From Culture to Business: federal government translation in Canada” The Translator 12:1, 2006, 1-27

“Motivation and de-motivation in a government translation service: a diary-based approach” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 22(4), 2014

 

Workplace procedures

 

“The Workplace Procedures of Professional Translators” in Translation in Context, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000, 39-48.

“Has Computerization Changed Translation?” META 51:4, 2006, 787-793

“Motivation and de-motivation in a government translation service: a diary-based approach” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 22(4), 2014

 

Gay-related

 

“1974: The Weimar Republic Comes to Gay Toronto” in Translation Effects: The Shaping of Modern Canadian Culture, McGill-Queens University Press, 2014, pp. 399-415.

“The Missing Style Problem and the Translation of French Erotica into English” Meta 62(2), 2017, 333-349.

“Judging a translation by its cover” The Translator 24(1), 2018, 1-16

 

Music-related

 

“Singing in Unknown Languages: a small exercise in applied translation theory” Journal of Specialised Translation 20, 2013

“Translators and music” in Reflections of a Translated World: Selected Proceedings of the Fifth Graduate Conference in Translation Studies. Toronto: York University School of Translation, 2016, 93-7.

“ ‘Intersemiotic translation’: time for a rethink?” Translation and Interpreting Studies 14(1), 2019, 75-94.

 

Sci-fi-related

 

"The Image of Translation in Science Fiction and Astronomy" The Translator 2:1, 1996, 1-26, Manchester: St Jerome

“A Translator’s Wanderings in TranslationStudiesWorld” TTR 30:1-2, 2017

"An Interdiscipline Vanishes: a science fiction (alternative history) approach to understanding the discipline known as Translation Studies" 2017  (unpublished) http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/TSVanishes.htm

"Translation and Architecturally Odd Invented Languages in Science Fiction"  Translation Studies Online 2023

 

 

Translation pedagogy

 

"A Procedure for Self-Revision" Terminology Update, 15:3, 1982, 6-9

Reviser’s Handbook (English adaptation of Guide du réviseur), Ottawa: Department of the Secretary of State of Canada, 1985 (with Ingrid Roed and Vic Bucens)

"Goals of a Revision Course" in Teaching Translation and Interpreting, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1992, 81-90

"Goals and Methods for a Course in Translation Theory" in Translation Studies: An Interdiscipline, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1994, 401-409

Untitled contribution to “Innovation in Translator and Interpreter Training. Report on an on-line symposium” Across Languages and Cultures 1:2, 2000, 232-234

Revising and Editing for Translators, 2001, 2007, 2014, 2020

Contribution to round table on Translator Training and the Real World: Concrete Suggestions for Bridging the Gap, in Translation Journal 7:1, 2003

“What should be taught at translation school?” in Innovation and E-Learning in Translator Training, 20-22. Intercultural Studies Group: Tarragona, 2003

“School, practicum and professional development workshop: toward a rational sequence of topics” in La formation à la traduction professionnelle, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2003, 47-61

 

Methodology in Translation Studies

 

“Seeing Translation from Inside the Translator’s Mind” in Alvstad, Cecilia, Adelina Hild and Elisabet Tiselius (eds), Methods and Strategies of Process Research, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2011, 57-66

“Motivation and de-motivation in a government translation service: a diary-based approach”, Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 22(4), 2014

"Subjective responses to Translation Memory policy in the workplace", TTR 32(1), 2019, 309-339 [CATS 2017].

 

Translation Technology

 

“Has Computerization Changed Translation?” Meta 51:4, 2006, 787-793

"Subjective responses to Translation Memory policy in the workplace", TTR 32(1), 2019, 309-339 [CATS 2017].

