Translating Asymmetry Rewriting Power

The relevance of translation has never been greater. The challenges of the 21st century are truly glocal and societies are required to manage diversities like never before. Cultural and linguistic diversities cut across ideological systems, those carefully crafted to uphold prevailing hierarchies of power, making asymmetries inescapable. Translation and interpreting studies have left behind neutrality and have put forward challenging new approaches that provide a starting point for researching translation as a cultural and historical product in a global and asymmetrical world. This book addresses issues arising from the power vested in and arrogated by translation and interpreting either as instruments of change, or as tools to sustain dominant structures. It presents new perspectives and cutting-edge research findings on how asymmetries are fashioned, woven, upheld, experienced, confronted, resisted, and rewritten through and in translation. This volume is useful for scholars looking for tools to raise awareness as to the challenges posed by the pervasiveness of power relations in mediated communication. It will further help practitioners understand how asymmetries shape their experiences when translating and interpreting.

This pioneering work advocates for a shift toward inclusivity in the UK translated literature landscape, investigating and challenging unconscious bias around women in translation and building on existing research highlighting the role of translators as activists and agents and the possibilities for these new theoretical models to contribute to meaningful industry change. The book sets out the context for the new subdiscipline of feminist translator studies, positing this as an essential mechanism to work towards diversity in the translated literature sector of the publishing industry. In a series of five case studies that each exemplify a key component of the feminist translator studies "toolkit", Vassallo draws on exclusive interviews with a range of activist translators and publishers, setting these in dialogue with contemporary perspectives on feminism and translation to propose a new agent-based model of feminist translation practice. In synthesising these perspectives, Vassallo makes a powerful argument for questioning existing structures in the translated literature publishing system which perpetuate bias and connects these conversations to wider social movements towards promoting demonstrable change in the industry. This book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of translation studies and publishing, as well as for the various agents involved in promoting translated literature in the UK and beyond.

This book explores the actual process of mediation operation in the translation process and the interaction between mediation and social structure. It defines mediation in translation in a parameterized manner, characterizing the linguistic properties of mediation for ease of mediation identification. On this basis, it puts forward an integrated systematic approach to map out mediation operation at the text level and discuss the interactive relationship between mediation and social structure, with a view to unveiling how the source text is altered for the purpose of power balance in the translation process. It is a key read for those interested in better understanding of how translators mediate in the translation process so as to maneuver a text to achieve a certain purpose, thereby increasing mediation efficiency and avoiding potential pitfalls in mediation operation. It will be of interest to students and scholars in translation studies, professional translators, as well as those working in language and culture, intercultural communication, and cultural studies.

This collection re-envisions the academic study of institutional translation and interpreting (ITI), revealing oppression in established institutional spaces toward challenging existing policies and the myths which inhibit critical inquiry within the field. ITI is broadly conceived here as translation and interpreting delivered in or for specific institutions, understood as social systems and spanning national, supranational, and international organizations as well as immigration detention centers, prisons, and national courts. The volume is organized around three parts, which explore ITI spaces and practices revealing oppressive practices, dispelling myths regarding translation and interpreting, and shedding light on institutional spaces that have remained invisible and hidden, and therefore underexplored. The chapters in this book vividly illustrate similarities and contrasts between the different contexts of ITI, revealing shared power dynamics that uphold social hierarchies. Throughout this comparison, the book makes a compelling case to consider the different contexts of ITI as equally contributing to actionable knowledge on how institutions shape translation and interpreting and how these are operated in sustaining such hierarchies. Offering a window into previously underexplored spaces and generating new lines of inquiry within ITI studies, this book will be of interest to scholars and policymakers in translation and interpreting studies.

This innovative collection explores the points of contact between translation practice and ecological culture by focusing on the relationship between ecology and translation. The volume’s point of departure is the idea that translations, like all human activities, have a relational basis. Since they depend on places and communities to which they are addressed as well as on the cultural environment which made them possible, they should be understood as situated cultural practices, governed by a particular political ecology. Through the analysis of phenomena that relate translation and ecological culture (such as the development of ecofeminism; the translation of texts on nature; translation in postcolonial contexts; the role of dialect and minority languages in literary translation and institutional language policies and the translation of texts on migration) the book offers interpretive models that contribute to the development of eco-translation. Th volume showcases a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to an emerging disciplinary field which has gained prominence at the start of the 21st century, and places special emphasis on the perspective of gender and linguistic diversity across a wide range of languages. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in translation studies, linguistics, communication, cultural studies, and environmental humanities.

This collection re-envisions the academic study of institutional translation and interpreting (ITI), uncovering the ways in which institutional practices have inhibited knowledge creation and encouraging stakeholders to continue to challenge the assumptions and epistemics which underpin the field. ITI is broadly conceived here as translation and interpreting delivered in or for specific organizations and institutional social systems, spanning national, supranational, and international organizations as well as financial markers, universities, and national courts. This volume is organized around three sections, which collectively interrogate the knower – the field itself – to engage in questions around “how we know what we know” in ITI and how institutions have contributed to or hindered the social practice of knowledge creation in ITI studies. The first section challenges the paths which have led to current epistemologies of ignorance while the second turns the critical lens on specific institutional practices. The final section explores specific proposals to challenge existing epistemologies by broadening the scope of ITI studies. Giving a platform to perspectives which have been historically marginalized within ITI studies and new paths to continue challenging dominant assumptions, this book will appeal to scholars and policymakers in translation and interpreting studies.

Indirect Translation Explained is the first comprehensive, user-friendly book on the practice of translating indirectly in today’s world. Unlike previous scholarly approaches, which have traditionally focused on translating from the original, this textbook offers practical advice on how to efficiently translate from an already translated text and for the specific purpose of further translation. Written by key specialists in this area of research and drawing on many years of translation teaching and practice, this process-focused textbook covers a range of languages, geographical settings and types of translation, including audiovisual, literary, news, and scientific-technical translation, as well as localization and interpreting. Since this topic addresses the concerns and practices of both more peripheral and more dominant languages, this textbook is usable by all, regardless of the language combinations they work with. Featuring theoretical considerations, tasks for hands-on practice, suggestions for further discussion and diverse, real-world examples, this is the essential textbook for all students and autodidacts learning how to translate via a third language. Additional resources are available on the Routledge Translation Studies Portal: http://routledgetranslationstudiesportal.com

The digital era is characterised by technological advances that increase the speed and breadth of knowledge turnover within the economy and society. This book examines the impact of these technological advances on translation and interpreting and how new technologies are changing the very nature of language and communication. Reflecting on the innovations in research, practice and training that are associated with this turbulent landscape, chapters consider what these shifts mean for translators and interpreters. Technological changes interact in increasingly complex and pivotal ways with demographic shifts, caused by war, economic globalisation, changing social structures and patterns of mobility, environmental crises, and other factors. As such, researchers face new and often cross-disciplinary fields of inquiry, practitioners face the need to acquire and adopt novel skills and approaches, and trainers face the need to train students for working in a rapidly changing landscape of communication technology. This book brings together advances and challenges from the different but intertwined perspectives of translation and interpreting to examine how the field is changing in this rapidly evolving environment.