Dam, Helle Vrønning, Nisbeth Brøgger, Matilde and Zethsen, Karen Korning (eds) (2019). Moving Boundaries in Translation Studies.
London and New York: Routledge, pp. 237, £93.50 (hardback). ISBN 978 1138563650.
This collective volume builds on “Moving Boundaries,” the theme of the 8th Congress of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST), which reflects the editors’ aim of thinking about changes that translation has experienced over the past decades and their implications (1).
Overall, the editors managed to keep this 13-chapter collection focused on the theme. Well done! Their very good introduction highlights well each chapter’s contribution and is a good synopsis per se. This review, bound by stringent space constraints, will be more evaluative.
The reflection component in the volume is rich, with observations on how evolving technology, in particular, has challenged traditional views about boundaries between translation, revision and post-editing (Jakobsen), translation, subtitling, localisation, adaptation (Dam and Zethsen), translation and interpreting, various forms and modes of interpreting (Pöchhacker). Some authors, and in particular Jakobsen, offer interesting specific analyses. Others do not go into the nitty gritty. Chesterman discusses four types of conceptual innovation: initial naming (“platypus concepts”), renaming (“rebranding”), splitting existing categories (“splitter concepts”) and merging (“lumper concepts”). The metaphors are entertaining and may well become popular, but will they be put to productive use? Chesterman might have gone deeper into motivations for conceptual-lexical innovation with a few case studies such as the creation of the term “Interpreting Studies”, the rebranding of “TS” as “TIS”, or (this reviewer’s) insistence on splitting the widespread “strategies” into “strategies” and “tactics” for research purposes to demonstrate that his lexico-conceptual categories are a truly useful tool for analysis.
Pöchhacker explains that with evolving forms of interpreting, boundaries between interpreting and translation and between various interpreting types and modalities are no longer as clear as they were. His analysis is conceptual, and implications as regards competencies and training are missing. This also applies to Jiménez-Crespo’s reflections on how the practice of localisation has raised the question of where localisation and translation stand vs. each other. Dam and Zethsen used focus group methodology to investigate translators’ and translation managers’ views on what is and what is not translation, and construct a prototype-theory based model of Translation, but do not discuss practical implications. Van Doorslaer extends the discussion to external views (from outside the discipline). O’Brien and Conlan offer observations on translation technology and speak in favor of personalising it to improve translator-MT tool interaction, and Ehrensberger-Dow and Jääskeläinen report on an exploratory survey-based study of ergonomics in translation and the translators’ wishes for improvements, but present no evidence-based assessment of the cost of sub-optimal working conditions.
McDonough Dolmaya’s mapping of translation communities around three translators’ blogs using social network analysis and a visualisation programme is a descriptive study which could perhaps lead to interesting insights into social relationships and their practical implications within the universe of professional (and non-professional) translators, but the author does not go into such an analysis. Rogers points out that the boundaries between literary and non-literary translations are fuzzy — features of literary texts are found in documentary and other allegedly non-literary texts and vice-versa — but is that new? What applied in the pre-digital age also applies to recent forms of translation which emerged with new technology. Similarly, the idea that intralingual translation has much in common with interlingual translation (Berk Albachten) is not new – but the case study of intralingual translation from 19th century Ottoman literature is interesting. So is the sociological concept of “boundary work” (Grbić and Kujamäki) as applied to professional vs. non-professional translation boundaries, and the two authors make a good case for integrating non-professional translation and interpreting into the purview of TIS. But their claims about intentions behind the focus on professional translation are just one possibility. Another is that researchers focus on professional translation without a particular agenda, but because this is where practitioners, trainers and students seek some benefit from research.
Translanguaging, the use of more than one language in bi-directional exchanges in the language classroom (Laviosa), is at first sight remote from translation and interpreting and therefore somewhat out of focus. However, it is less remote from ‘natural’ translation and interpreting, and research into such practices could bring interesting insights into the translation process, so there is a case for extending the boundaries of investigation into Translation to cover translanguaging as well.
Summing up: more analyses about practical implications of the reported changes would have been welcome, but conceptually speaking, the volume is interesting, shows that indeed, external boundaries are expanding and internal boundaries are blurring (230), and is likely to raise awareness and stimulate the readers’ own reflections about what recent developments mean in the changing Translation landscape.
Daniel Gile
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3
E-mail: daniel.gile@yahoo.com