Academic interests
As a scholar of translation studies, my research has always sought to highlight the pervasive presence and impact of translation in all areas of political, social and cultural life.
Much of my current research focuses on building corpora and developing methodologies for examining the evolution and contestation of constellations of concepts across different temporal and cultural spaces, largely but not exclusively through the mediation of translators. This work was initiated through the Genealogies of Knolwledge project, which I led as Principal Investigator from 2016 to 2020. It continues to develop through the Genealogies of Knowledge Research Network, and through my collaboration with Prof. Eivind Engebretsen and colleagues at SHE. Details and links to some of the outputs of the GoK project can be accessed here, including an article co-authored with Prof. Engebretsen.
A different strand of my research has focused on examining the role played by translators and interpreters in mediating conflict. The underlying assumption of my work in this area is that whoever undertakes it, and whatever form it takes, translation is never a by-product of social and political developments. It is part and parcel of the very process that makes these developments possible in the first place and plays a key role in shaping their trajectories. Translation is also not innocent. It is not about "building bridges" or "enabling communication" as is commonly assumed, but about the active circulation and promotion of narratives by different parties who have a specific stake in the mediated encounter, as I argue in a series of publications, most notably Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (2006).
An earlier research project (2013-2015), Translating the Egyptian Revolution: Activist Use of Translation to Connect with Global Publics and Protest Movements, focused on a complementary area of research interest relating to translation and activism. It involved examining the use of translation, specifically subtitling, by various activist groups connected with the Egyptian Revolution. The project was funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and concluded with a large international conference held in Cairo in March 2015, The Only Thing Worth Globalizing Is Dissent – Translation and the Many Languages of Resistance, an article published in The Translator, and an edited collection published the same year, Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution. The latter featured contributions by scholars, artists and activists directly involved in the Egyptian Revolution and won the Inttranews Linguists of the Year Award for 2015.
Background
I have a BA in English and Comparative literature from the American University in Cairo (1976), an MA in Special Applications of Linguistics from the University of Birmingham (1987), and a Higher Doctorate from UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) in 1999.
I am a recipient of the 2015 Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences Award in the field of Arts and Languages, and honoree of the 2011 Fifth Session of Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Award for Translation. The Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies was founded in 2017 at Jiao Tong University and moved to Shanghai International Studies University in 2019.
Positions Held
Affiliate Professor, SHE, University of Oslo (2020-).
Director, Baker Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China (2017-)
Honorary Dean, Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China (2019-)
Professor of Translation Studies , Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies, School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester (2003-2015)
Professor of Translation Studies & Director of the Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies, UMIST, Manchester (2001-2003)
Member of the College of Expert Reviewers of the European Science Foundation (2020-)
Fellow of the Centre for Advanced Study, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (2020)
Member of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Corpus-based Studies and Applications, Shanghai International Studies University (2019-)
Member of the Humanities Panel of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020, Hong Kong
Member of the Research Impact Fund Committee of the Research Grants Council, Hong Kong (2018-2019)
Academic Consultant, Qatar Foundation. Project: Translation & Interpreting Institute, Hamad bin Khalifa University (2011-2012)
Wei Lun Distinguished Scholar, Chinese University of Hong Kong (a university-wide, single appointment – conferred on only one scholar per year across the entire university) (2006)
Founding Vice President of the International Association for Translation & Intercultural Studies (www.iatis.org) (2004-2015)
Selected publications
Monographs
2018. Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account, Classics Edition, London & New York: Routledge.
2018. In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, Third Edition, Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
2011. In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, Second Edition, Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
2006. Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account, London & New York: Routledge.
1992. In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, London & New York: Routledge.
Reference Works
2021. (with Bolette Blaagaard, Henry Jones, and Luis Pérez-González) Routledge Encyclopedia of Citizen Media, London & New York: Routledge.
2020. Researching Translation in the Age of Technology and Global Conflict: Selected Works of Mona Baker, edited by Kyung Hye Kim and Yifan Zhu, Key Thinkers in Translation Series, London & New York: Routledge.
2020. (with Gabriela Saldanha) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, third edition, London & New York: Routledge.
