Volume 2011, Issue 207 - Translators and Interpreters: Geographic Displacement and Linguistic Consequences

In recent years, translating as a social practice has been increasingly determining daily routines in a globalizing world. Traditional approaches in Translation Studies have shown a certain awareness of these implications on translation and have progressively focused on socially oriented questions in translation. However, they have not coherently synthesized the various issues raised, and, consequently, most of these issues are still under-theorized. This paper aims to highlight sociological perspectives on translation, coming from both inside and outside the discipline over the last few years. Additionally, I will try to trace the conjunctions of Translation Studies and sociology in terms of their methodological contributions to the construction of a “sociology of translation”. The view of translation as a social practice entails specific questions which relate to the ethical and sociopolitical responsibility of the agents involved in the translation process. If these questions are taken further, it is paramount to take account of the shifting meanings attributed to the concept of translation as adopted within Translation Studies but also in other disciplines.

When geographically displaced persons who have limited proficiency in English undergo custodial interrogations in police stations in the USA, they are not necessarily guaranteed the services of professional interpreters. In fact, research shows a growing trend toward the use of police officers as interpreters at such interrogations. This trend is viewed as problematic for several reasons: police interpreters are unfamiliar with judicial norms requiring neutrality and impartiality toward those for whom they conduct interpreting; they frequently shift footing out of interpreter role into police detective interrogator mode; they may be unqualified to perform interpreting either because they lack the necessary interpreting skills or because their proficiency in the second language (L2) is not sufficiently high as to perform interpreting adequately. A microanalysis of the custodial interrogations of three Latino young men accused of serious crimes demonstrates that when both the detainee and the police interpreter have insufficient proficiency in L2, the outcome is negotiation and communicative accommodation; however, such efforts aimed at communicating successfully are made primarily by the interlocutor who has less power in the interaction, the detainee. Even when both interlocutors are fluent bilinguals, the outcome is adversative for the detainee: unable to perform both interrogator and interpreter roles simultaneously, the police detective imposes pressure on the suspect to answer questions in English, despite the suspect's repeated efforts to switch to Spanish.

This paper presents findings of an innovative study, which involved the thematic and content analyses of discussions held by deaf people, hearing people and interpreters about signed language interpreting in Australia. Six focus groups yielded eight hours of data, which was analyzed to identify themes that emerged about participants' perceptions about interpreters and interpreting. Examples are given to compare how participants view the signed language interpreting profession, and to discuss the expectations of all parties of signed language interpreter-mediated encounters. The focus of analysis is on key themes that were evident from the most frequently used words/signs. The findings provide a clearer understanding of the relationship between consumers and interpreters, and attitudes towards signed language interpreters and interpreting in Australia.

The paper will review interpreting and translation within the socio-historical context of Japan, and their relevance to language education, one of the crucial elements in a globalized world. First, Nagasaki interpreters in Edo period will be studied to illustrate their multifaceted role as language specialists, followed by an examination of the phenomenon called translationism and its influence on the modernization process during Meiji period. Then, the discussion proceeds to the role played by simultaneous interpreters after WWII, and growing awareness in the country for the importance of English as a global language, resulting in the increased interest in interpreter training as part of communicative language teaching in Japanese tertiary education. In conclusion, the paper addresses the significance of translation and interpreting studies, in terms of society at large.

Between the seventh and the eighth centuries, a remarkable linguistic phenomenon took place: the Arabic language, which in the early seventh century had been mainly the tongue of a few isolated tribes in Western Arabia, became the spoken and written language of a vast region that spanned from the Oxus River in the East to the Atlantic Ocean in the West. Virtually overnight, speakers of other languages had to become conversant and literate in Arabic in order to maintain their positions throughout the Arabic-speaking Muslim Empire. Throughout this dramatic transition, translation of foreign texts into Arabic and interpreting between Arabic and other languages such as Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, and Persian became of tantamount importance. Despite the scale and speed of these endeavors, they included some consistently common methodological components. This article uses medieval Arabic sources to explore the ways in which translation and interpreting were carried out in this context, analyzing the accepted methodology in its role as a reflection of the dominant sociolinguistic environment of the time. The final portion of the article discusses the relevance of this methodology and sociolinguistic environment with regard to questions within the field of Arabic translation and interpreting that are raised today.

This article explores the treatment of foreign words in translated literature, in particular, in translations of two classic works of Russian nineteenth century literature, Mikhail Lermontov's A hero of our time and Leo Tolstoy's War and peace , both of which contain a great number and variety of foreign words. Foreign words play an important compositional function in these texts and challenge the notion of a pure and unified national identity. The treatment of foreign words is compared with the treatment of culture-specific Russian words in the translated texts, which serve to “foreignize” Russian culture, the ground for source text readers. The results suggest that there is no norm for the treatment of foreign words, that many translators underestimate or ignore altogether their compositional role in these texts, and that no relation appears to exist between the treatment of foreign words and that of culture-specific source text words. The problem of foreign words, which has been understudied in Translation Studies to date, challenges any simple opposition of domestic and foreign and may invert the target reader's perception of domestic and foreign, a translation “shift” that reaches far beyond traditional studies of semantics and plays a potentially significant role in the cultural construction of the Otherness.

The Navajo code talkers, recruited by the US Marine Corps during World War II, devised the encryption of 411 Navajo terms in order to protect the information transmitted by radio between US officers. In order to achieve this purpose, they resorted to strategies from translation, interpreting, sight translation as well as to the extension of an alphabet based on reduplication of the more frequent letters of the English alphabet. The strategies used for codification created several layers of concealed meanings that were not easily broken by anyone except those who had learned and memorized the Navajo code. The hermetic nature of the specialized Navajo code was instrumental in protecting crucial information in the planning of war strategies. This article describes the process of encryption and gives examples of translation and equivalence of terms and of the development of terms for which there was no equivalence. It discusses the differences and similarities between translation, interpreting and encryption and focuses on the intersection of code talkers, translators and interpreters. It shows the crucial role that an indigenous language played in enabling classified communication to lead to an unprecedented victory of the United States over the enemy. Resumen Los hablantes del código navajo, reclutados por la Marina de los Estados Unidos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, dispusieron la encriptación de 411 términos en navajo para proteger la información trasmitida por radio entre los oficiales de los Estados Unidos. Para desempeñar este propósito, ellos recurrieron a estrategias de traducción, interpretación y traducción a la vista, así como la extensión del alfabeto basado en la repetición de las letras más frecuentes del alfabeto inglés. Las estrategias usadas para la codificación resultaron en varios niveles de significados encubiertos que no fueron fácilmente descifrados por nadie, excepto por aquellos que habían aprendido y memorizado el código navajo. La naturaleza hermética del código especializado contribuyó a proteger la información crucial en el planeamiento de las estrategias de guerra. Este artículo describe el proceso de encriptación y da ejemplos de traducción y equivalencia y del desarrollo de términos para los cuales no había equivalencia. Asimismo, discute las diferencias y similitudes entre traducción, interpretación y encriptación y se enfoca en la intersección de los hablantes del código, los traductores y los intérpretes. Este artículo muestra también el papel crucial que un lenguaje amerindio jugó en facilitar la comunicación clasificada para llevar a los Estados Unidos a una victoria sin precedentes contra el enemigo.