 

Professional 

 

"A Procedure for Self-Revision" in Terminology Update 15:3, 1982, 6-9

Reviser’s Handbook (English adaptation of Guide du réviseur), Ottawa: Department of the Secretary of State of Canada, 1985 (with Ingrid Roed and Vic Bucens)

"Understanding Poorly Written Source Texts" Terminology Update, 28:2, 1995, 4-21

"Training and Development for Professional Translators" Circuit 49, automne 1995

“Quality and Speed” Circuit 69, automne 2000

“The Translation of Hidden Quotations” Terminology Update 34:2, 2001

“Personification of Institutions” Terminology Update 36:1, 2003

“Translators and math: the case of approximators” Translation Journal 16(3), 2012

 

Reviews

 

Review of Translation Studies: The State of the Art (van Leuven-Zwart and Naaijkens eds) TTR 5:2, 1992, 245-250

Review of A. Chesterman & E. Wagner, Can Theory Help Translators? Target 15:2, 2003

Review of M. Williams, Quality Assessment: an Argumentation-centred Approach TTR 17:2, 2004, 185-190

Review of A. Pym, The Moving Text: Localization, translation, distribution Target 17:2, 2005, 345-351

Review of Kate Sturge, Representing Others: Translation, Ethnography and the Museum TTR 22:1, 2009

Review of CIUTI-Forum 2008: Enhancing Translation Quality, in The  Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5(2), 2011, 359-361

Review of Pym, Exploring Translation Theories (unpublished) http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/PymExploring.htm or http://usuaris.tinet.cat/apym/publications/ETT/reviews.html

Review of A. Pym, On translator ethics: Principles for mediation between cultures, Parallèles 26, 2014, 140-2

Review  of Lynne Bowker and Jairo Buitrago Ciro (2019), Machine Translation and Global Research: towards improved machine translation literacy in the scholarly community. TTR 32(2), 2019,250-55

Review of Éric André Poirier (2020), Initiation à la traduction professionnelle: Concepts clés, Meta 65(2), 521-24.

 

Miscellaneous

 

"Translation English" English Today 9:3, 1993, 62-64, Cambridge University Press

"What Practitioners Can Bring To Theory: the good and the bad” in Jean Peeters (ed), On the Relationships between Translation Theory and Translation Practice, Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main, 2005

Andrei Fedorov and the Origins and Fate of Linguistic Translation Theories 2013, revised 2019 (unpublished) http://www.yorku.ca/brmossop/Fedorov.htm

"Maze-walkers and echoborgs: reflections on translator metaphors" (2021)  Translation Spaces 10(2), 329-348.

 

Education

 

1961-1965: Secondary education at East York Collegiate Institute, Toronto (Ontario Grades 10 to 12) and at Neuchâtel Junior College, Neuchâtel, Switzerland (Ontario Grade 13)

 

1965-1969: Bachelor of Arts (University of Toronto), Honours Modern Languages and Literatures (French and Russian, with minor in German), including one year of study in France (1967-68) at the Université d'Aix-Marseille

 

1969-70: Master of Arts (University of Toronto), Linguistics, including course work at the University of California Los Angeles and the Ohio State University

 

1970-74: PhD student at University of Toronto, Linguistics. Course work and comprehensive examinations completed; thesis research and writing begun but never completed.

 

The topic of my thesis was a problem in the syntax of Ojibwa, an indigenous  language of Canada which I studied with the assistance of Ojibwa speakers in Toronto and on reserves in Thunder Bay, Ontario and Grand Portage, Minnesota.

 

All verbs in Ojibwa, as in other Algonquian languages, have two complete sets of person-number-gender affixes, constituting what are (somewhat misleadingly) known as the “independent order” and the “conjunct order”. Both orders of verb can occur in positive declarative main clauses. Apart from the uncertain difference in meaning corresponding to the use of one or the other order in such a clause (there have been various proposals about this over the past 50 years), it is unclear how a main clause with a verb of one order differs in syntactic structure from a main clause with a verb of the other order.

 

This syntactic problem was tackled, unsuccessfully, in the first half of the 20th century by such noted linguists as Franz Boas and Leonard Bloomfield. My proposal was to stop considering the independent order as the default order in main clauses (a methodologically induced error arising from linguists' habit of eliciting out-of-context sentences from native speakers). Instead, I thought the conjunct was the default order, so that the task was to account for the occurrence of the independent in main clauses. However that proposal was as far as I got before I became a full-time translator. Only recently (since the turn of the 21st century) has there been any progress toward solving the problem, in the cases of Cree and Menomini, Algonquian languages closely related to Ojibwa.

 

(Publication: Piggott, Glyne and Brian Mossop, “Inflectional Endings of the Transitive Verb in Ojibwa”, in Odawa Language Project: Second report, ed. by Glyne L. Piggott & Jonathan Kaye, University of Toronto Linguistic Series 1, Centre for Linguistic Studies, 1973, pp 51-80.)

