FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation - Volume 10, Issue 1, 2012

This introduction is a synthesis of the approach we have chosen for this volume. In this day and age, when translation appears to have secured some legitimacy as a profession, the availability of translating tools of all sorts, and the far-reaching evolution of society at large, have multiplied opportunities for non-professional translating. Some of this translating is rather good and much of it is done collaboratively over a broad range of fields. This situation has prompted us to reflect on the will or desire to translate, among both professional and non-professional translators, in relation to the translator’s perception of truth. This urge to translate, however, must be supported by regulatory structures that can make translation less desirable or creative, but certainly more efficient. The risk of eventually seeing translation without translators is not a real one, but we have still to convince the rest of the world that this is so.

The history of translation shows us that the translator has always been on a quest for legitimacy and that he has been successful on many occasions. History teaches us that the lack of recognition from which the translator often suffers from today is not a legacy from the past and therefore not unavoidable.

Translating and translation are transformed with Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Yesterday, translation was invisible, denied – as a need, as a process, as a profession, and as a discipline. Within three decades, a new work environment has been shaking up the translators’ world. New types of translators are emerging. The balance between supply and demand is changing. However, we still need adequate tools and methods to investigate the new hierarchy which have become established between translators, between different kinds of job markets.

We present an empirical typology of professional translators based on three crossed criteria: point of view on the translation process (symmetrical or asymmetrical), approach (focus on unity, difference or linguistic multiplicity) and motivation (quest, recognition, expression, craftsmanship, subsistence, etc.). This typology supports six tropisms corresponding to different types and areas of professional translating. These in turn help to explain the discordance felt by translators between personal ethics and business imperatives, and justify career choices.

From what both groups claim, translators and press agency journalists do not seem to be engaged in the same activity, although they both practise interlingual transfer. The working conditions and priorities of agency journalists were analysed by means of interviews and field observations in order to determine the socio-cultural parameters of their “translating” activity: accuracy of information over faithfulness to the original, time pressure, adaptation to the target readership and story readability. According to the kind of source text used (signed note or direct quotation), agency journalists transfer text more or less freely from the source to the target language. Classical translation studies theories are not equipped to ascertain whether or not these different kinds of interlingual transfers can be considered as “translations”. Therefore it was necessary to resort to Relevance Theory, which emphasises adequacy of a text to its target readership, relying on the ratio of contextual effects to processing effort. Finally the classification drawn from Relevance Theory (“interpretive use” vs. “descriptive use”) was further developed and modified to give a better definition of different types of journalistic translation based on the practical experience of agency journalists.

Dans le contexte de la société de l’information et de la mondialisation, les nouvelles technologies permettent aux usagers de jouer un rôle proactif dans la création, la modification et la distribution de contenus sur Internet. Cet article explore les phénomènes du crowdsourcing et de la traduction amateur dans une perspective traductologique, en s’intéressant en particulier aux « traducteurs bénévoles ». Notre but est de proposer une vue d’ensemble des différents contextes et des différentes motivations relatives à la traduction collaborative et d’expliquer les difficultés de définir un profil unique concernant les bénévoles qui réalisent ces activités. Nous tentons de décrire quelques-unes des initiatives les plus marquantes catégorisées sous l’étiquette de traduction collaborative, en attachant une attention toute particulière aux différents objectifs des traducteurs non professionnels. De plus, les avantages ou les inconvénients de ces tendances émergentes sont analysés du point de vue de la pratique professionnelle de la traduction. Cet article entend contribuer à faire comprendre que la traductologie, étant donné son caractère multidisciplinaire et multidimensionnel, doit envisager les phénomènes liés au village planétaire.

Contrary to popular belief, comic books constitute a very specific category of texts. These, because of their multisemiotic nature, are very difficult to translate. Nonetheless, many a publisher is quick to resort to comic book fans to translate their comic strip books, believing that a reasonably decent knowledge of the foreign language and a strong passion for comic books will be enough to guarantee a good translation. The resulting translation is often a poor one that does not do justice to the original work and that might even affect sales. A number of practical examples and the experiment conducted by O’Hagan on manga comic books and scanlations show that the desire to translate and distribute comic strip books is sufficient to produce good translations.

In this novel, Brice Matthieussent depicts a translator who tries to get rid of the author and his « authority » by all kinds of means. Even if the narrative is very developed and sometimes difficult to follow, Matthieussent seems to aim at demonstrating the creative force and value of translation, however ‘spectral’ it may have been considered for long.

This paper examines the factors which can help a translator/reviser who has been practising his profession for over thirty years continue to feel motivated to translate. There are many factors which can keep the will to translate alive: the urge to tell a story, an appetite for discovery, the need to get to the bottom of things, the desire to pull off an exploit, a feeling of freedom, the desire to convey a message, etc.. All these urges, needs or feelings are outer manifestations of the will to translate. The diversity and strength of the factors driving the will to translate can help secure a positive outcome to the paradox that lies at the heart of a profession which often generates as much frustration as it does satisfaction.This will then allow a dialectic of desire and pleasure to emerge in which the will to translate can outlast the numbing effect of routine.

The desire to translate may not be innate; on the other hand some individuals may offer fertile ground for such a desire to grow and bear fruit. A wide variety of mental and physical elements may, like alchemy, combine to generate the need to translate. However, it would seem that a crucial trigger is required, which we can call the motive, to make us aware of this still unformed desire and put it into practice. In my own case, the determining parameters that led me to active translation were a receptiveness to others, an ability to listen, the repeated mental gymnastics involved in moving from one language to another, the practice of music, and an attraction to elsewhere in the broadest sense. The trigger was my meeting with a “spiritual father”, which awakened in me the desire – not to say the need – to translate his words and enabled me to combine and use the previously unconnected qualities that were required.

Two conference interpreters, two translators specialising in CAT and two specialists in subtitling discuss whether their work is in any way emotionally driven and more generally what factors they feel establish their legitimacy as professionals. They go on to describe the impact, sometimes positive but often problematic, of new technologies and the digital society on their professional practice. What attitude should they adopt as new technologies challenge their professional legitimacy and how should training courses accommodate these developments?

This article aims to find out how translators become professionals by examining their desire to translate. This desire entails an intimate aspect of the translation act. The article investigates the ideas of a professional vocation, professional socialisation and professional legitimacy. The article is based on the experience of the fourth Traductologie de plein champ exercise (Field-grown translation studies) and aims to account for the way in which those involved, professional or non-professional translators, teachers and members of bodies representing the profession – invoke the ideas of quality and desire in the professional rhetoric which they use. It will be shown how this idea of desire is used as a professional criterion and how this comes into conflict with the professional model sought by the professionals themselves.