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CMENAS Colloquium Series. Do We Speak COVID-19? Language and Translation in the Era of Global Crises

Sameer Naser Olimat, Assistant Professor of Translation Studies and Computational Linguistics, English Department, Salt Faculty of Human Sciences, Al-Balqa Applied University, Salt, Jordan
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
2:00-4:00 PM
Virtual
The 2021 CMENAS Colloquium Series theme is "Public Health and Pandemics across the MENA: A Multidisciplinary Exhibit."

Please register to attend at https://myumi.ch/r8MB9.

About the Presentation:
COVID-19 pandemic’s effects have been witnessed everywhere including language. New lexical items and sociolinguistic changes have been created in the wake of this global crisis. Some speakers have used several linguistic devices, such as neologisms or collocations, for dealing with COVID-19 through using affixation, compounding, blending, clipping, acronyms, and abbreviation. Other speakers adopted euphemistic and dysphemistic techniques to express what they intend to say and to reflect what they appreciate or depreciate. In addition, presidents and politicians referred to strong language and war metaphors in their daily speeches to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to shape their fellow countrymen’s thoughts and view.

The effects of COVID-19 pandemic have been also found in the area of Translation Studies (TS). The pandemic produced an enormous amount of COVID-19 health information which urgently needs to be translated into different languages. Thus, translators play an influential role in the global response against COVID-19 by rendering and disseminating reliable information in a language the general public can understand. In response to this critical situation, translators have used modern translation technologies and online resources, but they have faced different financial and occupational challenges.

About the Speaker:
Sameer Naser Olimat is an assistant professor of translation and linguistics in the English Department, Al-Balqa Applied University, Salt, Jordan. He received his PhD in Translation Studies and Computational Linguists from the University of Leeds, UK, in 2019. He is interested in the areas of English-Arabic and Arabic-English translation, Qur'an translation, crisis translation, computational linguistics, and sociolinguistic. He is the founder of Leeds Corpus of Euphemisms in the Qur’an http://corpus.leeds.ac.uk/euphemismolimat/. He participated in national and international peer-reviewed conferences. He published several articles in peer-reviewed and specialized journals.

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If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact Kristin Waterbury at waterbuk@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.
Building: Off Campus Location
Location: Virtual
Event Link:
Website:
Event Type: Lecture / Discussion
Tags: center for middle eastern and north african studies, Cmenas Colloquium Series, Lecture, Middle East Studies, Virtual
Source: Happening @ Michigan from Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies, International Institute, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, Department of Linguistics, Department of English Language and Literature, Arab and Muslim American Studies (AMAS)