Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts - Volume 3, Issue 3, 2017

Collaborative translation practices have been receiving increased scholarly attention in recent years and have also given rise to attempts to conceptualise translation as an inherently collaborative phenomenon. In a parallel movement, though to a lesser extent, research from disciplines with a stake in collaborative processes has utilised translational thinking to interrogate collaboration afresh, both conceptually and practically. This paper charts the development of these two strands of research and discusses its potential, as well as the pitfalls arising from an as yet insufficiently linked-up approach between the various disciplines involved. It proposes the blended concept of ‘translaboration’ as an experimental and essentially ‘third-space’ category capable of bringing translation and collaboration into open conceptual play with one another to explore and articulate connections, comparisons, and contact zones between translation and collaboration, and to reveal the conceptual potential inherent in aligning these two concepts in both theory and practice.

Pioneered by feminist ethicist and psychologist Carol Gilligan in her 1982 work In a Different Voice, care theory rests, according to philosopher Rita Manning, on four key elements: Moral Attention, Sympathetic Understanding, Relationship Awareness, and Harmony. Combined with the notion of voice present in Gilligan’s title, each of these components represents a key portion of the translator-text-author relationship, particularly when translation is seen as negotiation. In this contribution, after examining the notion of translation as negotiation as Eco describes it, I will offer an overview of the psycho-sociological theory of care, with the aim of presenting it as a framework for ethical decision-making in negotiating the act of translation. The importance of translaboration will become evident through the theories of Ricoeur and an emphasis on the cooperative nature of ethically negotiated decisions; i.e., ‘trans’ and its insistence on moving across, beyond, through; and ‘laboration’ and its insistence on the continuing and ongoing process of working.

Forms of collaboration are particularly prevalent in translation of literature, especially of poetry, where the synergy of different perspectives of co-participants may be among the essential ingredients for creative success. In this study, we explore the dynamics of a collaborative translation into English of the contemporary Spanish poet Francisco Brines, addressing how certain key questions of translational practice, including the translation of gender values, can be fruitfully problematised and resolved in a theoretically grounded collaborative approach. In elucidating these dynamics, including those which destabilise and generate knowledge, we use the notion of translaboration, synthesising concepts drawn from activity theory and communities of practice theory. We illustrate and review this notion through a critical narrative of selected aspects of the translational work.

Decision-making is said by researchers from many disciplines to be the outstanding characteristic of modern societies ( Schimank 2005 , 51–53). Yet, a decision’s consequences often seem inconceivable or even absurd to an uninvolved bystander. Sociologists call this phenomenon “decision-making under conditions of limited rationality” ( Schimank 2005 , 127ff.). Examples include parliamentarians passing a law ‘just’ to get it over and done with before an upcoming election; or a buyer under pressure to purchase ‘any machine tool as long as it costs under € 500,000’.

This article takes a closer look at such phenomena, utilizing an empirical, linguistic approach to decision-making and communication. It argues that the most desired options are often the hardest to convey, and the ideas that are realised are often those that are easily expressed and already well-established. This is underlined by previous findings that many institutional outcomes are shaped by momentary (instantaneous) necessities and opportunities (cf. Schimank, 2005 , 27; Zehrer, 2014 ).

The article first gives an overview of previous studies on decision-making from different disciplines. It then sets out to explain in how far decision-making can be considered as ‘translaboration’, a new term introduced in 2015 by researchers from Westminster University in London (cf. Alfer, Cranfield, Kathrani, 2015 ). For the purposes of this article, the concept of ‘translaboration’ shall include first a tacit (from the addressees’ point of view) and non-deliberate (from the acting parties’ point of view) translation-like practice and, secondly, put special emphasis on the multimodal negotiation practice forming the basis of many organisational decisions. Examples from the economic world and politics will be used to demonstrate what the ‘translaboration’ concept means, and how a method rooted in it can reveal practices of organisational decision-making.

Adopting a sociological approach, this article focuses on the interface between fandom and translation. It investigates the structural rules and resources driving and conditioning translation activity in post-revolutionary Iran and the consequences it might engender. The textual and paratextual data is collected from the official and parallel volunteer translations of A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin. It is argued that translaboration, a blended concept aligning the notions of translation and collaboration, in cyberspace is a response to the structurally imposed constraints, and an attempt to take control of discourse and to resist the state rules which instrumentalise translation to perpetuate the dominant discourse. This type of translaboration, which is outside the official translational policies of the state, delineates the expectations not being met by the officially published translation, and also demarcates the formal and informal norms. Drawing on their resources, the translaborators not only empower the source text to reach a wider readership without the mediation of the institutional structures of power, but also in turn are empowered by the translation.

Sources of law are made up of terms that, amongst other things, mediate between facts and different results, and it is the role of lawyers to explain or justify why a particular interpretation or permutation of a given term should be taken in a given case. Such terms do not exist in isolation, but are hugely contextual and play an integral role in intermediating between different potential outcomes. Therefore, the skill of carefully applying and using legal terms is one of the primary focuses of legal education and calls for a consideration of the intricate role that legal terms play in legal argumentation. However, sometimes this endeavour in the law classroom is affected by the focus placed on the meaning of individual terms, as opposed to the broader role they have in legal reasoning and the analysis of legal outcomes. In considering this, this paper draws a contrast between the way in which students sometimes use different legal and moral terms in the various roles in their lives outside of the classrooms and within, and contends that one of the reasons for this is the greater liberty that they feel in using different terms outside of the classroom. This paper contends that, pedagogically, a similar level of independence can be achieved through the collaborative translation of legal concepts into abstract art, by enabling students to take greater co-ownership of legal language. Specifically, it argues that Wassily Kandinsky’s art theory, with its emphasis on the spirit and emotions, can provide an effective framework for this.

Translation, as a concept, may be regarded as a prototype of a ‘travelling concept’ as it has travelled to numerous disciplines in recent years. Therefore, a ‘translational turn’ was proclaimed for the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences (cf. Bachmann-Medick 2007 , 2009 ).

Outside of translation studies, the use of the translation concept is not bound to “translation proper” ( Jakobson 1959 , 232) or to the way in which the concept is used and defined in translation studies. Consequently, ‘translation’ is usually used as a very broad metaphor in translation studies’ neighbouring disciplines and fields of research. This mobility shows the potential and high polysemantic value of the translation concept. What we are missing, however, is a ‘translaboration’ between translation studies and the various other disciplines that employ translation studies’ master concept.

The paper will illustrate the background of the translational turn and the rise of the notion of ‘cultural translation’ as well as the deployment of the translation category in organisation studies and sociology. It will thus limit itself to examples from cultural studies and the social sciences. The paper’s aim is to revise and dispel some of the misconceptions held against translation proper and the discipline of translation studies, thereby showing that translation studies has the conceptual and theoretical grounding to be the leading discipline for the unfolding of a translational turn outside its disciplinary borders. Furthermore, the paper will show the common ground for a translaboration from which both translation studies and its neighbouring disciplines could ultimately benefit.