My research interests revolve around broadly understood translation, both its theory and practice. I like to challenge the popular cliché according to which meanings get “lost in translation” – in my view, the opposite is true: translation, more often than not, creates a surplus of meaning by opening up horizons of possibilities. Consequently, I view translation as a key epistemological concept which underpins a range of key notions and practices in the humanities (see my book Ubiquitous Translation, Routledge 2016). Much of my earlier work focussed on linguistic and ideological aspects of translation (in particular of sacred texts); recently I have been exploring issues of its axiology, methodology, logic, and ethics. My most recent book, Experiencing Translationality: Material and Metaphorical Journeys (Routledge 2023), by examinining the work of translation in the complex processes of meaning-making across physical, social and cultural domains, offers a fresh way to reimagine the dynamic entanglements of matter and meaning, space and time, past and present.

I currently co-direct the collaborative research project MISTE (Multilingual Island: Sites of Translation and Encounter), funded by the Higher Education Authority in Ireland under its North-South Research Programme (2022–2024). In partnership with scholars from the University of Galway, we study multilingual practices to investigate the role of translation in bringing together migrants/refugees and local communities, and explore the creative potential of translation in raising awareness of cultural diversity in Ireland.

In 2022, following on from a collaborative research project funded by British Academy, I co-edited, with Dr Steven Wilson, the volume The Languages of COVID-19: Translational and Multilingual Perspectives on Global Healthcare (Routledge 2022). Spanning nearly 20 signed and spoken languages, the volume argues that only in going beyond an Anglophone perspective can we better understand the cultural, social and political facets of the pandemic and, in turn, produce a comprehensive, efficient global response to disease management. Steven and I have also co-authored the policy paper "COVID-19 and the importance of languages in public health", published in Languages, Society & Policy.

From 2012–2015 I was the Principal Investigator in an AHRC-funded Research Networking grant exploring English evaluative concepts in translated religious and devotional texts. Our findings have been published in the co-edited volume Translating Values (Palgrave Macmillan 2016).

I have authored and co-authored over forty scholarly outputs. My work has been published in leading journals, including Target, Perspectives, Translation Studies, The Translator, and translation: a transdisciplinary journal. I have contributed chapters to the Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture (2018), the third edition of the authoritative Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (2020), the volume Contesting Epistemologies in Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies (2022), and The Routlege Handbook of Translation Theory and Concepts (2023).

Since 2019, I have been the Editor-in-chief of the journal Translation Studies.  Previously, I served as the journal's Associate Editor (2015-2019) and Book Reviews Editor (2014-2015).

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the United Kingdom, a member of the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies and a member of the European Society for Translation Studies. I serve on the EST's Open Access Prize Committee.

I am a member of the International Advisory Board of the Nida Centre for Advanced Research on Translation in Rimini, Italy, and of PIETRA (funded by the European Research Council), the first, large-scale, multilingual study of the translation products and processes that underpin communication in global religion.

RESEARCH SUPERVISION

To date, I have been lead supervisor or primary co-supervisor for 17 PhD projects:

