https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14781700.2025.2562191#abstract

Abstract: Engagement with infrastructural thinking, prominent in the humanities, social sciences, and science and technology, has received little attention in translation studies. This article argues that translation is surrounded by, embedded in, and inextricably bound to infrastructures and highlights the benefits of exploring the conceptual and analytical affordances of infrastructural thinking in relation to translation. The authors demonstrate how an infrastructural perspective can serve as a rubric for conceptualizing translation, and define key infrastructural characteristics and their influence on translation’s procedural and ontological dimensions. Applying this lens to three case studies, the article uncovers implicit infrastructural issues related to translation and argues that adopting infrastructural thinking can enrich our understanding of translation as an emergent, multifaceted practice, encouraging interdisciplinary dialogue and methodological innovation. Recognizing translation as an infrastructure itself enhances insights into its role as a communication facilitator (or constraint) in today’s interconnected world.

Abstract:

As a global institution, the Roman Catholic Church is committed to communicating in multiple languages, often multimodally, and its approach to news reporting can be described as a constructive news ethos. The news portal of the Catholic Church, Vatican News, therefore offers an excellent opportunity to comparatively study constructive news content across languages and cultures. The present chapter used a multimodal corpus of reporting on climate issues on the Vatican News platform in five different languages from October to December 2023. A mixed-method approach to the corpus consisting of metadata analysis, keyword analysis, topic modelling, sentiment analysis, and visual analysis was adopted to establish recurring themes and to enable a comparative overview of the whole multilingual segments. What emerges from this analysis is that, although news reporting in different language groups may vary in terms of length and expression, similar concerns and attitudes – driven by a constructive news approach – consistently shape the news coverage across the languages considered in the corpus. Furthermore, our analysis finds that image and text work together in the Catholic Church’s news reporting, and that there is a convergence of meaning across modes which invariably relates to an institutionally supported solutions-based approach to climate change.

Anne O’Connor, Established Professor in the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Galway and P.I. of the ERC-funded PIETRA project was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy on May 23, 2025. Congratulations, Anne!

Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman

10 – 13 December 2025

I am delighted to convene a panel on translation, religion and technology at the IATIS conference in Oman in December 2025. Submissions are currently open for the panel and the deadline for abstracts is 30^th April 2025. 

For more on the conference see https://www.iatis.org/index.php/8th-conference-oman-2025

Panel 9: Translation, Religion and Technology

Convenor: Anne O’Connor (University of Galway)

While it is acknowledged that in a digitally linked world, religious experience can travel at speed and globally, the challenges of the linguistic dimensions of this communication, and the role played by translation have not been adequately considered. As religious content, rituals, and interactions become increasingly present online, attention to translation becomes crucial in the global digital space. The modes of communication of digital religion offer exciting new opportunities for translation scholars which have heretofore been untapped (Blumczynski and Israel 2018). Although much attention has recently been paid to digital religion (Campbell 2012; Dawson and Cowan 2004; Lövheim and Campbell 2017), and to the forces of new media impacting on religious interactions, the linguistic and translational aspect of this communication is rarely mentioned. Only a few scholars, such as Mandair (2019), Beal (2022) and Moll (2017), have examined translation in new forms of religious media, and have demonstrated the complexity of linguistic interrogations and the evolving communicative strategies in the religious realm.

Interaction with technology can encompass religious communities engaging with digital tools—whether through online sermons, virtual worship services, or religious apps—with translation becoming a key factor in ensuring that these practices remain meaningful and accessible across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Much study on digital religion has considered the new opportunities opened up for religion by the internet and user interaction with web-based technologies and social media. For religion online (Helland 2000), organisations and institutions use digital spaces and technological tools to enable a presence that reaches beyond a local or national borders and thereby encounter many translational issues. However, religions also make use of translation technologies in contexts other than digital spaces and it is important to acknowledge the presence of translation technology in physical religious spaces. Where a religious group has a multilingual community, technologies can enable religious practice and communication, especially in the absence of a common language. Moreover, interpreting in religious contexts, which has long been ignored (Furmanek 2022), is primed for innovative uses of technologies to enable communication and understanding. Audiovisual translation, ad hoc interpreting devices, and volunteer-led technical innovations can all be present in religious spaces as communities seek to overcome linguistic barriers to enable religious practices. This panel will address how these technological solutions can be sustainable in the long term and whether they can contribute to a more sustainable future in religious practices.

