Agder Forum for Translation Studies

Translation Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research encompassing multiple theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of multilectal, mediated communication. Translation scholars explore a range of professional, institutional and participatory translation sites from print to digital culture. Adopting a growing range of perspectives, translation scholars explore the cognitive activity of the communicators involved; translation as a social practice driven by evolving relations between social agents and technologies; or the multimodal dimension of texts and discourses travelling across languages and cultures.

Research undertaken by AFO members reflects this diversity, as the list of topics below illustrates. Broadly speaking, the main thrust of the group’s work may be organized within four main areas: audiovisual and multimodal translation, the sociology of translation, cognitive approaches to translation, and translation technologies.

Our research group plays a leading role in establishing a Norwegian national research network in Translation Studies and developing translator training programs in the country. AFO members are involved in delivering the first and only dedicated MA program in translation in Norway and planning a project to map the landscape of translation in Norway, both in terms of professional practices and policy-making in a range of key areas.

Research themes

• Corpus-based Translation Studies
• Literary Translation
• Multimodality and Media Translation
• (Socio)cognitive Translation Studies
• Translation and Sociology
• Translation, Power and Ideology
• Translation Technologies

Recent publications

Beckmann, Morten (2019) Jesus i oversettelse: Kristologiske tekster i Bibelselskapets oversettelser 1959–2011 [Jesus in Translation. Christological texts in the Bible Society’s translations 1959-2011], Cappelen Damm Academic. Available online (Open Access)

Gawrońska Pettersson, Barbara (2022) ‘The World of George Grosz’s Pictures and the World Depicted in the Novel Pokora by Szczepan Twardoch’, Polylogue. Neophilological Studies 12: 153-168. Available online

Halverson, Sandra L. and Álvaro Marín García (eds) (2022) Contesting Epistemologies in Cognitive Translation Studies, London & New York: Routledge.

Nitzke, Jean, Silvia Hansen-Schirra, Ann-Kathrin Habig and Silke Gutermuth (2022) ‘Translating Subtitles into Easy Language: First considerations and empirical investigation’, Translation, Mediation and Accessibility for Linguistic Minorities 128: 127-143. Available online

Pérez-González, Luis (2022) ‘Subtitling Disinformation Narratives around COVID-19. Foreign vlogging in the construction of digital nationalism in Chinese social media’, in Mona Baker (ed.) Unsettling Translation, London & New York: Routledge, 232-247. Available online (Open Access)

Image: @leilamarinacb