2010. Critical Readings in Translation Studies, Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
2009. Critical Concepts: Translation Studies, 4 Volumes, Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
2009. (with Gabriela Saldanha) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (Extended, revised second edition), Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
1998. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, London & New York: Routledge. Paperback edition (2001).
Edited Collections
2020. (co-edited with Henry Jones) Genealogies of Knowledge: Tracing the Mediation of Political and Scientific Concepts across Time and Space, special issue of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.
2018. Translation and the Production of Knowledge(s), Special issue of Alif: Journal of Comparative Literature.
2016. (with Bolette Blaagaard) Citizen Media and Public Spaces: Diverse Expressions of Citizenship and Dissent, Abingdon & New York: Routledge.
2016. Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution, Abingdon & New York: Routledge. Winner of the Inttranews 2016 Linguists of the Year Award.
2011. (with Carol Maier) Ethics and the Curriculum: Critical Perspectives, Special Issue of The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5(1).
2010. (with Maeve Olohan and Maria Calzada Perez) Text and Context: Essays on Translation and Interpreting in Honour of Ian Mason, Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
2006. Translation and Context, Special Issue of Journal of Pragmatics 38(3).
1993. (with Gill Francis & Elena Tognini-Bonelli). Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Journal Articles & Book Chapters
2021. Buts, Jan, Mona Baker, Saturnino Luz and Eivind Engebretsen (2021) ‘Epistemologies of Evidence-based Medicine: A plea for corpus-based conceptual research in the medical humanities’, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy https://doi-org.ezproxy.uio.no/10.1007/s11019-021-10027-2.
2021. (with Attila Piróth). ‘Volunteerism in Translation: Translators Without Borders and the Platform Economy’, in Esperança Bielsa and Dionysios Kapsaskis (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Globalization, London/New York: Routledge, 406-424. Prepublication copy available here.
2020. ‘Translation and Solidarity in the Century with No Future’, in John Ødemark and Eivind Engebretsen (eds) Challenging Medical Knowledge Translation, Special issue of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. DOI https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0400-0.
2020. ‘Rehumanizing the Migrant: The translated past as a resource for refashioning the discourse of the (radical) left’, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. DOI https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0386-7.
2018. ‘Audiovisual Translation and Activism’, in Luis Pérez-González (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Audiovisual Translation, London & New York: Routledge, 453-467. Prepublication copy available here.
2018. ‘Narrative Analysis and Translation’, in Kirsten Malmkjær (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Translation Studies and Linguistics, London & New York: Routledge, 179-193.
2016. ‘The Prefigurative Politics of Translation in Place-Based Movements of Protest: Subtitling in the Egyptian Revolution’, The Translator 22(1): 1-21. DOI 10.1080/13556509.2016.1148438.
2016. (with Bolette Blaagaard) ‘Reconceptualising Citizen Media: A Preliminary Charting of a Complex Domain’, in Mona Baker and Bolette Blaagaard (eds) Citizen Media and Public Spaces: Diverse Expressions of Citizenship and Dissent, London & New York: Routledge, 1-22.
2016. ‘Beyond the Spectacle: Translation and Solidarity in Contemporary Protest Movements’, in Mona Baker (ed.) Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution, London & New York: Routledge, 1-18.
2016. ‘Narrative Analysis’, in Claudia V. Angelelli and Brian James Baer (eds) Researching Translation and Interpreting, London & New York: Routledge, 247-256.
2014. ‘Translation as Renarration’, in Juliane House (ed.) Translation: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 158-177.
2014. ‘The Changing Landscape of Translation and Interpreting Studies’, in Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter (eds) A Companion to Translation Studies, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 15-27.
2013. ‘Translation as an Alternative Space for Political Action’, Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest 12(1): 23-47. Translated into Brazilian Portuguese by Cristiane Roscoe-Bessa, Flávia Lamberti & Janaína Araujo Rodrigues: Cadernos de Traducesçäo 38(2), 2018. See https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/traducao/article/view/2175-7968.2018v38n2p339/36483.
