Birgitta Englund Dimitrova

I am Professor Emerita of Translation Studies at Stockholm University. 

 

Dialogue interpreting: interaction and cognition

Interpreted encounters have been one of my main research interests since the end of the 1980s, with publications from 1991 and onwards. Being one of the pioneers in using video recordings for conversation analysis of dialogue interpreting, my first studies in the 1990s concerned interpreted medical encounters (Spanish-Swedish). I did a multimodal analysis of non-verbal aspects of the encounters, focusing on the interpreter’s role in turn-taking and feedback.

Later, I have returned to research on dialogue interpreting.  The project 

Invisible process – cognition and working memory of dialogue interpreting 

 is led by Senior Lecturer Elisabet Tiselius and financed for the years 2017-2023 by the Swedish Research Council (project description, see pdf to the right). The project investigates the cognitive processes of dialogue interpreters with differences in interpreting experience, using both quantitative and qualitative research methods.  Languages are Swedish, French, Polish, and Spanish. The researchers in this project are Elisabet Tiselius, PhD student Aleksandra Adler and myself. In 2018, MA student Thomas Thomsen finished his Masters thesis within the project. With Elisabet Tiselius, I have several joint publications within the project: 1) 2016: an outline of a cognitive model of dialogue interpreting; 2) 2019: paper on dialogue interpreters' language proficiency, see below under Publications; 3) 2021: paper on cognitive aspects of turn-taking in dialogue interpreting, see below under  Publications; 4) 2023: paper on the dialogue interpreter’s monitoring processes, see below under Publications; 5) planned for publication autumn 2023: paper on working memory of dialogue interpreters, based on psychometric tests. 

I have also investigated interpreting ethics and cognitive load in a TV-show, where the show leader has two functions: to interview a Russian-speaking guest (Soviet pop singer Alla Pugacheva) while also functioning as an interpreter (for the Swedish audience). Two articles from this project were published in 2019; one (in Swedish) dealing with the cognitive load imposed by the double functions, the other (in English) discussing ethical issues of dual-role mediation. Both articles are available with open access, see Publications below.

Translation and interpreting in 18th century Sweden: with a focus on the translations of Johan Helmich Roman

This project deals with Swedish translation history with a focus on the 18th century, more particularly on the translation activities of Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758). He was a composer and led the orchestra of the Swedish Royal Court in Stockholm; he is often called “the Father of Swedish music”, but his translation activities are less well known. As early as the 1730’s, Roman introduced in Sweden the music of Georg Friedrich Händel, including several of his vocal works; here, translations into Swedish were a central feature. I’m presently writing  an article on some of these translated libretti, which are early examples of translation into Swedish of musical drama (opera, passion, oratorium). 

In an article published in 2021 (see below under Publications), I analyze primary sources for Roman's orchestra suite The Golovin music (1728), offering a partially new interpretation of some information in them. 

Another publication from this project (2021) discusses a description from 1759 of Lars Nilsson in Flinsmåla; allegedly, the first mention in Sweden of a Deaf man communicating with signs. My article proposes the hypotheses that this can be a case of non-professional interpreting, i.e. a conversation that was brokered by a bilingual family member. See Publications below.

Johan Helmich Roman was a musical Wunderkind, a composer and conductor with cosmopolitan experiences and employed by the Swedish Royal Court. Lars Nilsson lived in a small village, was able to read, write and do arithmetic, but as a consequence of the laws and prejudices concerning deaf people in 18th century Sweden, he and his family were paupers. Roman and Nilsson – two men living under very different conditions. But I believe translation and interpreting played important roles in the lives of both. And during a decade or so around the 1750’s, they actually lived within a few kilometres from each other, on the coast of southeastern Sweden,  north of Kalmar.

 

Cognitive aspects of the translation and interpreting process. Publications from 1993 and onwards  

Cognitive aspects of the translation and interpreting process has been one of my research areas for a number of years, yielding a large number of publications. I have studied the phases of the translation process and their characteristics, particularly how translators review and revise their translations. This focus was connected with a study of how translators with different amount of translation experience approach a translation task, and, as a particular aspect of this, expertise in the translation process. I have also elaborated a method for studying, in process based data, textual characteristics of the target text, i e, a combined process and product approach. I applied the method in a study of how translators deal with implicit information in the source text and eventual explicitations in the process and product. Languages: Russian and Swedish. Main research/data collection methods have been keystroke logging and introspection (think-aloud and retrospection).

I am now further developing this research interest in the current project Invisible process – cognition and working memory of community interpreting, see above.

Translation Studies in Sweden during 30 years – a bibliography

I have been gathering information about Swedish books published within Translation Studies over the last 30 years. The bibliography has now been published electronically, see below under Publications.

Translation of dialect in fiction. Publications from 1987 and onwards

I have worked on this project on and off during my entire work as a Translation Studies scholar, and as a result published 7 papers, published in Sweden, Finland, Germany and Russia.  The first paper (1987, in Bulgarian) took as the starting point my own work as a translator, grappling with the problem of translating a rural Bulgarian dialect in a modern short story into Swedish. 5 papers (1997 and 2004 in English; 2001, 2002 and 2012 in Swedish) theorize dialect translation and analyze empirically patterns of dialect features in Swedish literature and their translations into English, French, Bulgarian and Russian. The latest publication (2016, in Swedish) triangulates different empirical methods: text analysis, introspection (translators’ commentaries) and readers’ focus group discussion. Several of the papers deal with children’s literature.

Slavic and Bulgarian studies. Publications between 1977 and 1988

My very first research area was within Slavic and Bulgarian Studies. My PhD thesis was a contrastive study of the syntax of yes/no-questions in modern Bulgarian and Macedonian, and I have also published articles on other selected grammatical problems in modern Bulgarian and Macedonian.  Furthermore, many of my publications within Translation and Interpreting Studies deal with one or more Slavic languages. 

 

1977	PhD Slavic linguistics (Bulgarian and Macedonian), Stockholm University
1978-1983	Teaching Bulgarian at Department of Slavic and Baltic Languages, Stockhom University
1983-1986	Engaged in a project for developing interpreting service within the health care system of Stockholm regional council. During this time, I also taught Macedonian at Uppsala University and Bulgarian at Oslo University, Norway.
1986-1994	Assistant Professor, from 1992 Associate Professor, of Bilingualism/Translation/Interpreting, at Department of Slavic languages (1986-1988) and Centre for Research on bilingualism, Stockholm University
1994-2006	Associate Professor of Translation and Interpreting at Institute for Interpretation and Translation Studies, Stockholm University
2006-2013	Full Professor in Translation Studies, at Institute for Interpretation and Translation Studies, Stockholm University
2013-	professor emerita, at Institute for Interpreting and Translation Studies, Department of Swedish Language and Multilingualism, Stockholm University

See pdf file to the right for a full list of my publications.

A large number of my publications are electronically available, in DIVA, the publication database of Stockholm University, and also on my academia webpage, see link to the right. However, for copyright reasons, I cannot give access to all my publications on internet.