MINELRES: Mercator Common Newsletter - Number 12 - March 2005

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MERCATOR :: NEWSLETTER 12 :: March 2005 
 
Mercator Newsletter - No.12, March 2005 

[Mercator-Education] 
http://www.mercator-education.org

[Mercator-Legislation] 
http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm

[Mercator-Media] 
http://www.aber.ac.uk/~merwww/


>From now on, the Mercator Common Newsletter will be a monthly
newsletter. This way you will be kept informed with more recent and
updated information. 


News Publications 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
Bulletin 61 - ML 
Working Paper 18 - ML 
Slovakia online - ME 
Voices from Tundra and Taiga - ME 
Miscellany 
Partners for EMILL - ME 
New titles - 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.


News February 2005 (links to the Mercator websites) 
Media News - Mercator-Media 
Greek State Television in Censorship Row [+] 
Scottish Language Dictionaries: Writers Auction [+]

 
Legislation news - Mercator-Linguistic Rights and Legislation
 
Step forward for Spanish in Europe but step back for Catalan, Basque and
Galician in Spain [+] 
One step further for the support to Low German and Saterfrisian in Lower
Saxony's schools [+] 
New Court decision recognising the unity of the Catalan language [+] 
Report on linguistic discrimination submitted to the UN [+]

 
Publications 
Bulletin 61 - Mercator-Linguistic Rights and Legislation
 
I Quarter 2005 | English and Catalan versions. Now the Bulletin is
available in PDF Format. These are the main contents of the Bulletin:
 
Eslovenia: Act on public usage of Slovenian language (APUSL) 15 July
2004 
Schlewwig-Holstein: Act promoting Frisian in the public domain 11
November 2004 
Romania: Act on the use of the Romanian language in public places,
relations and institutions, 12 november 2004 
Council of Europe: Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers on the
application of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
by: Switzerland, Finland and the Netherlands 
As well as new bibliography and links.

 
Working Paper 18 - Mercator-Linguistic Rights and Legislation
 
We have published a new Working Paper in our Publications section. This
document is available in English (translation) and Spanish (original
version). 

The origins and evolution of language secessionism in Valencia. An
analysis from the transition period until today 
L'origen i l'evolucio argumentativa del secessionisme linguistic
valencia. Una analisi des de la transicio fins a l'actualitat
(by Vicent Climent-Ferrando)

 
More information on minority languages in education in Slovenia online -
Mercator-Education
 
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 and Slovenia were already, and still are online available on
the website of Mercator-Education. Now a paper on minority languages in
education in Slovakia is online available as well. It is striking to see
that there is especially a lot of education in Hungarian in Slovakia, at
almost all levels. There is not that much education provided in the
other minority languages spoken in Slovakia. You will be able to read
more about this topic in the article �Minority language education in
Slovakia� at our site. A paper on the situation of minority languages in
education in the Czech Republic will follow soon. Just click on �General
information on the languages in the current and new member states of the
EU� at http://www.mercator-education.org. 

 
Voices from Tundra and Taiga: Endangered languages in Russia -
Mercator-Education
 
Since 2004 the Frisian Academy and Mercator-Education are host
institutions for the research program Voices from Tundra and Taiga, a
joint effort of Dr. Tjeerd de Graaf with Russian colleagues. Our
projects within this program study endangered languages and cultures of
the Russian Federation, which must be described rapidly before they
become extinct. Earlier work on the reconstruction technology for old
sound recordings found in archives in St.Petersburg has made it possible
to compare languages still spoken in the proposed research area with the
same languages as they were spoken more than half a century ago. [+]
 

Miscellany 
Search for partners for the European Minority Languages Library project
- Mercator-Education 
Mercator � Education is in search for more partners on the European
Minority Languages Library project, also called EMILL. Since 2003 ME has
been working on the pilot project Digibyb (www.dbfrysk.org) which will
shortly be finished. It is the intention to proceed and extend the
project in a European context with EU funds. The goal of the EMILL
project (www.emill.org) is to establish a network of digital libraries
of minority languages and the creation of a European portal. Ideal
partners for the project are libraries in a minority language community.
Either they have a lot of experience with a digital library, either they
are just looking into the possibilities, in both cases this project can
be very interesting. 
If you are interested in the project please contact Cor van der Meer at
cvdmeer@fa.knaw.nl 

 
New titles Mercator-Education library 
See all the new titles [+]