3-6 December 2003
Central Building, University of Athens
Responsible for the organization: Professor Maria Sidiropoulou

Discourses conform to cultural preference and generic conventions prevalent in a language context and, thus, differ in the way they are made-up. Translation practice is assumed to register intercultural difference and ideological positioning reflected in a tangible manner, through linguistic choices. The international conference aimed at highlighting types of linguistic choices which manifest interaction of global trends with local tendencies in discourse construction, as well as their consequences on the preservation and development of linguistic identities. Questions addressed were:

• which textual features could be assumed to be shaping a linguistic identity, in real-life translation contexts, drawing on research in the area of pragmatics, semiotics, sociolinguistics, literary criticism, language teaching and learning, corpus research, and translator individuality,  
• which conditions and pedagogical practices may enhance this intercultural perspective, and thus, raise awareness of one’s cultural and linguistic identity 
• how could intercultural understanding be promoted in current multi-cultural communities through awareness of the difference registered through translation practice.

Presentations addressed linguistic and interdisciplinary translation-related issues in the following genres: translated press discourses, variation in EU discourse, translation practices in academic discourses, advertising and literature.

Invited Speakers: Mona Baker (University of Manchester, UK), Danielle Gilles (Université Lumière Lyon 2, France), Christina Schӓffner (University of Birmingham, UK), Anthony Pym (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain).

Selected papers appeared in two volumes: (a) 2005. Ιdentity and Difference: Translation Shaping Culture. Maria Sidiropoulou (ed). Bern: Peter Lang, and (b) 2004. Choice and Difference in Translation – The Specifics of Transfer. Sidiropoulou Maria and Anastasia Papaconstantinou (eds). Athens: The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.