It is hard to imagine two things more intimately tied than language and food. Not just because they both require our mouths and tongues, and involve our emotions, but because they are two fundamental, defining aspects of the culture of a people. Translating food therefore poses some particularly demanding challenges that call for highly transcreative, outside-the-box thinking. In his talk, Mike will discuss the links between language, culture and food with particular reference to Italy, partly because Italian cuisine is so well known internationally and partly because it is the one Mike is most familiar with. All examples will be in English, although some Italian will inevitably creep in.
Michael Farrell is a freelance translator and transcreator, and a keen amateur cook. Over the years he has acquired experience in the food and cultural tourism fields. Mike also transcreates advertising copy and press releases, chiefly for the promotion of technology products. Besides this, he is an untenured lecturer in post-editing, machine translation and computer tools for translators at the IULM University in Milan; the developer of the terminology search tool IntelliWebSearch; author of A guide to machine translation for today’s professional translator; a qualified member of the Italian Association of Translators and Interpreters (AITI); and member of the Mediterranean Editors and Translators association (MET).