About me

I grew up in Seattle, Washington, mostly in the children’s section of my parents’ independent bookstore. My lifelong love of books and reading developed into a fascination with languages and translation as I began to study Spanish and French literature in high school. I studied Comparative Literature (French, Spanish and English) at Wellesley College in the US, and spent a year studying abroad in the Translation department at the Universite de Montreal. I came to the UK in 2016 to complete an MA in Translation at Lancaster University, where my thesis focused on the unique challenges of translating multilingual literary non-fiction. I have been a full-time freelance translator since 2018, translating texts in a wide variety of genres, including books for children and adults. My published translations include Wandering Memory by Jan J. Dominique (University of Virginia Press, 2021) and English versions of the French graphic novel adaptations of Enid Blyton’s Five on Treasure Island and Five Go Adventuring Again (Hachette, February 2022). In addition to my work as a translator, I have been a bookseller specialising in children’s books in the US and the UK, a book reviewer for book-industry publications, and a communications manager for Asymptote, a leading journal of contemporary translated literature in English. My PhD project combines my long experience in the book industry with my passion for translation studies.

About my work

In 21st century Britain, translation for children represents only a tiny portion of publications annually, and yet it has an outsized cultural impact and is increasingly being integrated into wider campaigns for diversity in children’s literature. One of the leading advocates in this field is Outside In World (OIW). Since 2005, it has been amassing an archive of contemporary translations for children published in the UK and actively promoting translation and diversity in children’s literature through events and educational materials. My project will feature the first in-depth study of Outside In World’s physical collection and digital archive, which present unique opportunities to explore the present and future of international children’s literature in the UK. The physical collection has recently been acquired by the University of Portsmouth, where it is a “seed collection” for their Near and Far Worlds archive of international children’s books. I will be using a variety of methods, including approaches drawn from the sociology of translation, descriptive translation studies and social anthropology, to explore how the OIW collection came to be, what it can tell us about international children’s literature in the UK and advocacy in translated literature, and the future of global thinking in British children’s publishing and education.

About me:

I was born and raised in Italy, near Bologna, and spent most of my days reading and inventing stories. When I was fourteen, I read my first novel in English, and promptly fell in love with both the language and the country. Since then, I have been steadily making my way towards England. After my high school diploma, I moved to Wales where I studied for a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Creative Writing which I obtained in July 2019. Then, due to Brexit, I moved to Ireland: I obtained my MA in Comparative Literature from Trinity College, Dublin, in April 2021 where I graduated with a thesis on the figure of the soldier in Italian and American post-World War II literature.

About my work:

During World War II, most European countries saw a Resistance movement born to fight the invading Nazi and Fascist ideology. Italy and France are no exceptions, and those are the two case studies I have decided to investigate on my PhD: even though the situations of the two are not equal, the memory of the internal fighting that happened between 1940 and 1945 has been used and reused in different ways to promote political messages. These messages differed depending on who was in charge and the political situation at the time, but they had in common one thing: the Resistance, in positive or in negative, was an inherently French or Italian phenomenon and viewed in a single, unidimensional light. My research looks at the creation of resistance narratives between 1947 and 1957, with a special focus on the role that two organizations of women, the UDI and the UFF, had in this process of creation. Both organizations were born during the war years, as female organizations created by women who were involved in the Resistance. What was the role of organs such as the Union Femmes Françaises the Unione Donne Italiane in the shaping of the narrative surrounding gender roles before and after the Liberation? How did media, such as the radio and television interact and shape the narratives of the Resistance? If politics promotes a specific interpretation of historical events to create a narrative that can fit its needs, how can historians and academics counteract with a narrative that has the potential of reaching a similar amount of people? What is the role of museum, archives, and national associations in preserving this memory? And, above all, what is the relationship between memory and the truth?

About me

The passion I cultivate for Classics, which I have always possessed, accompanied me throughout my high school years and my studies at Università della Calabria, where I went on to earn my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Lettere e beni culturali and Scienze dell’antichità, both centred around Latin and Greek languages and literatures but also including other subjects pertaining to classical antiquity and the humanities. During the course of my undergraduate studies, I began to study, on my own, Indo-European linguistics, as well as the Sabellian languages, on which I wrote my two dissertations. Specifically, the former deals with Osco-Latin biculturalism and bilingualism, while the latter is devoted to the Palaeo-Italic inscription from Tortora, the longest extant document realised by the Oenotrians. The Tortora text is also the subject of my article ‘The sacred law from Tortora’, recently published in the peer-reviewed journal ‘Latomus’. Last year, I obtained my Master of Philosophy in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter, where I am continuing my doctoral studies. I am awardee of the AHRC SWW DTP 2 scholarship. In addition to the Sabellian languages, my research interests include, and lie at the intersection of, Indo-European linguistics, comparative philology and Classics.