2011. (with Carol Maier) ‘Ethics in Translator & Interpreter Training: Critical Perspectives’, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 5(1): 1-14.
2010. ‘Translation and Activism: Emerging Patterns of Narrative Community’, in Maria Tymoczko (ed.) Translation, Resistance, Activism, Amherst & Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 23-41.
2010. ‘Interpreters and Translators in the War Zone: Narrated and Narrators’, The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication 16(2) : 197-222.
2010. ‘Narratives of Terrorism and Security: ‘Accurate’ Translations, Suspicious Frames‘, Critical Studies on Terrorism 3(3) : 347-364.
2009. ‘Resisting State Terror : Theorizing Communities of Activist Translators and Interpreters’, in Esperanza Bielsa and Christopher W. Hughes (eds) Globalisation, Political Violence and Translation, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 222-242.
2009. (with Maeve Olohan) ‘Coherence and Clarity of Objectives in Doctoral Projects: A Research Design Workshop’, in Ian Mason (ed.) Training for Doctoral Research, special issue of The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 3(1): 143-64.
2008. ‘Ethics of Renarration: Mona Baker Is Interviewed by Andrew Chesterman’, Cultus 1(1) : 10-33.
2008. ‘I’adat T’ateer al-Siraa’ fi-ltargama (Reframing Conflict in Translation)’, trans. Hazem Azmy, Fusul 74: 94-116.
2007. ‘Reframing Conflict in Translation’, Social Semiotics 17(2) : 151-169.Translated into Brazilian Portuguese by Cristiane Roscoe-Bessa and Flávia Lamberti: Cadernos de Traducesçäo 38(3), 2018. See https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/traducao/article/view/2175-7968.2018v38n2p339/36483.
2007. ‘Patterns of Idiomaticity in Translated vs. Non-translated English’, Belgian Journal of Linguistics 21: 11-21.
2007. ‘Corpus-Based Translation Studies in the Academy’, Journal of Foreign Languages 5: 50-55 (Chinese publication).
2006. ‘Translation and Activism: Emerging Patterns of Narrative Community’, The Massachusetts Review 47(III): 462-484.
2006. ‘Contextualization in Translator- and Interpreter-Mediated Events’, Journal of Pragmatics 38(3): 321-337.
2006. ‘La recontextualització del conflicte en traducció’, Caplletra 40: Revista Internacional de Filologia(Primavera): 99-122.
2005. ‘Targamet elsardeyyat-sardeyyat el-targma’ (trans. Hazem Azmy), Fusul 66(3): 21-34.
2005. ‘Narratives in and of Translation’, SASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation. www.skase.sk.
2004. ‘A Corpus-based View of Similarity and Difference in Translation’, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 9(2): 167-193.
2002. ‘Corpus-based Studies within the Larger Context of Translation Studies’, Génesis: Revista científica do ISAI2: 7-16.
2001. ‘Issues in Translation Research and Their Relevance to Professional Practice’, The Journal of Translation Studies, 99-106.
2000. ‘Towards a Methodology for Investigating the Style of a Literary Translator’, Target 12(2): 241-266.
2000 (with Maeve Olohan). ‘Reporting that in Translated English: Evidence for Subconscious Processes of Explicitation?’, Across Languages and Cultures 1(2): 141-158.
1999. ‘The Role of Corpora in Investigating the Linguistic Behaviour of Professional Translators’, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 4(2): 281-298.
1998. ‘Réexplorer la langue de la traduction: une approche par corpus’ (Investigating the Language of Translation: A Corpus-based Approach), Meta 43(4): 480-485.
1995. ‘Corpora in Translation Studies: An Overview and Some Suggestions for Future Research’, Target 7(2): 223-243.
1994. (with Robert Kaplan). ‘Translated! A New Breed of Bilingual Dictionaries’, Babel 40(1): 1-11.
1988. ‘Sub-technical Vocabulary and the ESP Teacher: An Analysis of Some Rhetorical Items in Medical Journal Articles’, Reading in a Foreign Language 4(2): 91-105.
Published
Nov. 17, 2021 8:21 AM
- Last modified
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