University of Johannesburg
and FIT Council member

Eleanor Cornelius is an associate professor and head of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Johannesburg. She holds a doctoral degree in Applied Linguistics from the same institution.

Eleanor has read papers at numerous local and international language and linguistics conferences. She also regularly presents workshops in academic and corporate contexts on the topic of Plain Language. She is often called upon to review papers for publication in scholarly journals and to act as external examiner for undergraduate modules and postgraduate studies at other universities.

She serves on the Council of the International Federation of Translators (FIT). In addition, she is the vice-chair of the South African Translators’ Institute (SATI), a SATI accredited simultaneous interpreter in two directions, a member of the Accreditation Committee of SATI, a member of the Linguistic Society of South Africa (LSSA) and a member of the South African Applied Linguistic Association (SAALA). Eleanor is also a founding member of ATSA (African Translation Studies Association), which was estabished in 2016. Eleanor is also the liaison between DFKI (a Germany-based company dealing with MT and AI) and FIT on the QT21 project.
Her research interests include legal translation, interpreting, plain language, the language of the law and, more recently, the impact of MT on the translation profession.