A la sombra de Babel. Signos y contextos de la integración

The conference about languages, translation and integration organized by the Centre for intercultural studies Ariel at the University IULM in Milan, on November 28th, 2007, involved a good number of scholars from different Italian universities and a great number of proposals and papers. These works were related to the development of the reflections on language, languages and their translatability, on the one hand, and with the last stages of translation studies and their incorporation in the academic world, on the other. The contributions collected in this volume go from topics such as teaching Spanish as a second language to the specific characteristics of literary translation, and the application of new technologies in foreign language teaching and the role of these technologies as tools for the translator. But, above all, these papers focus on the importance of the cultural elements which are transmitted through language. An invitation, in brief, to take on its plurality and instability. To stand “in Babel’s shadow”, learning not to inexorably search for mediations and to accept the dispersion and multiplicity of languages.