About my work

I am a PhD student in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter. The first goal of my research is a new, more accurate linguistic analysis of the inscriptions belonging to the South Picene group (including both the South Picene inscriptions proper and the related Pre-Samnitic ones). My contribution consists, first and foremost, in arriving at a novel linguistic analysis of the aforementioned documents, but also, through it, in peering into the history and customs of peoples whose precise identity continues to elude us. More specifically, it aims at reaching entirely new conclusions on the nature of the texts and the language(s) in which they are written, as well as, more generally, on the ties between South Picene and the other Sabellian varieties (old and more recent alike) spoken in Central Italy.

In order to interpret these inscriptions, I am adopting an interdisciplinary approach that is primarily linguistic, but also draws from other disciplines (including Classics, archaeology, ancient history and epigraphy). Using such methods, I count on gaining a very good understanding of the texts themselves at the level of phonology, morphology and syntax.

About me

After graduating in Linguistics from Girton College, Cambridge I went on to study the MA in Welsh and Celtic Studies at Cardiff's School of Welsh. My undergraduate dissertation examined the effectiveness of a particular method of second language instruction, the Total Physical Response. The linguistic landscapes of Cardiff was the topic of my MA dissertation. I have worked in second language Welsh teaching at secondary school and further education levels, most recently at the City Literary Institute, London. I continue to teach Welsh as a freelancer and am a keen Swedish learner. My doctoral research examines the suprasegmental pronunciation of adult learners of Welsh.

About my work

My research considers the pronunciation of adult learners of Welsh and examines their realisation of suprasegmental features of speech, i.e. those aspects of language above the level of individual sounds. I am focusing in particular on the realisation of stress and patterns of intonation in adult learners of Welsh from two sociolinguistically contrasting areas of south Wales with differing community Welsh language usage. My project will provide the first comparative phonetic description of learners’ prosody and compare their speech with fluent speakers from the same areas. I am also exploring possible transfer effects from two varieties of Welsh English and comparing this with transfer from non-Welsh varieties of English. The project aims to provide a description of synchronic prosodic variation and transfer within the context of minority language learning. I hope to make a direct contribution to the interesting and ongoing discussion surrounding the teaching and learning of pronunciation in Welsh for Adults classes.

About me

I graduated from BA (Hons) French, Italian and Spanish at Exeter in 2019. During this time, the seed was sown for learning about minority languages, sociolinguistics, and multilingualism. After a year of professional experience in Learning and Development and Higher Education, I returned to Postgraduate study at the University of Sheffield in 2020, where I recently obtained my MA in Modern Languages and Cultures (due to formally graduate, January 2022). My MA dissertation focused on contemporary identity among descendants of Cornish in Hidalgo, for which I achieved a High Distinction (86).

During my Master's degree, I developed my interests in Sociolinguistics, (particularly those of small and minoritised languages), in addition to theories based within Social Semiotics, Multimodality, and Visual Sociology. More broadly, I am a keen artist and crafter, and am interested in how artistic and creative practices can inform my research, and vice-versa. I have close working ties with the Institute of Cornish Studies at Penryn campus (Cornwall) and am keen on developing interdisciplinary and engaged methods of research.

About my work

I am a first-year doctoral student in the department of Modern Languages here at the University of Exeter. My research focuses on contemporary identity in the Cornish-Mexican diaspora of Hidalgo, Mexico, to which Cornish miners historically migrated. My study is kindly funded by the SWWDTP2 (South, West & Wales Doctoral Training Partnership).

My PhD project explores notions of identity in the Cornish-Mexican diaspora of the city of Pachuca (situated in Hidalgo, Mexico). Despite Cornish mining-related migration to this part of Mexico dating back to the 19th Century, Cornish imprints on the area’s tangible heritage remain salient. Taking a transnational perspective, this project aims to examine how locals interact with these multimodal spaces, bringing in notions of ‘intangible’ heritage which are yet to be examined within Cornish diaspora contexts. Drawing on a combination of innovative sociolinguistic approaches, this project examines the dynamics between ‘group’ and ‘individual’ notions of community.

About me

I first graduated back in 2004 with a BSc in International Relations and later returned to Higher Education (2012) to study for an MA in Translation Studies to underpin my voluntary work in this field. Alongside a varied career across the private and public sectors, my voluntary work led to co-founding the grassroots network Charity Translators in 2015. My language skills have come naturally through my roots in both Normandy and North Wales, however I have long since settled in the South West and I am currently based in Exeter.

About my work

This project will focus research activity on the intersection of Translation Studies and the Charity Sector. It builds on growing research in this field by engaging with charitable organisations at a regional level to explore their perceptions and practices of translation and interpreting. The South West is the geographic focus for research because of observable activity carried out in this area by the volunteer group Charity Translators. This research is driven by my own experiences of collaborating with more than 60 charities and nearly 350 language volunteers across the UK and beyond. These insights suggest that charitable organisations are experiencing a language problems at a local level, with preliminary data indicating a significant cost barrier in accessing language services, as well as a significant knowledge-gap around working with translation and interpreting. This project answers the need for place-based research to co-create knowledge and resources aimed at improving accessibility and awareness of translation and interpreting within the charity sector.