Recontextualisation and advocacy in the translation zone
-
Adrian Blackledge
Adrian Blackledge is Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Faculty of Social Sciences at University of Stirling. His publications include
The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (with Angela Creese, 2018),Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy (with Angela Creese, Springer 2014),The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (with Marilyn Martin-Jones and Angela Creese, 2012),Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective (with Angela Creese, Continuum 2010). His most recent research projects are: ‘Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities’ (Arts and Humanities Research Council Large Grant, 2014–2018); ‘Overcoming Barriers to University Education in South Africa’ (Arts and Humanities Research Council/Global Challenges Research Fund, 2016–2018).
and
Angela Creese
Angela Creese is Professor of Linguistic Ethnography in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling. Her research interests are in sociolinguistics, multilingualism and interaction in everyday life. She has co-written on linguistic ethnography (with Fiona Copland 2014), and multilingualism (with Adrian Blackledge, 2010). She has edited several large handbook collections on superdiversity (with Blackledge 2017), multilingualism (with Martin-Jones and Blackledge) and heteroglossia (with Blackledge, 2010). She has also published on collaborative teaching in linguistically diverse classrooms (2008). She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science. In 2010 she received the Helen C Bailey Award (Alumni) for ‘Outstanding contribution to educational linguistics’, from University of Pennsylvania.
Abstract
This paper reports an element of a team linguistic ethnography which investigated the ways people communicate with each other in the changing, dynamic environments of superdiverse cities in the UK. The particular example examined here is that of a ‘translation zone’ between an advice worker and her Chinese clients in a community centre with a remit to support Chinese people in the city. In the interaction the advice worker, herself a migrant from China, translates relevant aspects of the complex, bureaucratic welfare benefits system, deploying interlingual, intralingual, and intersemiotic translation. More than this, however, the advice worker engages in recontextualisation, co-constructing and re-shaping the client’s narrative so that it meets the criteria of the government welfare benefits office. Recontextualisation is a consistent feature of the discourse practice of the advice worker as she seeks to support her clients. We propose that it may well be a salient feature of interactional encounters as people seek help and advocacy to negotiate complex bureaucratic systems.
Funding source: Arts and Humanities Research Council
Award Identifier / Grant number: AH/L007096/1
About the authors
Adrian Blackledge is Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Faculty of Social Sciences at University of Stirling. His publications include The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (with Angela Creese, 2018), Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy (with Angela Creese, Springer 2014), The Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism (with Marilyn Martin-Jones and Angela Creese, 2012), Multilingualism: A Critical Perspective (with Angela Creese, Continuum 2010). His most recent research projects are: ‘Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities’ (Arts and Humanities Research Council Large Grant, 2014–2018); ‘Overcoming Barriers to University Education in South Africa’ (Arts and Humanities Research Council/Global Challenges Research Fund, 2016–2018).
Angela Creese is Professor of Linguistic Ethnography in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling. Her research interests are in sociolinguistics, multilingualism and interaction in everyday life. She has co-written on linguistic ethnography (with Fiona Copland 2014), and multilingualism (with Adrian Blackledge, 2010). She has edited several large handbook collections on superdiversity (with Blackledge 2017), multilingualism (with Martin-Jones and Blackledge) and heteroglossia (with Blackledge, 2010). She has also published on collaborative teaching in linguistically diverse classrooms (2008). She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Science. In 2010 she received the Helen C Bailey Award (Alumni) for ‘Outstanding contribution to educational linguistics’, from University of Pennsylvania.
Transcription key
| [Then what does he do?] | English translation of Cantonese speech |
| ((to M:)) | Stage directions |
| (6) | Pause, in seconds |
References
Bauman, Richard & Charles L. Briggs. 1990. Poetics and performances as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19. 59–88. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.000423.Search in Google Scholar
Bernstein, Basil. 1990. The structuring of pedagogic discourse: Class, codes & control, vol. IV. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Bernstein, Basil. 2000. Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity theory, research, critique. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.Search in Google Scholar
Blackledge, Adrian. 2008. Critical discourse analysis. In Li Wei & Melissa Moyer (eds.), The Blackwell guide to research methods in bilingualism and multilingualism, 296–310. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1002/9781444301120.ch17Search in Google Scholar
Blackledge, Adrian, Angela Creese & Rachel Hu. 2018. Translating the city (Working Paper 34). https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/generic/tlang/index.aspx.Search in Google Scholar
Boase-Beier, Jean. 2011. A critical introduction to translation studies. London: Continuum.Search in Google Scholar
Boéri, Julie. 2012. Translation/interpreting politics and praxis. The Translator 18(2). 269–290. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799511.Search in Google Scholar
Cronin, Michael & Sherry Simon. 2014. Introduction: The city as translation zone. Translation Studies 7(2). 119–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2014.897641.Search in Google Scholar
De Fina, Anna & Alexandra Georgakopoulou. 2012. Analyzing narrative: Discourse and sociolinguistic perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139051255Search in Google Scholar
Eades, Diana. 2010. Sociolinguistics and the legal process. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781847692559Search in Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1981. Footing. In Forms of talk, 124–159. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.10.1515/semi.1979.25.1-2.1Search in Google Scholar
Harding, Sue-Ann & