Today, November 3, 2024, the first international translation conference was launched at the University of Martyr Hamou Lakhdar on the topic of “Investing in specialized translation in the service of culture and scientific research,” which is organized over two days by the Translation Department of the Faculty of Arts and Languages in coordination with the research project: Valuing literary, historical and anthropological translations of the Wadi Souf region.
The University President, Professor Omar Farhati, gave the official starting signal for the conference in the presence of the Director of the Higher School of Saharan Agriculture, the Vice-Presidents of the University, and the conference guests from researchers, deans of faculties and students. Among the guests were the President of the National Chamber of Official Translators and Interpreters, Professor Misoum Kamli, and the President of the Translation Committee of the Higher Council of the Arabic Language, as well as professors from the University of Carthage in Tunisia and from Cairo University in Egypt, and professors and students from the University of El Oued and Algerian universities.
In his speech, the University President welcomed the attendees and guests, highlighting the importance of translation in the progress of nations through exposure to various sciences and knowledge of other peoples, pointing to the modernity of the Translation Department at the Faculty of Arts and Languages, which offers the teaching of four languages: English, French, Russian, in addition to Arabic, which makes the Translation Department occupy an important position at Al Wadi University by graduating batches of students qualified to open the field and profession of translation in the future.
The Dean of the College, Professor Dalal Washan, also stressed the importance of the first international conference of the Translation Department, especially the conference topic and the presentation of the problems and challenges of translating scientific theories from a foreign language into Arabic. This was also stressed by the Head of the Translation Department, Dr. Tariq Saeed, who explained that the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research attaches utmost importance to the Translation Department, considering that the field of translation is a multilingual and multi-knowledge linguistic activity that imposes itself on researchers and students.
As for the director of the forum, Dr. Muhammad Shushani Obaidi, he confirmed that the topic of the forum falls within the project of valuing literary, historical and anthropological translations of the Wadi Souf region, where the project aims, through an analytical survey, to count and collect these translations and highlight their translators and introduce them in the national and international arena. However, their production - as he said - remained scattered and dispersed, and much of it remained locked in drawers and libraries and did not receive its due in academic studies. Therefore, the field of specialized translation and its investment in serving culture and academic scientific research is an urgent necessity imposed by the rapid transformations in various areas of life, which require - according to him - scientific and cultural communication across borders, especially with the acceleration of technological development and the emergence of artificial intelligence programs that have occupied a place that has become a threat to many jobs, professions and specializations, most notably translation. Accordingly, he said, the justifications for raising the problem of the forum came, which is to know how to invest in specialized translation and make it serve culture and scientific research, which the participants will try to answer through the various interventions that reached more than 150 participations between in-person and remotely, which enriches the field of specialized translation that still suffers from a lack of references, especially those related to the education of specialized translation, stressing that the organizing body of the forum pledges to collect the works of the forum in a collective book in the name of the university bearing the title of the forum, to be a qualitative addition that benefits researchers and specialists in the field of translation.
