Research

Research in LINCS focuses on our established strengths of translation and interpretation, as well as building the emerging areas of living cultural heritage and language policy.

Our translation and interpreting research is based in the internationally recognised Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies in Scotland (CTISS). The Centre provides a focus for research into the socio-professional use of language in multilingual environments. Its aims include investigation of the nature of the process of translating/interpreting and the construction of social communication, dissemination of research and the promotion of awareness of issues relating to the profession and to the training of interpreters and translators.

The CTISS brings together staff and postgraduate research in our core areas of translation studies, interdisciplinary social communication studies and discourse linguistics. A belief that understanding of textual strategies (genres, discourses, texts) is central to the discourse processes involved in translating and interpreting is a unifying theme of much of the work done in CTISS.

In addition to core research in translating and interpreting processes, the Centre also carries out research on contrastive textology and social communication science.

The focus of our Intercultural Research at Heriot-Watt is on the interface between cultures. It seeks to build understanding of interactions between different cultures on a wide variety of levels, including sub-cultures, gender cultures and linguistic cultures. Developing appreciation of the experience and discursive representation of living with, or between, different cultures, identities, communities or languages is another key area of interest.

Integral to this is our Intercultural Research Centre (IRC) which seeks to address key intercultural issues arising from the changing global context with a particular focus is on comparative work emphasising the applied dimensions of culture, with “culture” defined broadly in anthropological terms.