Political discourse analysis from the point of view of translation studies

Political discourse very often relies on translation. Political Discourse Analysis (PDA), however, has not yet taken full account of the phenomenon of translation. This paper argues that the disciplines of Translation Studies (TS) and PDA can benefit from closer cooperation. It starts by presenting examples of authentic translations of political texts, commenting on them from the point of view of TS. These examples concern political effects caused by specific translation solutions; the processes by which information is transferred via translation to another culture; and the structure and function of equally valid texts in their respective cultures. After a brief survey of the discipline of Translation Studies, the paper concludes with outlining scope for interdisciplinary cooperation between PDA and TS. This is illustrated with reference to an awareness of product features, multilingual texts, process analysis, and the politics of translation.

Feminist translation studies:local and transnational perspectives

Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives situates feminist translation as political activism. Chapters highlight the multiple agendas and visions of feminist translation and the different political voices and cultural heritages through which it speaks across times and places, addressing the question of how both literary and nonliterary discourses migrate and contribute to local and transnational processes of feminist knowledge building and political activism. This collection does not pursue a narrow, fixed definition of feminism that is based solely on (Eurocentric or West-centric) gender politics—rather, Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives seeks to expand our understanding of feminist action not only to include feminist translation as resistance against multiple forms of domination, but also to rethink feminist translation through feminist theories and practices developed in different geohistorical and disciplinary contexts. In so doing, the collection expands the geopolitical, sociocultural and historical scope of the field from different disciplinary perspectives, pointing towards a more transnational, interdisciplinary and overtly political conceptualization of translation studies.

Doctoral work in translation studies as an interdisciplinary mutual learning process:how a translator, teacher educator and linguistic typologist worked together

The focus of this paper is on the doctoral research training experienced by one of the authors and the ways in which the diverse linguistic and disciplinary perspectives of her two supervisors (co-authors of this paper) mediated the completion of her study. The doctoral candidate is a professional translator/interpreter and translation teacher. The paper describes why and how she identified her research area and then focused on the major research questions in collaboration with her two supervisors, who brought their differing perspectives from the field of linguistics to this translation research, even though they are not translators by profession or disciplinary background and do not speak Korean. In addition, the discussion considers the focus, purpose and theoretical orientation of the research itself (which addressed questions of readability in translated English-Korean texts through detailed analysis of a corpus and implications for professional translator training) as well as the supervisory and conceptual processes and practices involved. The authors contend that doctoral research of this kind can be seen as a mutual learning process and that inter-disciplinary research can make a contribution not only to the development of rigorous research in the field of translation studies but also to the other disciplinary fields involved.

Talking at cross-purposes? The missing link between feminist linguistics and translation studies

Following decades of feminist linguistic activism, and as a result of a greater awareness of the vital role that non-sexist language plays in achieving social equality, different campaigns were launched in many countries leading to a more frequent use of so-called inclusive language. Bringing this together with current theoretical approaches to translation studies which have been defining translation as an ideological act of intercultural mediation since the 1990s, this article seeks to examine to what extent feminist linguistics have had any influence on translation studies. My purpose is to assess whether particular feminist linguistic interventions in vogue when writing ‘original’ texts within the realm of the source language are also adopted when (re)writing ‘translated’ texts in the target language, bearing in mind the double (con)textual responsibility that translators have towards the source and the target (con)texts. I will examine the arguments for and against the use of inclusive language in (literary) translation through an analysis of the ‘ideological struggle’ that emerged from two ideologically disparate rewritings of gender markers into Galician of the British bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon (2003), focusing on the ideological, poetic and economic pressures that (still) define the professional practice of translation. It is my contention that the close scrutiny of these conflicting arguments will shed light not only on the existing gap between the theory and practice of translation, but may be also indicative of a possible ‘missing link’ between feminist approaches to linguistics and to translation studies.

Work placements in doctoral research training in the humanities:eight cases from translation studies

Research cooperation between academic and nonacademic institutions tends not to concern the humanities, where mutual financial rewards are mostly not in evidence. The study of eight nonacademic placements of doctoral researchers working on interlingual translation nevertheless indicates some degree of success. It is found that the placements lead to ongoing cooperation when the following conditions are met: 1) the nature of the placement is understood and relations of trust are established; 2) mutual benefits are envisaged; and 3) there are prior arrangements for receiving visiting researchers. A placement can be successful even when one of the last two factors is missing. Further, the measure of success for placements in the humanities should concern social and symbolic benefits, in addition to financial profits.

Representing others:translation, ethnography and museum

Cultural anthropology has always been dependent on translation as a textual practice, and it has often used 'translation' as a metaphor to describe ethnography's processes of interpretation and cross-cultural comparison. Questions of intelligibility and representation are central to both translation studies and ethnographic writing - as are the dilemmas of cultural distance or proximity, exoticism or appropriation. Similarly, recent work in museum studies discusses problems of representation that are raised by ethnographic museums as multimedia 'translations'. However, as yet there has been remarkably little interdisciplinary exchange: neither has translation studies kept up with the sophistication of anthropology's investigations of meaning, representation and 'culture' itself, nor have anthropology and museum studies often looked to translation studies for analyses of language difference or concrete methods of tracing translation practices.

The Internet and other IT resources:tools for translators within a translation programme

Information technology has increased both the speed and medium of communication between nations. It has brought the world closer, but it has also created new challenges for translation — how we think about it, how we carry it out and how we teach it. Translation and Information Technology has brought together experts in computational linguistics, machine translation, translation education, and translation studies to discuss how these new technologies work, the effect of electronic tools, such as the internet, bilingual corpora, and computer software, on translator education and the practice of translation, as well as the conceptual gaps raised by the interface of human and machine.

Metaphor and translation:Some implications of a cognitive approach

Metaphor has been widely discussed within the discipline of Translation Studies, predominantly with respect to translatability and transfer methods. It has been argued that metaphors can become a translation problem, since transferring them from one language and culture to another one may be hampered by linguistic and cultural differences. A number of translation procedures for dealing with this problem have been suggested, e.g., substitution (metaphor into different metaphor), paraphrase (metaphor into sense), or deletion. Such procedures have been commented on both in normative models of translation (how to translate metaphors) and in descriptive models (how metaphors have been dealt with in actual translations). After a short overview of how metaphor has been dealt with in the discipline of Translation Studies, this paper discusses some implications of a cognitive approach to metaphors for translation theory and practice. Illustrations from authentic source and target texts (English and German, political discourse) show how translators handled metaphorical expressions, and what effects this had for the text itself, for text reception by the addressees, and for subsequent discursive developments. © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All right reserved.

Translation and intercultural communication: similarities and differences

Despite increasing attention in the last decade, both Intercultural Communication Studies (ICS) and Translation Studies (TS) seem to have reached a stage where some of the key concepts and assumptions are being challenged. This paper looks at similarities and differences in the use of shared concepts, especially the concept of intercultural communicative competence. It begins with a brief sketch of the development of the discipline of Translation Studies and goes on to present some assumptions which TS shares with ICS. However, the two disciplines operate with a different concept of communication and intercultural communicative competence: ICS is researching natural communication for independent acting, whereas TS is concerned with a specific kind of professionally enabled communication. The paper then presents a definition of a translationspecific cultural competence (based on Witte 2000) and illustrates the development of translation competence in the context of translator training at universities.