Piotr Blumczynski

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 recent 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.

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). Currently, I am Co-Investigator on the research project "The Languages of Covid-19: Implications for Global Healthcare" (2020–2021), funded by British Academy, led by Dr Steven Wilson. 

I have authored and co-authored over thirty scholarly outputs. My work has been published in leading journals, including Target, Translation Studies, and translation: a transdisciplinary journal. I have recently contributed chapters to the Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture (2018) and the third edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (2020). I am the Editor-in-chief of the journal Translation Studies.

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.

RESEARCH SUPERVISION

To date, I have supervised to completion eight 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)

In addition, I have co-supervised around a dozen further PhD theses on topics ranging from translator and interpreter training, to ideology in simultaneous broadcast interpreting, to politics of recognition in signed language interpreting.

I am currently supervising doctoral work dealing with: interpreting practices in refugee camps in Jordan; Traditional Chinese Medicine tests translated into English; translation and risk; translator training in China; literary translation of ancient Chinese texts; subtitling of academic lectures for international audiences; linguistic diversity and language rights; a social constructivist approach in translator training; nation branding and nation building through translation; unintended and intentional pauses in consecutive interpreting.

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, and the University of Portsmouth. Since 2015, I have been involved as examiner (English-Polish) for the Diploma in Translation, the highest professional qualification for translators in the UK, awarded by the Chartered Institute of Linguists. I have been regularly invited as Visiting Faculty to the Nida School of Translation Studies in Misano Adriatico, Italy (in 2014, 2017 and 2018). In 2016 I was one of the three professors for the Nida School of Bible Translation. In 2015 I was appointed 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, including "Interdisciplinary Explorations into the Theory and Practice of Translation", "Translation of Sacred Texts", "Translation is Everywhere”, and "The Value of Translation".

I have presented guest lectures at the University of Manchester, University of Glasgow, University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin, Marie Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin, and the University of Wrocław. I am often invited to China -- in the last five years 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, and Hong Kong Baptist University.