Call for Papers

Ain Shams University
Faculty of Al-Alsun (Languages)

Department of English 

6th International Conference 

23th-24th March 2027
Cairo, Egypt

Frames and Framing: Constructing Meaning in Literature, Linguistics, and Translation

Every act of communication, interpretation, and representation is an act of framing. In literary analysis, a “frame” might define genre, direct narrative perspective, or position a text within a historical moment. In linguistics, frames organize semantic understanding, govern pragmatic interaction, and underpin metaphor. In translation and interpreting, frames are negotiated, shifted, and sometimes shattered in the movement between languages and cultures. They are the selective filters that highlight certain elements while relegating others to the background, the conceptual structures that allow us to categorize, interpret, and communicate complex realities.

This international interdisciplinary conference, seeks to explore the profound and pervasive role of frames across our core disciplines. We posit framing not as a passive backdrop but as a dynamic, constitutive process—a verb as much as a noun. It is a mechanism of power and persuasion, a tool for creativity and critique, and a fundamental challenge in cross-linguistic and cross-cultural mediation.

We invite scholars to investigate how frames are built, imposed, subverted, and transformed. How does the frame of a sonnet constrain and enable poetic expression? How do news media frames manipulate linguistic choices to shape public opinion? What happens when a literary frame conceived in one language-world is forcibly fitted into another? By bringing together researchers from literary studies, linguistics, and translation studies, this conference aims to foster a rich dialogue on the construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of meaning, illuminating the shared theoretical ground and methodological tools we use to analyze the very frameworks of our understanding.

Contributions are sought on a range of topics in the following areas: 

• Framing Devices in Narrative: Embedded stories, paratexts (titles, epigraphs, footnotes), metafiction, and metalepsis.

• Genre as Frame: Conventions, expectations, and the policing of boundaries; - intermedial references and combinations in hybrid and emerging genres.

• Historical and Cultural Framing: Periodization, canon formation, and the politics of literary history.

• Readerly Frames: Cognitive schemata, horizon of expectations, and reception theory.

• Breaking the Frame: Experimental form, postmodern play, and the politics of defamiliarization.

• Framing Identity: Constructs of race, gender, class, and nation in narrative perspective and characterization; decolonizing the mind.

• Framing Precarity: literary responses to a world in flux.

• Framing Posthumanism: digitality and the Algorithmic.

• Framing the Future: beyond postmodernism.

• Intertextual Framing: framing one text through the lens of another.

• Framing Audiovisuality: the intersection of graphic novels, ekphrasis and literary description. 

• Framing :  Frames vs. scripts vs. schemas , frame semantics ,conceptual metaphor and framing , reframing and frame competition , lexical choices and framing 

• Interactional Framing: Framing in conversation, footing and stance, topic management and frame – setting moves, narrative framing, politeness and facework as framing.

• Framing and Psycholinguistics: Framing effects in language comprehension, category framing and prototypes, emotion framing, bilingual and multilingual framing.

• Framing, Pragmatics, and Rhetoric: Speech acts and framing, hedging and boosters framing, evidentiality and sourcing as credibility, modality framing.

• Framing, Media, Politics, and Society: News framing devices, political framing and ideology, migration/refugee framing, climate framing, gender and identity framing, crime and justice framing.

• Grammatical and Structural Framing:  Transitivity and agency framing, passive voice and agent deletion, nominalization, information structure, pronouns and deixis, metonymy and labeling.

• Multimodal Framing: The interplay of text, image, layout, and sound in digital and print media.

• Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Framing. 

• The Translator’s Frame: Visibility, positioning, and decision-making;

- Frame Preservation vs. Manipulation.

- Domestication vs. Foreignization as framing strategies.

• Paratextual Framing: Introductions, covers, footnotes, and reviews as instruments of reception.

• Ideological Reframing in Translation: Censorship, adaptation, and the reshaping of texts for new audiences.

• Interpreting and Frame Management: Dialogue interpreting in institutional settings; managing participant frames and face.

- Interpreters’ reformulation of frames of meaning.

- Interpreters’ management of frame shifts in real time.

