The Language Project: Words are meaningful
The profession of translation is often misunderstood and its significance becomes underestimated by a large proportion of the Greek community. As a result, the Greek translators’ status is underdeveloped and unsatisfactory for the professionals. Apart from that, the Greek society is not familiar with language as a means of cultural and artistic activity.
The youth cultural initiative under the title The Language Project was created in order to highlight an underestimated aspect of language; language as a goal and not as a means, promoting multilingualism, the magic of words, sounds and values of every culture. Aspiring to have an effect on steadfast mindsets and attitudes, we create challenges by setting language as the driving force for the establishment of relationships, the exposure and extroversion of those who work their entire lives behind words, and for the active participation in events based on language being viewed as a cultural, entertaining and co-creative good.
Specifically, The Language Project produces versatile translation-based events promoting translation, foreign languages and interculturalism. Through the collaboration with European and Greek institutions, we organize events aiming at getting the translator out of his/her cocoon and making translation a co-creative process. We engage youth in order for them to produce, to be part of and to attend translation slams, real-time translation events (e.g. the Transparent Translator event), cartoon translation workshops, subtitling workshops, to state their personal connection with foreign languages, to share their thoughts through participatory videos and to become members of a translators’ online network and blogging platform.
Specifically, The Language Project aims at:
- Making the profession of translation more extroverted and the translation field accessible to anyone interested in the cultural life of Greece.
- Providing further specialized knowledge to students of translation, interpretating and foreign languages, besides their academic courses (i.e. comics’ translation, subtitling, introduction to the publishing world, etc).
- Introducing young professionals to the Greek and global job market.
- Experimenting with interdisciplinary innovative methodologies.
- Promoting research in the translation studies’ sector. Adding to the existing academic bibliography, by presenting the conclusions of our workshops at international translation and interdisciplinary conferences.
- Pursuing collaborations and exchanges, ranging from hyperlocal to international, with individuals and institutions sharing the same objective.
- Creating a forum of language, translation and cultural issues for intercultural communication.
- Instigating the interest of young people not only in the translation process itself, but also in the translation studies.
Our vision is to make words meanignful again. Could the social impact of our endeavor be measured, we would have happier and more open people, eager to talk, to communicate and to interact. Don’t you think it’s worth it? Join us, follow us, like us and make our effort stronger!
The Language Project team
The Language Project is supported by “stART – Youth Culture Initiatives in Greece”, a program of the Robert Bosch Stiftung conducted in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Thessaloniki and the Bundesvereinigung Soziokultureller Zentren e.V.
Η Βιολέττα Τσιτσιλιάνη σπούδασε στο Τμήμα Ξένων Γλωσσών, Μετάφρασης και Διερμηνείας και αργότερα αποφοίτησε από το ΜΠΣ Πολιτιστικής Διαχείρισης του Παντείου Πανεπιστημίου. Έχοντας ως στόχο να αναδείξει τη γλώσσα και τη μετάφραση ως πολιτιστικό αγαθό, εργάζεται ως freelancer μεταφράστρια και cultural manager για την πολιτιστική πρωτοβουλία The Language Project.