Translation, Interpreting and Culture

Introduction

Tradition, innovation, current trends, developments, shifts, new contexts and new challenges – these are all concepts that have abounded in numerous works of translation and interpreting studies (TIS). The dynamic character of a discipline that has constantly had to react to a rapidly developing market and profession has for decades fascinated scholars attempting to capture its essence in time and to encompass the gaps between its theory and practice. The central themes of this publication carry on this tradition. Presented are a selection of high-quality, cutting-edge contributions from the conference Translation, Interpreting and Culture: Old Dogmas, New Approaches (?), held in Nitra, Slovakia, in September 2018. The conference was attended by eminent speakers from all over Europe, the USA and Asia, and featured world-renowned keynote speakers Edwin Gentzler, Andrew Chesterman and Daniel Gile. The titular scope of the conference and this publication – the clash between old and new approaches to translation and interpreting – focuses on the theoretical, methodological, empirical and paradigmatic tensions and intersections between various traditions in translation and interpreting studies. These are approached not only from a generational but also from a geographical, sociocultural and political point of view, aiming to foster communication among them and reveal synergies between the latest research trends and pre-existing methodologies and approaches.

The concept of confronting the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ has been a recurrent one in the discipline, and efforts to reflect on the forces behind modern developments, discussing whether, where and why the paradigm of the discipline is shifting, are alluring. Dealing with such an issue in a single coherent volume might be considered excessively challenging, but the editors of this publication believe that mapping the discipline in the context of current developments and more traditional approaches might contribute to future debate. This aim can also be seen in the structure of the publication, bringing into focus contributions from the less-represented spaces in traditional TIS, offering the views of authors from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, Poland and Greece. Our goal is to connect authors from these regions, providing their perspectives on translation theory, history and criticism regarding not only developments in translation and interpreting in changing contexts and the challenges in working with ←13 | 14→texts that transcend genre and media, but also reflection of the developments in translator and interpreter training. We look at these areas from the point of view of interpreting, translation history and new trends in translation studies (TS) research which cannot fit into any specific paradigm. We are not aware of many similar attempts to unite such diverse approaches. Publications are usually focused on specific aspects of translation, interpreting and methodology, and they only rarely look at the issue from such a wider perspective. We believe that such a broader approach might bring some fresh stimuli into the discussion on TIS. This publication thus provides a space to look at translation and interpreting from various and diverse perspectives in a coherent way, welcoming often newer and yet unfamiliar voices which may bring new insights into the traditional TIS mainstream.

In the second section the focus moves to selected contemporary issues in interpreting, paying attention to the professional performance and status of interpreters in various settings today. The role of sign language interpreters and their social representation is analysed in a contribution by İmren Gökce Vaz De Carvalho in her case study on the situation in Turkey. It shows that Turkish sign language interpreters regard themselves more as helpers and assistants rather than professionals in interpreting, which might relate to the status of the profession in the country but can also be interpreted in the context of the power relations between the hearing majority and the d/Deaf community. A different perspective is used in Anthony Hoyte-West’s survey of the status of conference ←14 | 15→interpreters, in which he applies the theories of elite sociology with the aim of examining whether conference interpreters actually can be said to represent an elite in the profession. Conference interpreting training from the perspective of high professional requirements lies at the centre of attention of the last of the contributions in the section, by Maria Bakti, and which presents the results of a longitudinal study in training conference interpreting skills from English into Hungarian. The third section is dedicated to the translation of texts that transcend genre, text type and media borders. The authors look at textual and agential hybridity in translation (Büşra Yaman), theoretical concepts of localisation (Marián Kabát) and quality in translation crowdsourcing of professional and non-professional translators (Maria Stasimioti, Vilelmini Sosoni and Katia Lida Kermanidis). Although from different areas, all three contributions manage to operationalise concepts of new hybrid transcending strategies in the process of translation. Similar efforts can be observed in the last section of the publication in the context of training translators and interpreters. In the last three studies, the editors of this book, as well as Pavol Šveda and Soňa Hodáková, attempt to contextualise the new developments in academic training, identifying space for improvement and further potential with regard to the translation and interpreting profession in the region.

Translators and Publishers in Czechoslovakia (1968–1989): Following and Subverting the Ideology

Keywords: translation history, literary translation, ideology, censorship, foreword, afterword, paratext