On Dec 11 and Dec 12, the 1st International Symposium on Cognitive Research on Translation and Interpreting was held by the Centre for Studies of Translation, Interpreting and Cognition (CSTIC) and the Department of English, FAH, at the University of Macau. About 15 distinguished scholars from mainland China, Macao, Taiwan, Denmark and Brazil attended the symposium and discussed the latest theorization, methodologies and projects on cognitive studies on translation and interpreting.
Professor Defeng Li, Director of the Centre presided over the meeting to give a warm welcome to the guests. He briefly introduced the Centre, which was newly established and just held an international symposium one month ago. This time was a roundtable to discuss the key issues in cognitive processing in translation and interpreting.
Professor Honggang Jin, Dean of the FAH, and Professor John Corbett, Head of the Department of English, FAH, made opening speeches at the ceremony. Professor Jin, said, “I am very excited about this symposium, simply because it was the very first one which is one of the most exciting in cognitive topics in the field,” and, because of her field, she understands “the importance of cognitive studies”. She said the university had undergone “unthinkable transformation in the last six years” and invited the scholars from across the world to know more about the University of Macau.
Professor Corbett, the Head of the Department of English, FAH, prospected the diverse possible visions of the Centre. He remarked, “the work of the Centre is crucial in shedding light on the mystery of human behavior and human cognition”, and the significance of the seminar, was the “the discussion, the interaction, the networking, the friendships, the possibilities in future corroboration.”
The presentations attracted many postgraduate students and scholars from local universities to listen to.
After the presentations there was a one hour discussion to share the thoughts on the future research. Professor Arnt Lykke Jackobsen introduced the research itinerary in the Cobenhagen Business School, which includes knowing more about the reading, writing and brain activities in translating and interpreting process. In order to achieve this goal, he said, the importance of using some ethically responsible, economical and practical technologies should never be overemphasized. As for the future focus, in addition to support the translators and interpreters, they were going to do more exploration on human-computer interaction software, for example in the speech recognition techniques.
Professor Fabio Alves from Federal University of Minas Gerais, said one of the current challenges was how to go beyond the present capability and limit to the behavioral studies, for example eye-tracking and key-logging. Researchers should move ahead and cooperate broadly. In this sense, the Centre had made an initiative step forward. Other scholars also made their opinions in the prospects of the cognitive studies on translation and interpreting.
