MINELRES: Mercator Common Newsletter February 2005

[MINELRES moderator]

Original sender: Mercator <webmaster@ciemen.org>


MERCATOR :: NEWSLETTER 11 :: February 2005 Mercator Newsletter - No.11,
February 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 
Miscellany 
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 
Education News - ME 
 New options in the Current Affairs section - ML 
Updated information on languages - ML 
Books in PDF Format - ME 
Authors needed 
for dossiers - ME 
New titles - ME 
Seminar - ME 
 
Publications 
Soon Bulletin 61 - ML 
Next Working Paper - ML 
Slovenia online - ME 
Trilingual education - 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 January 2005 (links to the Mercator websites) 

Media News - Mercator Media 
Mirandese Cultural Association in Financial Difficulty [+] 
Sorbian Newspaper becomes available on line [+] 
Sicilian Language Course on Line [+] 
TV3 to keep its Frequencies in the Balearic Islands [+] 
Friulan Magazine and Radio Station celebrate Anniversaries [+] 
Sardinian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique launched [+] 
Italian Public TV, RAI, Criticised for Ignoring Language Law [+] 
Basque Journal References placed on the Internet [+] 
Closing down of Egunkaria �a European problem� [+] 
Breton Television in Loire-Atlantique [+] 
Special Group established to prepare a plan for the separation of TG4
from RTE [+]

 
Legislation news - Mercator Linguistic Rights and Legislation
 
The Netherlands ratifies Framework Convention, Georgia maybe in
September [+] 
Spain says �yes� in first referendum on EU Constitution and Slovenia
ratifies it [+] 
Agreement on the unity of the Catalan language [+] 
Decade of Roma inclusion 2005-2015 launched [+] 
Minority languages in France will have to wait [+] 
Language diversity present in the World Social Forum [+]

 
Education news - Mercator Education
 
Frisian: language of the heart [+] 



Publications 

Soon in the next Bulletin - Mercator Linguistic Rights and Legislation
 
The Mercator-Linguistic Rights and Legislation team is currently
preparing Bulletin 61, to be published at the end of March. Here is a
preview of its contents, which are being translated into several
languages. [+]

 
Next Working Paper - Mercator Linguistic Rights and Legislation
 
We are also preparing the publication of our next Working Paper,
entitled "The origin and evolution of language secessionism in Valencia.
An analysis from the transition period until today", 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. Most of them are so-called �trans-frontier languages� which
are either minority or majority language, depending on the state where
they are spoken (for example Hungarian in Slovakia and Slovenia and
Polish in Czech Republic). There are also unique languages in one state,
such as Kashubian in Poland, and unique languages spread over more
states, such as Ruthenian in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland as well
as non-territorial languages, like Roma and Yiddish spoken in several
old and new member states. 

Mercator-Education is focussing more and more on education in minority
languages in the new EU member states these days. Mercator-Education
already published a regional dossier on Kashubian in education in Poland
and plans to publish more dossiers on minority languages in new member
states. Articles on the role of such minority languages in pre-primary,
primary, secondary and higher education in Hungary, Poland, Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania were already, and still are online available on the
website of Mercator-Education. Now a paper on minority languages in
education in Slovenia is online available as well. Papers on the
situation of minority languages in education in Slovakia and 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 our site:
http://www.mercator-education..org.

 
IJSL publishes articles concerning trilingual education - Mercator
Education
 
The journal International Journal of the Sociology of Language (IJSL)
has now published eight articles concerning trilingual education in
Europe. The cases are Finland, Basque, Fryslan, Catalan, Ireland, Ladin
en Switzerland. This is the result of a former Mercator Education
project on trilingualism. 


Miscellany 
New options in the "Current Affairs" section - Mercator Linguistic
Rights and Legislation 
Mercator-Linguistic Rights and Legislation's website has been throughly
transformed. We would like to highlight the changes introduced in the
"News" and "Events" sections. The latest news keep being shown in the
home page, now in a smaller format, while an event taking place in the
current month is also included. [+]

 
Updated information on languages - Mercator Linguistic Rights and
Legislation 

New features have been included in the "General Information" section
inside Languages and legislation. Mercator-Legislation has now updated
all the maps showing minority languages in Europe. You will find the new
images under "General Information" for each language, when searching the
information both by language and by state. [+] 
 
Fryske Akademy's books available in PDF Format - Mercator Education 
Mercator Education is converting into PDF format the files containing
the text of books written by Fryske Akademy employees that also have
been published by the Fryske Akademy. These books ara at least 5 years
old and soon will be available in Mercator Education site. The task is
carried by a new trainee at ME, Lolke Schotanus, student of Information
Technology in Leeuwarden.
 
Authors needed for new dossiers - Mercator Education 
Lately, Mercator-Education published new regional dossiers on Kashubian
in education in Poland and Irish in education in Northern Ireland. These
dossiers can be downloaded from our site www.mercator-education.org, but
you can also order a printed version. For ordering a printed version,
please send an email to Mrs. Adrie Kaspers, akaspers@fa.knaw.nl. [+] 

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

Hungarian Parliamentary delegation visits Mercator-Education / Fryske
Akademy  
On February 3 Mercator-Education organised a seminar for a delegation of
the Hungarian Parliament. The main interests of the delegation were
minority issues such as language, religion and politics. During the
morning session, they joined the presentations about the Mercator
network, endangered languages and the situation of the Frisian language
in the province of Friesland. The seminar was hosted by the city of
Ljouwert/Leeuwarden. In the afternoon they visited Mercator-Education
and the Fryske Akademy premises to see in more detail some
demonstrations of the current projects developed by Mercator-Education.