 

Relevant employment

 

1970-73: teaching assistant, Introduction to Linguistics, University of Toronto

 

1973-74: course director, Introduction to Linguistics, Erindale College, University of Toronto

 

1974-2014: French-to-English translator, Translation Bureau, Department of the Secretary of State of Canada to 1993; then Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada (now Public Services and Procurement Canada), Toronto. Main fields: scientific translation (meteorology, forestry, ecology); transport; penitentiaries, immigration and refugees. From 1976: reviser and in-house trainer.

 

1980-2011 and 2016-    : course director (one half-course per year), School of Translation, Glendon College, York University, Toronto. Subjects: Introduction to Translation into English, Translation of Specialized Texts into English (forestry in some years, meteorology in others), Translation Theory, Translation into English for Francophones, and Revision.

 

2014-    : course director, Master's in Translation Studies program, York University. Subject: Revising and Editing for Professional Translators

 

 

 

Translation-related interests

 

1. translation theory, especially translating as a peculiar form of language production

2. translation pedagogy, especially workshops on revision for experienced translators

3. translators’ work processes and workplace organization

 

 

 

Languages other than English

 

French – professional reading ability; quite good writing, speaking and listening

German, Russian – fair reading ability

Latin, Ancient Greek – some reading ability

Mandarin, Ojibwa, Czech, Polish, Spanish, Italian, Old French, Anglo-Saxon - smattering

 

 

Professional accreditation and activities

 

Former Certified Translator, Province of Ontario (now retired)

 

Former member of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario

 

Founding member, Canadian Association for Translation Studies 1987

and Chair of the Program Committee (1991-95)

 

Honorary Member of Canadian Association for Translation Studies (2022-    )

 

Member of the Advisory Board, Canadian Language Industry Association (2023-    )

 

Member of the Panel of Expert Reviewers, European Science Foundation (2020-     )

 

Member of the Editorial Advisory Committee, TTR (1998-2011)

 

Peer reviewer, Meta (2013-    )

 

Member of the Advisory Board, Across Languages and Cultures (2021-    )

 

Member of the International Advisory Board, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer (2007-2014)

 

Member of the Advisory Panel, New Voices in Translation Studies, an online publication of the International Association for Translation & Intercultural Studies (2011-20??)

 

1980 to present: Prepared and led numerous workshops on revision and self-revision within the Canadian Government’s Translation Bureau as well as for outside organizations:

Provincial government translation services in Ontario (pre-2000 and 2009) and New Brunswick (pre-2000)

Professional translators’ associations in Quebec (2002), Ontario (2005), Saskatchewan (2005), Chicago (2008), France (2009) and Florida (2024)

Translation service of the European Commission (Brussels and Luxembourg) (2003, 2009, 2021 online) and the Council of Ministers of the European Union (2009)

Canadian association of translators in the pharmaceutical industry (2003)

Translation service of Crédit Suisse, Zurich (2008)

MultiLanguages, a private translation company, Toronto (2005, 2008)

Magistrad, a private professional development school for translators (Toronto 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016; Montreal 2009, 2013, 2014, 2018, 2019; Quebec City 2011; Ottawa/Gatineau 2013, 2018, 2019, 2020); online 2020, 2021 (2x), 2022, 2023 https://epekho.magistrad.com/catalogItemDetails/rev-11-001/16/-1/-1  

Network of Translators in Education, Toronto (2010)

Quebec Ministry of Education, Montreal (2010)

Consortium for Training Translation Teachers, Braga, Portugal (2008)

Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, Winterthur, Switzerland, (2008 and 2013)

Dublin City University (2011)

University of Stellenbosch, North West University, University of Johannesburg, South Africa (2012)

University of Graz, Austria (2013)

Translation service of the Bank for International Settlements (Basel, Switzerland, 2013)

University of Vienna (2015)

ProZ.com (2016, 2017)

http://www.proz.com/translator-training/course/13949-finding_mistakes_in_your_translation

United Nations Headquarters NYC (2017, online 2018)

Swiss Foreign Ministry, Bern (2018)

SENSE (Society of English-language professionals in the Netherlands) (2020) online

Institute of Translators and Interpreters, UK (2021) online

International Maritime Organization, UK (2021) online

2024

- March: "Revision and self-revision" workshop and presentation on "How much time does quality require?" at the conference of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Florida.

