Coined just over two decades ago, Richard Florida’s concept of the ‘creative class’ has generated significant academic and popular interest. In the light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects, the ...present literature-based study examines the links between translators, interpreters, and the creative class. This is accomplished firstly by outlining relevant sociological perspectives pertaining to the status of the translational professions, before presenting and reviewing Florida’s definition of the creative class. Subsequently, building on a range of recent academic studies on the topic, attention turns to how the translation and interpreting professions navigated the unchartered territory of the coronavirus lockdowns. As such, the technological, practical, and pedagogical aspects will be presented, discussed, and compared with other creative professionals. Finally, the overview concludes with some brief potential implications for future professional practice.
This textbook provides an accessible introduction to the field of translation for students of other disciplines and readers who are not translators. It provides students outside the translation ...profession with a greater awareness of, and appreciation for, what goes into translation. Providing readers with tools for their own personal translation-related needs, this book encourages an ethical approach to translation and offers an insight into translation as a possible career. This textbook covers foundational concepts; key figures, groups, and events; tools and resources for non-professional translation tasks; and the types of translation that non-translators are liable to encounter. Each chapter includes practical activities, annotated further reading, and summaries of key points suitable for use in classrooms, online teaching, or self-study. There is also a glossary of key terms. De-mystifying Translation: Introducing Translation to Non-translators is the ideal text for any non-specialist taking a course on translation and for anyone interested in learning more about the field of translation and translation studies. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
This article reports on an investigation which forms part of a comprehensive empirical project aimed at investigating the status of professional translators and interpreters in a variety of contexts. ...The purpose of the research reported on here was to investigate the differences in terms of occupational status between the three groups of professional business translators which we were able to identify in relatively large numbers on the Danish translation market: company, agency and freelance translators. The method involves data from questionnaires completed by a total of 244 translators belonging to one of the three groups. The translators’ perceptions of their occupational status were examined and compared through their responses to questions evolving around four parameters of occupational prestige: (1) salary/income, (2) education/expertise, (3) visibility, and (4) power/influence. Our hypothesis was that company translators would come out at the top of the translator hierarchy, closely followed by agency translators, whereas freelancers would position themselves at the bottom. Although our findings largely confirm the hypothesis and lead to the identification of a number of differences between the three groups of translators in terms of occupational status, the analyses did in fact allow us to identify more similarities than differences. The analyses and results are discussed in detail, and avenues for further research are suggested.
Translation is considered as a form of intercultural communication which involves the cooperation of many agents. In recent years, increased attention has been focused on the people and institutions ...involved with translation. One of the main research areas that has recently emerged is the investigation of the link between the sociology of professions and the status of translation as an occupation. This study aims to determine the current challenges to establishing a professional status for translators in Iran and attempts to offer solutions for improving the status quo based on the suggestions of active agents in the field. The data for this study were collected qualitatively through in-depth interviews using a purposive sample of translation agents in Iran. The results indicate that there are numerous administrative, educational, social and financial challenges facing translation as a profession in Iran. The proposed solutions for improving the current situation have been discussed in the light of the relevant literature.
COVID-19 is an unprecedented global health and socio-economic crisis, with cascading effects. In a bid to combat the pandemic, Jordan has imposed extreme measures, including border shutdowns, ...declaring a state of emergency, and a lockdown. These measures have had an adverse impact upon businesses and professions, including translation1. Translators play a significant role in disseminating health information in times of crisis. This paper reports the results of a large-scale survey of translators' perspectives in the Jordanian context on the pandemic and its effects on their role and profession during the time of COVID-19 restrictions. A quantitative five-scale Likert questionnaire was completed by 106 in-house and freelance professional translators. The results showed that COVID-19 has had adverse effects on translators in the Jordanian context. Translators faced several challenges during the pandemic, including career change or loss, lower income, increased workload and time pressure, high-level job demands, unclear job prospects, and anxiety about their future. The results also highlighted that language service providers (LSPs) as well as translators need to play a more active role during times of crisis. The findings of this study suggest that further research is necessary to investigate the effect of COVID-19 and similar pandemics on translators' experiences of occupational stress and job satisfaction in Jordan.
The articles in this thematic section all address questions concerning the translation profession, translator status and identity in ways that are associated with the concept of boundaries. The ...ar-ticles are based on presentations held at a panel on translator status and identity during the 8th Congress of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST), organised at Aarhus University, in September 2016. The panel and the present thematic section comprise a continuation of the dis-cussion of these themes in the previous EST Congress and in the thematic issue of The Journal of Specialised Translation titled “The translation profession: centres and peripheries” (2016), edited by Helle Vrønning Dam and Kaisa Koskinen. In this introduction, we first discuss the concept of boundaries around and within the transla-tion profession as introduced by Dam/Koskinen in the above-mentioned thematic issue. Next, as all the articles in this thematic section represent sociological research into translation and transla-tors, we draw attention to boundary work within the discipline of Translation Studies; building on Andrew Chesterman’s (2006, 2009) map of Translator Studies, we propose a continuum of Socio-logical vs. Cultural Translator Studies. Finally, we introduce the articles, considering the kinds of boundaries they explore and where they are placed on the continuum.
This article reports on a study which is part of an ongoing project, investigating occupational status within the translation profession by focusing on professional translators and interpreters of ...different kinds and in different contexts. The study is specifically concerned with the job status of the category generally regarded as the
stars
of the profession, i.e. conference interpreters. It investigates the self-perceived occupational status of a group of Danish staff interpreters at the European Union, comparing it to that of Danish staff translators in the same organization. The research is based on data from an online survey, completed by 86 respondents (23 interpreters and 63 translators). The study hypothesis was that the conference interpreters would position themselves at the very top of the status continuum for the translation profession as a whole, and that the translators would situate themselves at a lower level — though not at the very bottom, considering their profile as staff translators in a prestigious international context. This hypothesis was only partially borne out by the research findings.
A survey of 305 translation scholars shows that some 96 percent of them have translated or interpreted “on a regular basis,” with
translation/interpreting being or having been a main or secondary ...activity for 43 percent of the scholars. Translation scholars
would also seem to be particularly mobile (71 percent have spent more than one year in a country other than their own) and come
from diverse academic and professional backgrounds (33 percent were not engaged in translation and interpreting in their
mid-twenties). These figures indicate that translation scholars not only have considerable practical experience of translation but
also come from a wide range of occupational and cultural backgrounds. Asked about desirable relations between scholarly work and
professional practice, respondents indicated benefits for both sides (although a slight majority stressed a unidirectional
relationship where scholarly work benefits from professional practice), and teaching is often indicated as the link between the
two. However, about a quarter of the scholars indicated that there
need not
be a relationship between scholarship
and professional practice.
The layers of subtitling Di Giovanni, Elena
Cogent arts & humanities,
12/2016, Volume:
3, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The study of subtitling, although widely practiced over the past 20 years, has generally been confined to comparative studies focusing on the product of subtitle translation, with little or no ...consideration of the conditions of creation and reception. Focusing on the process of subtitle production, occasional studies have touched upon the cognitive processes accompanying it, but no study so far has related these processes, and the resulting products, to various degrees of translators' competence. This is precisely what this essay does, focusing on the different layers of subtitle translation provided for two different films and in two different contexts. By analysing the first and second versions of subtitle translations, we shall reflect on the acquisition, and application, of different subtitling competences.
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