From June 11^th to June 13^th, the 7^th International Conference on Cognitive Research on Translation and Interpreting (The 7^th ICCTI-2021) was hosted successfully by School of Foreign Languages (WUT) in the conference center. More than 240 experts, scholars and young talents from universities at home and abroad attended this conference. These researchers in the field of translation and interpreting theory and teaching gathered together to discuss the research on cognitive translation and interpreting, so as to promote the development of translation and interpreting research.

Liu Zuyuan, Vice President of WUT, addressed in his oration that the new era brought us both new opportunities and new challenges. Translation and interpreting play a vital role in the Belt and Road Initiative, Overseas Promotion of Chinese Culture, and the Yangtze River Economic Belt Development Strategy, etc. They are also crucial for accelerating the construction of the new development paradigm featuring dual circulation, in which domestic and overseas markets reinforce each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay. The development of big data and artificial intelligence has brought new challenges to the theory and practice of translation and interpreting. This conference was a great event in translation and interpreting field, with experts and scholars from all over the world participating it online or offline. President Liu extended his sincere hope that the convening of this symposium would be a good opportunity to strengthen academic exchanges and enrich the related academic researches, and to promote the development of translation teaching and translation industry.

According to Prof. Li Defeng of the University of Macau, the cognitive research of translation has received more and more attention worldwide; researchers have conducted experiments from different perspectives such as psycholinguistics and behavioral linguistics by using various tools like eye tracker, EEG and MRI, and many research results have been applied into our daily life. At the same time, translation cognitive research also faces a number of theoretical and methodological challenges. Prof. Li Defeng emphasized that the conference had received about 200 research papers, which proved it was a high level and influential academic event.  He believed that the conference would further promote the development of translation cognitive research.

In the expert keynote forum, 15 experts and scholars, including Prof. Juliane House from the University of Hamburg, Prof. Li Defeng from the University of Macau, Prof. Wang Wenbin from Beijing Foreign Studies University, Prof. Wen Xu, Dean of the School of Foreign Languages at Southwest University, and Prof. Hu Kaibao, Director of the Corpus Research Institute at Shanghai Foreign Studies University, gave keynote presentations about cognitive translation studies.

The conference set up a special forum and 10 sub-forums. Focusing on the themes of Cognitive Linguistic Research of Interpretation and Translation Process, Psycholinguistic Research of Interpretation and Translation Process and Sociological Research of Interpretation and Translation Process, experts and scholars actively exchanged views and discussed the development of translation theory and teaching research.

At the closing ceremony, Zheng Binghan, Director of the Centre for Intercultural Studies, Durham University (UK) expressed his gratitude to the participants, affirmed the achievements of the participating scholars in translation theory and teaching research, and highly valued the academic quality, solid theoretical foundation and innovative thinking of young scholars.

It was reported that the International Conference on Cognitive Research on Translation and Interpreting was held for the first time in 2014 at the University of Macau. Since then, six academic conferences have been successively held at the University of Macau, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Renmin University of China and Southwest University. Participants of this year’s conference are experts and scholars from Germany, the UK, Canada and Poland, as well as representatives of teachers and students from the mainland China and the Macao Special Administrative Region. Three national publishing houses and six language service enterprises have also participated in co-organizing the conference, providing a high-level international exchange platform for translation workers and higher education teachers at home and abroad. 

Written by: Shang Dan, Qian Shujian

Reviewed by: Dan Haijian

Rewritten by: Liu Kexi

Edited by: Li Tiantian

Source: School of Foreign Languages