- June: Do we really need a (re-)definition of translation? Paper read at TTR 35th Anniversary Conference, Montreal, 10-13 June 2024

 

 

2023

- April: "Competences for revision" - introductory remarks given virtually at Translating Europe Workshop on revision

 - May: "Invented languages in science fiction and untranslatability" -  talk given at conference of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies

- June: "Revising and post-editing in a digital and neoliberal age" - talk given virtually at conference of Professional Editors' Guild (South Africa)

- October: Magistrad revision workshop online

 

2022

- June: paper on research helping revisers delivered virtually at Transius conference, Geneva

- October: Magistrad revision workshop online

 

2021

-February: online revision workshop for the Institute of Translators and Interpreters, UK

-April: Magistrad revision workshop online

-June: paper on Translating as Maze-walking at online congress of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies

-June: online revision workshop for the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation and webinar "How much time does quality take?" with special attention to revision

-July: online revision workshop for the Institute of Translators and Interpreters, UK

-September: paper on Translating as Maze-walking at online conference ZHAW-IUED Duo Colloquium, Winterthur, Switzerland

-October: Magistrad revision workshop online

-November: online revision workshop for the International Maritime Organization

 

2020

-February: Magistrad revision workshop at the federal Translation Bureau in Ottawa/Gatineau

-June: 45-minute Zoom talk "How much time does quality require?" at the online conference of the Society of English-language professionals in the Netherlands (SENSE)

-August: letter published in London Review of Books of 13 August about synonyms versus repetition in French and English

-October: Magistrad revision workshop online

-November: online revision workshop for SENSE (Society of English-language professionals in the Netherlands)

 

2019

-April: Magistrad revision workshop in Montreal

-November: Magistrad revision workshop in Ottawa/Gatineau

-November: Magistrad revision workshop at the federal Translation Bureau in Montreal

-November: on panel celebrating 30th anniversary of the journal TTR, Concordia University, Montreal

 

2018

-February: Magistrad revision workshops in Montreal and Ottawa/Gatineau

-June: one-day revision workshop at Swiss Foreign Ministry in Bern

-June: “Evaluating the evaluators: quality assessment of revisers and revisions”, paper read at Transius conference, Geneva

-October/November: three 6-hour workshops and two 3-hour workshops for UN HQ revisers and self-revisers, delivered remotely from Toronto

-November: letter published in London Review of Books of 8 November in a series "Politics of Translation"

 

 

2017

-March: Webinar on Finding the Mistakes in Your Translations, on ProZ.com.

- April: 4 half-day and 2 full-day revision workshops for United Nations revisers in New York City

- May: presented paper on survey of Ontario translators about Translation Memory, at annual conference of Canadian Association for Translation Studies

-October: presentation on Translation Memory at annual conference of Multi-Languages (a private translation company in Toronto)

 

2016

- July and December: Webinar on Finding the Mistakes in Your Translations, on ProZ.com.

- September: “Professional Development Workshops: a forum for communicating research”, paper read at a panel at the 8th congress of the European Society for Translation Studies in Aarhus, Denmark;  “Translation revision”: a panel I organized and chaired at the same event

- October: one-day revision workshop in Toronto (Magistrad)

 

2015

- March: one-day revision workshop at University of Vienna Centre for Translation Studies

- March: paper on “The translation of gay and queer literary pornography” at Queertranslation conference, University of Vienna

-  September: one-day revision workshop in Toronto (Magistrad)

 

2014

- September: one-day revision workshop in Montreal (Magistrad)

 

2013

- January: revision workshops for translation instructors, University of Graz; for translators at the Bank for International Settlements, Basel; for students and translators at the Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, Winterthur.