This panel will focus on the intersection of translation, religion and technology in the diverse religious spaces mentioned above. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Theuse of translation technologies in religious contexts
• AI-assistedtranslation and its use in religious communication
• Translationand online religion/religion online
• Institutional religioustranslation practices and technological change
• Volunteerreligious translation activities incorporating technology
• Religioustranslation in informal, low-resource settings
• Translation,religion and social media
• Interpretingin religious settings and translation tools
• Theintersection of religious practice, belief, and community with digital technologies
• Balancingbetween innovation and tradition, between technological advancement and historical sacredpractices and texts
• Alternativediscourses and their presence in digital religious spaces
• Enablingreligious practice through translation technologies
• Adaptingreligious content for new digital environments
• Thedigital realm as both a space for innovation and a challenge for maintaining religious (and linguistic) authenticityand continuity
• AI,ethics and religious translation
• Issuesof gender in religion, translation and technology
• Canonicalreligious texts and technical/digital change
• Untranslatabilityand religion in digital contexts
• Technologyand sustainable futures for religious translation

For informal enquiries: Anne.oconnor@universityofgalway.ie

The PIETRA Advisory Board Meetings were a series of engaging discussions on translation theory, reflexivity in research, and the materiality of religious texts. The presentations and workshop by several members of the project’s Advisory Board provided valuable insights into contemporary translation studies, while the one-on-one meetings allowed for productive exchanges and collaborative planning. All the participants expressed enthusiasm for continued interdisciplinary dialogue and future research initiatives within the PIETRA project.

Day 1: Thursday, 27th February

The meetings commenced on February 27th at 10:00 am, with a workshop on “Positionality and Reflexivity” led by Professor Kaisa Koskinen from Tampere University. The session provided participants with practical frameworks for understanding their roles in translation research, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and methodological transparency in academic inquiries.

The day continued with an informal lunch, which offered us with an opportunity to network and engage in preliminary discussions. The afternoon was dedicated to individual advisory meetings, a series of one-on-one meetings allowing participants to engage in focused discussions on their respective research areas.

Day 2: Friday, 28th February

The second day of the advisory board meetings began with further scheduled discussions and continued with two lectures. At 10:00 am, Professor Hephzibah Israel (the University of Edinburgh) presented her research on “Materializing the Translated Bible: Object, Fetish, and Faith.” Her talk examined the intersection of translation studies and religious material culture, considering how the translated Bible functions as both an object of faith and a material artifact within different communities. At 12:00 pm, Professor Piotr Blumczynski (Queen’s University Belfast) delivered a presentation titled “(Mis)applying Benjamin’s ‘aura’ to translation theory.” This session explored Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘aura’ within the field of translation studies, critically assessing its applicability to contemporary translation practices and theoretical discourses.

The day ended with a late lunch at the Moffetts and delightful time with Sofia, the youngest of the PIETRA children.

Abstract: As a global institution, the Catholic Church is committed to communicating in multiple languages and has long embraced multimodal forms of communication. The multilingual and multimodal communication of the Catholic Church therefore offers an excellent opportunity to comparatively analyse modes and resources employed in different historical eras across languages and cultures. In this talk, the issue of multimodal translation will be explored using the examples of nineteenth century books and periodicals and a contemporary website. Using these as ‘a field of application’ (Bezemer & Jewitt, 2010) or enquiry, I will explain the theoretical approaches and methodologies being employed in the study of these multimodal fields. Specifically, with reference to the verbal and the visual, I will explore how meaning is made with different semiotic resources and their interactions, and how these resources and interactions fare in translation.

The paper explored how terms from other domains, such as ecology, undergo semantic shift in Laudato Sì to portray the view of the Catholic Church’s on climate change. The conference was a great opportunity to interact with others working on terminology and lexicography, by bringing new methodologies to the study and description of general and specialised languages.

Conference website: https://euralex.jezik.hr/about-the-event/

Book of abstracts: https://euralex.jezik.hr/book-of-abstracts/