• Sarah Buchanan, “Remapping Galatians in New Linguistic and Cultural Contexts” (2016);
• Aladdin Al-Tarawneh, “Towards a New Methodology for Translating the Quran into English: A Hybrid Model” (2016);
• Paulina Wilson, “Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters: Comparative, Translational and Evidential Issues Arising from Substantive Law Variation” (2017);
• Mohammad Aldala’in, “Making Translation Decisions and the Constitution of Translation Knowledge and Anxiety with Special Reference to Joseph Conrad’s Falk: A Naturalistic Retrospective Approach” (2017);
• Fernanda Verçosa, “The Trouble with Translatability: Securing the Visibility of Owen McCafferty’s Plays in Brazilian Portuguese” (2018);
• Ewa Watson, "Unspoken Truths: The Northern Ireland Rules of Evidence and Procedure in Cases Involving Non-English Speaking Parties - Revision as Intervention" (2018);
• Carolina Espinoza Marquez, "Translation and the Lingua Franca in Scientific Communication: The Case of the Scientific Community from Mexico" (2020);
• Wanhong Wang, "Bringing Public Services to the Public: Interpreting and Translating in Healthcare Settings for Social Cohesion" (2020);
• Zhaohan Xu, "Negotiating Hybridity in Gu Hongming’s English Translation of Confucian Texts" (2021);
• Yiwen Yin, "Translating Traditional Chinese Medicine Anchored in Philosophy: Towards a Fuller Account of the Cultural Richness of Su Wen" (2021);
• Nermin Al-Sharman, "Investigating the Challenges of Medical Interpreting in the Refugee Context in Jordan" (2022);
• Yuan Zou, "Translating Knowledge: A Study on the Audiovisual Translation of Chinese Open Courses for International Audiences" (2023);
• Ye Tian, "Exploring Nation Branding from a Translation Studies Perspective: Translational Insights in Soft Power Research with Special Reference to China's Belt and Road Initiative" (2023);
• Bushra Kalakh, "Human Rights Discourse for a People without Rights: Visual Narratives as Documentation of Human Rights Violations in Palestine" (2023);
• Ohud Alkhashan, "Constructing the Self as a Translator: An Ethnographic Study Exploring the Saudi Translators’ Identification Processes on Twitter" (2024);
• Zhenhui Lei, "Public Speaking Training for Interpreting Students: Its Effectiveness in Improving Consecutive Interpreting Performance" (2024);
• Matt Valler, "Taking the Measure of High Cross: Translating the Many Worlds of Truro at the Time of the Anthropocene" (2024).

In addition, I have served on the supervisory team for the following seven PhD projects:

• Ahmed Altuhaini, "Bridging the Gap between Saudi Students Translator Training Programmes and the Needs of the Saudi Translation Market" (2016);
• Jasim Al-Maryani, "Investigating the Manipulation of Ideology in the Simultaneous Interpreting of Political Discourse" (2016);
• Kathleen Kaess, "Cultural and Epistemological Otherness in PISA: A Translation Studies Perspective" (2017);
• Sally Gillepsie, "Linguistic Demographics, Resources and Deficit of Opportunity: Deaf Signed Language Users in Northern Ireland" (2017);
• Yangyang Long, "Translation and Recognition: The Works of Lin Yutang" (2019);
• Yao Xiao, "Visual Processing of PowerPoint Slides during Simultaneous Interpreting" (2023);
• Yue Li, "Investigating the Implications of Sight Translation Training for Simultaneous Interpreting Performance" (2024).

I welcome original and ambitious research proposals exploring the shared ground between translation and philosophy, logic, theology, linguistics, literature, ethnography, history, and other areas.

I have convened and taught the following postgraduate modules:

- Theory and Practice of Translation

- Translation and Linguistics

- Meaning, Sense, Translation

- Translation and Public Policy

- Translation of Sacred Texts

- Principles and Practices of Interpreting

- Public Service Interpreting

- Disseration Writing

- Practical Translation Workshop

In the last decade, I have supervised to completion over eighty MA dissertations on various aspects of translation and interpreting, at three different universities in the UK and Poland. 

I have been External Examiner for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Translation and Interpreting, Polish, and Slavonic Studies at the University of Glasgow, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Portsmouth, and Goldsmiths, University of London. Since 2015, I have been involved as translation expert (English-Polish) at the  Chartered Institute of Linguists. Between 2015 and 2020 I served as a Visiting Professor at the College of Foreign Languages of Jilin University in Changchun, China, where I have since taught a range of mini-modules for postgraduate students.

I have presented guest lectures at the University of Manchester, University of Glasgow, University of Galway, University of Edinburgh, Durham University, University of Stirling, Trinity College Dublin, Marie Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin, University of Wrocław, University of Rouen, Nova University in Lisbon, Lviv Polytechnic National University, and University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. I am often invited to China: in the last decade I have given guest talks at Jilin University in Changchun, Sichuan International Studies University in Chongqing, Minzu University in Beijing, East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai, Ningbo Institute of Technology (Zhejiang University), Shenzhen University, Hong Kong Baptist University, and Taiyuan University of Technology.