Topic: Translation: Writing for a Purpose

Time: November 13th, 2025, 14:00, UTC+8

Venue: Xue Hai Building, 11th Floor, Lecture Hall of School of Foreign Languages.

Lecturer: David William Johnston (Fellow of Queen's University Belfast)

Abstract: To translate is to identify and employ discursive strategies that connect intended audiences with the range of meanings offered by the source text. This talk explores two broad areas of discourse where such strategies operate: writing about translation. which in this case brings together academic writing and the analysis of theoretical propositions, and writing through translation, which here is understood as a practice-based assessment of how translations perform the forces of one linguistic and conceptual context within the contours of another.

Biography: David Johnston established the Centre for Translation and Interpreting at Queen’s University Belfast in 2004, and is now Emeritus Professor of Translation in the Centre. He has published extensively on the relationship between theory, practice and ethics in the translation process, particularly in terms of translation for the stage, and has given invited lectures and papers to audiences in twenty-eight countries. He is also a multi-award winning translator for the stage, described in the journal Comedia Performance as ‘the most innovative translator of Spanish Golden Age drama in the twenty-first century’. He is an elected member of the Academia Europaea, the pan-European academy for excellence in the humanities, social sciences and hard sciences.

Rewritten by: Xu Hanyue

Edited by: Li Huihui, Li Tiantian

Source: School of Foreign Languages