Professor Mona Baker is Professor of Translation Studies at the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, the University of Manchester, UK. She started her career with a BA in English and Comparative Literature from the American University in Cairo, and went on to get an MA in Special Applications of Linguistics from the University of Birmingham and a DSc (Higher Doctorate) from the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology (UMIST).
She lectured on translation and other areas of linguistics at the University of Birmingham and was Projects Manager at COBUILD (the Collins Birmingham University International Language Database), where she was responsible for designing a new range of bilingual dictionaries based on the translation of existing COBUILD dictionaries. In 1995, she began working at UMIST.
Professor Baker has made significant contributions to the development of translator training. Her work, In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (Routledge, 1992), which was specifically aimed at equipping translators in their discipline, has been reprinted at least twelve times and is widely adopted as a standard textbook in many parts of the world.
Her other works include Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (Routledge, 2006) and The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (Routledge, 1998, 2001), of which she was the editor. She is also founding editor of The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication (St. Jerome Publishing, 1995- ), editor of the forthcoming Critical Concepts: Translation Studies (Routledge, 4 Volumes), Editorial Director of St. Jerome Publishing, and Vice-President of IATIS (International Association of Translation & Intercultural Studies — www.iatis.org).
Her current main research interest lies in developing a narrative framework for analysing the positioning of translators and translation in situations of conflict. She is also interested in the use of corpora as resource for studying various features of translation, including the distinctive nature of translated texts and the distinctive styles of individual translators. |