Translation Spaces - Volume 6, Issue 1, 2017

This paper explores authentically situated translation processes of literary translators, based on an empirical study of five professional German literary translators translating a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It focuses on macro-level workplace dynamics: How do translators working from home organize their task? With whom do they interact? Situational factors will emerge as constitutive elements of translatorial cognition and action, and it will be shown how the fragmentation of the translation process and the blurring of boundaries between the professional and personal spheres of life significantly impact the emergence of the translator’s voice and the translation product.

This paper investigates the translation spaces of a very specific translation practice, namely transcreation. In a marketing context, transcreation is usually concerned with the adaptation of advertising material into several different languages or for different markets. The paper is based on an ethnographic field study carried out at a marketing implementation agency in London, during which a group of transcreation managers was followed over a period of four weeks. The study relies mainly on observations of the interactions between the employees of the above-mentioned agency and their partners as well as on the researcher’s own participation in some of the agency’s work-related activities. As an activity, transcreation often involves two or more writers. These writers are most likely to be physically separated, but as the data from this study show, a transcreation agency can serve as a case for joint, situated efforts.

This paper proposes an affective approach to examining the interpreter’s role. More specifically, it suggests that, by considering the interpreters’ subjective feelings of involvement and detachment related to an interpreted event, we can examine the ways in which their role is constructed, within and through a combination of personal, social, and material factors related to the setting and the interpreter’s working conditions. As an example, I take the case of simultaneous interpreting in two religious settings, which I have studied with autoethnography. Thus, I analyze my experiences of interpreting in two religious settings and contrast these experiences to an “ideal” model of the interpreter’s role in such settings: that of the fully involved participant. The analysis indicates that, while an internalized ideal model of role may provide a point of reference for reflection, the actual experience of role emerges in a complicated interaction between personal, social, and material aspects.

This paper reports on an empirical study that investigates the translation process in the workplace from a cognitive ergonomic perspective. In particular, the interaction between ten translators employed by a language service provider and the tools they deploy are examined. To that end, we recorded the translators’ workplace activities using keystroke logging, screen recording and eye tracking, combined with short retrospective interviews. We analysed their behaviour in terms of how they switched between the two screens on their desks, how they used different tools and where they invested their visual attention. Data related to productivity and quality are also presented. Among other findings, our data reveal that validation searches for terms and general expressions lead to considerable tool and task switching among professional translators.

According to the International Ergonomics Association, a focus on organizational ergonomics recognizes that people work within socio-technical systems that encompass tools, equipment, and computer interfaces as well as other actors in their professional environment and networks. In recent research, we have started investigating such socio-technical factors from an ergonomic perspective. Observations at professional workplaces, responses to questionnaires, and in-depth interviews with translators suggest that their perceived self-determination is more important to the success of socio-technical change than the technological developments themselves. A lack of involvement in decision-making at the workflow level may explain why so many translators have been resistant to taking new technology on board. We discuss how a feedback culture could mitigate many socio-technical issues by giving translators a voice in change and empowering them to contribute to organizational learning and growth.

In his influential 2006 publication, Shreve, in citing Ericsson ( 1996 , 21), outlines a series of fundamental conditions that must be met in order for the translator to acquire expertise. While expertise research on professional translator performance in authentic contexts has only recently started to gain traction in earnest, these conditions for expertise acquisition, while well-suited for academic contexts involving formal translator training, may not be as readily realizable within the language industry. In an attempt to complement recent workplace studies on translation ( Risku and Windhager 2013 ; Ehrensberger-Dow 2014 ), our questionnaire-based explorative study sets out to gain a better understanding of how expertise in translation is conceptualized and fostered from within the language industry. By gauging how professional translators, as well as the project managers for whom they work, regard expertise from the perspective of the requisite conditions outlined by Shreve, we hope to establish greater clarity as to how expertise is envisioned, practiced, and valued along emic lines.

This paper addresses the relationship between practice and knowledge in translation. It employs practice theory to conceptualize ‘knowing-in-practice’, introducing a theoretical approach to translation studies that enables an analytical focus on the practice of translating, rather than on the cognitive processes of translators or the textual features of translations. Against this practice-theoretical backdrop, knowing is construed as an emergent phenomenon that is sited in translation practice. Drawing on an empirical analysis of translating in a research organization, the paper then illustrates how this situated and embodied knowing is materially and discursively mediated and transpires in translation practice. Through its interdisciplinary approach, this research offers new sociological perspectives on the human and material interdependencies constituting translation in the workplace.