Unscripting the Ethical Code in Translation Studies: The self, the other and the machine in the 'ethics of alterity' (original) (raw)

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics

2020

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics offers a comprehensive overview of issues surrounding ethics in translating and interpreting. The chapters chart the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of ethical thinking in Translation Studies and analyze the ethical dilemmas of various translatorial actors, including translation trainers and researchers. Authored by leading scholars and new voices in the field, the 31 chapters present a wide coverage of emerging issues such as increasing technologization of translation, posthumanism, volunteering and activism, accessibility and linguistic human rights. Many chapters provide the first extensive overview of the topic or present new takes on established areas. The book is divided into four parts, with the first covering the most influential ethical theories. Part II takes the perspective of agents in different contexts and the ethical dilemmas they face, while Part III takes a critical look at central institutions structuring and controlling ethical behaviour. Finally, Part IV focuses on special issues and new challenges, and signals new directions for further study. This handbook is an indispensable resource for all students and researchers of translation and ethics within translation and interpreting studies, multilingualism and comparative literature.

Translation Ethics: From Invisibility to Difference

2017

Since its inception as an academic discipline, Translation Studies has contributed in the past few decades to raise the status of translation as a field of critical thought in general, and of translators as cultural agents in particular. However, translation and translators have been around for millennia, and to speak of them is to speak of the very roots of language and civilization. It is also to speak about ethics. In this article, I propose to briefly review the history of translation ethics, by beginning to make an etymological and conceptual distinction between ethics and morality, and then focusing on the notion of fidelity as the traditional moral guideline for translators. Afterwards, I will try to demonstrate the paradigm shift that has, more recently, been taking place in translation discourses. Casting away the age-old veil of neutrality and invisibility which has covered translation practice in the past, many thinkers have come to reimagine and reposition what it means ...

Introduction: voice, ethics and translation

Perspectives, 2019

Although previous research on ethics demonstrates growing awareness that many agents or subjectivities besides translators and interpreters are involved in translation and interpreting processes, the consequences of this multiplicity for thinking about ethics in translation still lacks focused attention. In this introduction, we show how this special issue, titled Voice, Ethics and Translation, reduces this gap by highlighting the concept of voice and the idea that the world of translating and interpreting consists of many voices 'having a say'. This carries with it the potential for negotiation, conflict and dissent regarding what constitutes good and bad translation and interpreting practice. The nine contributions discuss questions such as whose voices are involved in ethical negotiations, what is the nature of these negotiations, who has more power to have their voices heard, and whether translators and interpreters should be given more trust and responsibility. As evinced by these various contributions, a consensus seems to be emerging to the effect that rather than blindly following outside authorities in ethical matters, translators and interpreters need to be encouraged to independently reflect on a variety of voices on ethics and be actively conscientious and responsible in actual translation and interpreting situations.

Translatability and Cultural Difference~ Toward an Ethics of “Real" Translation·

2005

In recent years "translation," in the broader sense of understanding (and accepting) alterity through some form of representational transfer, has become a key term in critical discourse, one often used to define a certain cosmopolitan respect for cultural difference and cross-cultural understanding. This paper begins by questioning this trend, arguing that in this cosmopolitan stance there is an implicit, globalizing valuation that has to be analyzed and critiqued through a return to the ethical dimension of translation. To establish the relevance of ethics, this paper refers to Jacques Derrida's account of "relevant" translation, taking it perhaps beyond Derrida's purpose, to advocate an ethical translation in terms of which translational judgment is both relativized and constrained by a sense of direction and terminality. Walter Benjamin's insistence on the "linguistic being" of all objects and Homi Bhabha's spatializing conceptualization of multilingual competence are discussed. An ethics of the real is then proposed which, following Lacan's reading of Freud's "Project for a Scientific Psychology" in his seventh Seminar, should remind us that to signify is not only a right but a drive, a call to return to what is silenced in the traumatic emergence of subjectivity from matter.

Towards a Nomadic Ethics in Translation Praxis

English Studies in Africa, 2016

In this article I examine how translation practitioners might begin to develop a praxis that is informed by a nomadic ethics which is not reliant on a normative or regularizing ethics/morality, but rather constitutes an orientation founded on heterogeneity and the repudiation of universality. In order for such a praxis to be effectuated, I argue that translations have to take into consideration the historicity of master narratives so that meaning becomes disentangled from the semantics and grounded in a materialist philosophy. Because translation does not occur in a vacuum; it is influenced by myriad material flows, some apparent and some not which, in turn, are linked to certain forms of knowledge and power. To support my argument, I refer to the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and apply it to the use of a number of stylistic and linguistic devices in the oeuvre of Ingrid Winterbach.

Ethical Aspects of Translation: Striking a Balance between Following Translation Ethics and Producing a TT for Serving a Specific Purpose

English Linguistics Research, 2014

Translation ethics have been strictly defined as the practice to keep the meaning of the source text undistorted (Robinson, 2003, 25). Obviously, this notion of translation ethics is too restricted as the translator in specific cases is required to distort parts of meaning of the original text to live up to the audience expectations (Robinson, 2003, 26). Two opposing views of scholars with regard to translation ethics can clearly be identified. The first view is represented by Humboldt, for instance, who insists on the need for keeping the foreign elements found in the original text intact in the target text. Schleiermacher calls the translator to enable the target reader to hear the voice of the original writer, rather than the voices of any other party. Berman's method for preserving translation ethics is to advocate literal translation in order to respect the source text's form and content (Hermans, 2009, 97-98). The second view is held by Nord (1997) in his 'functionalist studies', which raise particular questions, such as what purpose the target text is meant to serve in the target culture and who is responsible for commissioning the translation. The present paper will argue that the translator should strike a balance between following ethical aspects of translation, especially those related to the transfer of form and content of the source text into the target language and producing a target text that can fulfil in the target language the appropriate function for which it has been produced.

Beyond theory and practice: towards an ethics of translation

Ethics and Education, 2017

In this paper, I will discuss the idea of teachers as knowledge translators, not in a pedagogical or didactical sense, but in a "professional" one. A professional practice is supposed to be theoretically informed by academic research. In the name of effectiveness and efficiency, current policies in teaching and higher education repeatedly ask for research-based practices that legitimize the adoption of an instrumental view of knowledge. This tends to reduce knowledge to "informational goods", where knowledge is detached from the context in which it was produced and becomes a commodity that can be mobilized by the researcher or the teacher at any time. This instrumental conception of knowledge is based on the idea that language is a direct and transparent vehicle of thought. But this idea fail to recognize that language endlessly translates and produces new meanings, which implies that "knowledge users" have a responsibility with regards to the meaning they give to the researches, policy documents or professional accounts they are "mobilizing" for practice. In this presentation, I will discuss this translation framework, using fruitful ideas developed in the field of translation studies. Then I will put the framework to work through the analysis of concrete, and somewhat unfortunate, translations that Donald Schön's influent work on reflective practice underwent. These observations lead to an exploration of some concrete implications of an ethic of translation, which would require fostering some translational dispositions in teachers and the creation of translational spaces for teachers' "professional development".