- April: one-day revision workshops in Ottawa/Gatineau and in Montreal (Magistrad)

 

 

2012

- September: revision and editing workshops for students and translators, and presentation on revision research for faculty members at the University of Stellenbosch, North West University and University of Johannesburg, South Africa; address on “translators as editors” at annual meeting of the South African Translators’ Institute, Johannesburg

- November: “What motivates me and what does not” (about my career in the federal Translation Bureau) – contribution to a panel discussion at international conference on Translation in Contexts of Official Multilingualism, Moncton

 

 

2011

- January: 1-day revision workshop in Quebec City (Magistrad)

-  March: “Technology and Conflict in the Translator’s Workplace”, paper read at American Association for Applied Linguistics, Chicago

- April: “Translators as Editors”, presentation to Society of English Native-Speaking Editors, Amsterdam

- May: “The Translator Speaks Up: how to discover intentions and beliefs”, paper read at Research Models in Translation II, Manchester

-May: “Revising and Editing”, presentation to European Masters’ in Translation Network, Dublin

 

 

2010

- April: Led revision workshop for the Network of Translators in Education, Toronto

- May: Led revision workshop for English translators at the Quebec Ministry of Education, Montreal

-  Read paper on “Missing levels of language in English and what translators have done about them – the case of erotica” at Canadian Association for Translation Studies, Montreal

- 1-day revision workshop in Toronto (Magistrad)

 

2009

- March: Led two half-day workshops on the organization of revision work and the teaching of revision workshops, Council of the European Union, Brussels

- March: Speaker at two translators’ forums on “the importance of not being too earnest” when revising, European Commission, Brussels and Luxembourg

- March: 1-day revision workshop for Société française des traducteurs, Paris.

- May: Read paper on “Translators and Truth” at English Graduate Students’ Association conference on Lying, Cheating and Dissimulation: Theorizing Deceit, York University, Toronto

-May: 1-day revision workshops in Toronto and Montreal (Magistrad)

-June: Presentation on revision for Ontario Government translation service

 

2008

- January: Led 2-day revision workshop at Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften, Winterthur, Switzerland.

- May: Led afternoon revision workshop at meeting of Chicago Area Interpreters and Translators Association, Chicago, USA.

- June: Led 1-day revision workshop for staff translators of Crédit Suisse, Zurich, Switzerland.

- June: Led 1-day revision workshop at Consortium for Training Translation Teachers seminar, Braga, Portugal.

- November: Presentation on revision at professional development day of Multilanguages Inc., Toronto.

 

2006

- January: Led session on “Issues in Revision” and gave papers on “Can Theory Help Translators?” and “Socio-politics of translation in Canada” at Aarhus Business School, University of Aarhus and Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

 

2005

- May: Presentation on revision at professional development day of Multilanguages Inc., Toronto

 

2004

- Organized, chaired and contributed to panel on translator training in Canada at the annual meeting of the American Translators Association, Toronto

- Organized, chaired and contributed to panel on the topic “Back to Translation as Language” at the 4th congress of the European Society for Translation Studies, Lisbon, Portugal (see publication list 2005)

 

2003

- Presented paper on what translation practitioners can contribute to theory at conference on theory and practice in Lorient, France (see publication list 2005)

- Led 1-day workshops on revision for European Commission translators in Brussels and in Luxembourg.

 

2002

- Addressed Editors’ Association of Canada on “Translators as Editors”, Montreal.

 

2001

- Served on jury for the Vinay-Darbelnet prize of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies.

 

2000

- Presented paper on “Universalizing Translation Theory” at Research Models in Translation Studies Conference, Manchester, UK.

 

1998

- Presented paper on the workplace procedures of professional translators at the 2nd congress of the European Society for Translation Studies, Granada, Spain (see publication list 2000).

 

1997

- Invited panellist, celebration of the 25th anniversary of the University of Ottawa’s School of Translators and Interpreters.

 

1995

- Presented paper on the quotational nature of translation at the 1st congress of the European Society for Translation Studies, Prague, Czech Republic (see publication list 1998).

 

1992

- Presented paper on the teaching of translation theory at the congress on Translation Studies—An Interdiscipline, Vienna, Austria (see publication list 1994).

 

1990

-  Presented paper on the teaching of revision at the 1st international congress on teaching translation, Helsingør (Elsinore), Denmark (see publication list 1992).

 

 

 

Software

 

When I was salaried translator, I used MultiTrans CAT software. In retirement, however, I use only MS Word, though I have remote access to Trados Studio.

 

Pastimes

 

Choral singing

Swimming

Hiking

Mysteries

Mazes

Science fiction