- Impact of cultural framing on Interpreting failures.

• Cognitive Frames in the Translation Process: Mental models, cultural schemata, and problem-solving.

• Cultural Frames and Meaning Loss in Arabic–English Translation.

• Framing Translation in the Marketplace: Publishing trends, series, anthologies, and the construction of “world literature”. 

1. CAT Tools as Cognitive Frames

• • Interface Design and Translator Cognition: How do CAT tools interfaces structure translator attention, decision-making, and segmentation?

  • Translation Memory as a Framing Agent: The influence of legacy translations (TMs) on stylistic consistency, creativity, and "translationese."

  • The Ethics of Embedded Frameworks: Proprietary vs. open-source tools, data ownership, and the hidden biases in default settings and workflows.

2. Machine Translation: Deconstructing and Re-framing the "Black Box".

• •  NMT Output as a Cultural-Linguistic Frame: Analyzing how MT output and LLM-generated translations construct culturally normalized, syntactically flattened target texts.

  •  Prompt Engineering as Frame Control: how prompting acts as frames governing mechanisms that pre-determines the AI's cognitive focus, behavioral constraints, and interpretive output.

  •  Post-Editing (MTPE) as Re-framing Labor: The cognitive shift from translation to revision; skill redefinition and quality assessment in MTPE workflows.

  • Hallucination and Fabrication: Unfaithful frames—detection, causes, and consequences.

3. Corpus and Data-Driven Frameworks:

• • Corpus Tools as Comparative Frames: Using corpus tools to reveal universals, patterning, norms, and frame contrasts across languages and genres.

  • Terminology Extraction and Ontology Building: Creating structured knowledge frames that govern domain-specific translation.

  • Big Data and the "Framing" of Localization: How analytics from massive translation projects inform and constrain future translation choices.

 4. Audiovisual and Multimedia: Framing Beyond Text

• •  Subtitling Tools and Spatiotemporal Constraints: How software frames decisions regarding condensation, line breaks, and synchronization.

  •  Video Game Localization Engines: The technical frames governing asset replacement, UI adaptation, and cultural scripting.

  •  Audio Description & Surtitling Tools: Framing visual or auditory experience for accessibility within technical parameters.

5. The Human-Machine Interface: Agency and Adaptation

• • Cognitive Friction and Flow: Where do tools enhance vs. disrupt the translator's cognitive frame?

  • Training and Pedagogy: Framing the next generation—how to teach tool use critically, not just mechanically.

  • Ergonomics and Well-being: How tool design frames the physical and mental workspace of the linguist.

 6. Algorithmic Bias and Ethical Re-framing - Bias in Training Data: 

• • How historical translations and skewed corpora embed cultural, gender, or ideological frames in MT systems.

  • Debiasing Tools and Strategies: Technological and methodological approaches to identifying and countering algorithmic framing.

  • Low-Resource Languages: How technological frames exclude or misrepresent linguistic communities without digital parity.

 7. The Future Frame: AI, Automation, and Agency

• • Generative AI and the "Creative" Frame: ChatGPT, multimodal AI, and the blurring of translation, adaptation, and content creation.

  • Workflow Automation: How automated pipelines frame the translator's role within larger content ecosystems.

  • The Professional Identity Crisis: Reframing the "Translator" as a "Human-in-the-loop" (HITL) or a "Cultural Mediator for AI." 

English and Arabic

• All submissions should be sent via email at confeng2016@alsun.asu.edu.eg

• Deadline for sending abstracts: January 15, 2027

• Deadline for sending complete paper: May 1, 2027

• All the papers will be peer-reviewed by specialists in the different fields within the scope of the conference.

Presenters 

• Egyptian: 1500 EGP

• International: 150 USD

Attendees (with a certificate of attendance)

• Egyptian: 200 EGP

• International: 100 USD

Conference papers will be reviewed and published in Textual Turnings, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal devoted to studies in the general field of English Studies by the Department of English, Faculty of Al-Alsun, Ain Shams University. Publication fees will be paid separately in the Refa’a Unit independent of the conference fees.

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