On April 2-3, Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty of Humanities (VU KFH) organised the 2nd international scientific conference “Thought Elaboration: Linguistics, Literature, Media Expression: TELL ME ‘14”. The event organised by the Department of Germanic Philology was full of innovative and diverse presentations as well as an impressive programme.
Rich and innovative programme
During the 2 days, “TELL ME ‘14” accommodated 47 presentations in different sessions and discussions, and even 5 workshops. The thought-out programme also included a review of short films directed by students.
During the two days of “TELL ME ’14”, linguists, translators and representatives of modern media and cinema from Vilnius University, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuanian Sports University, Šiauliai University, Mykolas Riomeris University, Vilnius University of Applied Sciences, Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences and Lithuanian Association of Literary Translators shared their insights on literature, linguistics and audiovisual art. This year, the conference welcomed scientists from Ukraine, France, Estonia, Turkey and Latvia. The workshop “Accessibility of Information for the Hard of Hearing: Modification and Application of Audiovisual Material” attracted a lot of attention; the workshop was moderated by the representatives of the sign language club “Live Sign Language” (Vytautas Magnus University) Rūta Taraškevičiūtė, Giedrė Andziulytė and Kęstutis Vaišnora. According to them, these types of conferences are always welcome because they encourage to improve, expand one’s circle and collaborate. Analysis and discussions on relevant interdisciplinary topics expand the knowledge of both the participants and the audience, while sharing information points to a constantly increasing demand for new knowledge and collaboration. According to Rūta Taraškevičiūtė, it is always important to share one’s good experience, especially if the colleagues find it exiting and interesting.
The most important advantage - interdisciplinarity
One of the participants of “TELL ME ‘14” David Cocksey (Jean-Francois Champollion University, France) claimed that he had had a great opportunity to share his insights on literature, linguistics, translation and semiotics. According to him, a thoughtful thematic organisation of the sessions revealed the interdisciplinary aspect of the conference, whereas the intellectual and cultural exchange was a perfect opportunity to develop mutual projects in the future.
Translator Vyturys Jarutis from the Lithuanian Association of Literary Translators admitted that his participation in the conference had been encouraged by his hunger for new knowledge in the field of audiovisual translation. However, he maintained that it was important to not only admire the technology behind it, but also pay attention to literature because the main principles of any text are always the same, i.e. translation of films also has the same basic translation rules as other types of translation (novels, plays, etc.).
His colleague Kristina Sprindžiūnaitė(Lithuanian Association of Literary Translators) was impressed by the fact that this conference transcends traditional philology and is interdisciplinary: “Interdisciplinarity, on the one hand, is an interesting aspect; on the other hand, it is not that easy as it requires to tie together a lot of various threads, which is a considerable challenge. However, this interaction evokes unexpected yet very interesting combination, and if it weren’t for the conference, you wouldn’t even find such combinations. It is especially important for the academic youth because it expands their outlook and encourages to take up new activities, and when audio, visual and verbal texts interact, a completely new entity begins to act, which is different from a plain paper or Word sheet”, says translator K. Sprindžiūnaitė.
PhD student Sedat Yildirim from Turkey shared his new experience and ideas; he acquired his MA degree in Riga (Latvia) and is currently a PhD student at Tallinn University. Sedat has already managed to sign up for the next conference at Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty of Humanities – “Man in the Space of Language” (Lith. Žmogus kalbos erdvėje) which is organised by the Department of Foreign Languages and starts in May.
Miglė Onskulytė (Department of Germanic Philology, VU KFH)