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Translation and the Construction of Identity: Abstracts
Date: 12-14 August 2004
Venue: Sookmyung Women's University, Seoul, Korea
David Katan Translation academics are
continuing to push the disciplines of translation and intercultural
communication ever closer. For a number of years now, interpreters and
translators have been hailed as mediators and as cultural interpreters or
condemned as manipulators. Indeed, ever since “the cultural turn” it has
seemed almost logical to presume that the translator mediates/manipulates
the text according to the context of the source and/or the target culture. Reality, though, appears – on the
surface at least - to be somewhat different. The European Union, for
example, is one of the largest (and most respected) employers of
translators, and has a history of supporting the development of languages,
their culture and translation. Yet, the EU official classification of the
translating and interpreting profession is under the group heading of
“secretarial activities”. The title of this paper gives a flavour of other
professions sharing the same group. Both translators and interpreters are
implicitly perceived (by the EU but not only) as able to transfer text from
language to language rather than capable of mediating or manipulating
discourse according to (cultural) context. The translator or interpreter is
seen – at best – as a walking dictionary. However, those involved in
translation and intercultural studies will agree that translated texts are
always more (or less) than copies. Texts contribute to the “construction and
maintenance of an ordered meaningful cultural world”, and “can serve as a
control and container for human action” (James Carey, Communication as
Culture: Essays on Media and Society, London 1992, 18-19). If the translator
is a copier, who is constructing the ordered meaningful cultural world? There would appear to be a number of possibilities.
The first possibility is that the reader alone is left with the
responsibility of interpreting meaning from an original copy, exactly as the
EU classification would suggest. Secondly, the academics might be right: the
professional interpreters and translators are going beyond their (self)
imposed habitus. Thirdly, though, it may well be that the task of
mediation/manipulation is being taken by another wholly separate profession,
such as the editor or ‘localiser’. Even more interesting (or worrying for
intercultural translation scholars) is the potential rise of the ‘cultural
interpreter’ who is not a translator. This person mediates the text for the
target readership, and in so doing further limits the translators’ scope for
action. Closely related to these human agents is the role of technology.
Though technology cannot (yet) translate the context, CAT and MT can
certainly take over much of a translator’s traditional task, leaving the
translator, once again, closer to envelope addressing and stuffing. This paper aims to take stock of
the situation at large and report on what seem to be the trends at the
moment, given on one hand the growing acceptance of the cultural factor in
translation, and, on the other, the potential or real encroachment on the
translators’ (potential) habitus.
Panel 1: Disciplinary Identity: Redefining Translation in the
21st Century
Mailers, Transcribers, Envelope Addressers and Stuffers?
Università degli studi di Trieste, Italy
© IATIS 2003