Douglas Robinson (academic)

Douglas Robinson ( born September 30, 1954 in Lafayette, Indiana ) is an American linguist, author and translator. In his monograph, he deals with interpersonal communication and social interaction, and in particular with their expression in literature, rhetoric, and translation. Robinson has since 2012 Dean of the Faculty of Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University.

Life

Douglas Robinson was born in Lafayette, Indiana and grew up in Los Angeles and Seattle. In 1971 he went for an exchange year in Finland. After his return, he worked as a student at Linfield College and the Evergreen State College. He returned to Finland, where he made three degrees in English. In addition, he taught full-time in the English department of the University of Jyväskylä. In 1981 he went back to the U.S. to write his doctoral thesis at the University of Washington. After 1983, he received his doctorate, he took a job as a lecturer in English Language and Literature at the University of Tampere in Finland. From 1987 he taught translation theory and practice for English- Finnish at the same university. From 1989 to 2010 he worked as a professor of English at the University of Mississippi. From 2010 to 2012, he was the head of the English department at the University of Lingnan. Since 2012 Robinson Dean of the Faculty of Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University.

Services

Douglas Robinson has published numerous monographs that deal with his research in various disciplines. These include, among others, literary studies, cultural studies, linguistics, translation science and philosophy of mind. He also published several translations from Finnish into English and some textbooks. Two of these textbooks are specifically for Finnish students of English. More textbooks are aimed at all students of translation studies, linguistic pragmatics, and writing. He also worked together with Ikka Rekiaro to an English- Finnish dictionary with 26,000 entries for each language direction.

Publications (selection )

• Translation and Taboo. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb 1996, ISBN 978-0875805719.
• What Is Translation? Centrifugal Theories, Critical Interventions. Kent State University Press, Kent 1997, ISBN 978-0873385732.
• Becoming a translator. An introduction to the theory and practice of translation. Routledge, London 1997, ISBN 978-0-415-14860-3.
• Translation and empire. Postcolonial theories Explained. St. Jerome, Manchester, 1997, ISBN 978-1900650083.
• Who Translates? Translator subjectivities beyond reason. SUNY Press, Albany 2001, ISBN 978-0791448649.
• Performative Linguistics. Speaking and Translating as Doing Things With Words. Routledge, London 2003, ISBN 978-0415300360.
• Translation and the Problem of Sway. John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia 2011, ISBN 978-9027224408.
• Displacement and the Somatics of Postcolonial Culture. Ohio State University Press, Columbus, 2013, ISBN 978-0814293416.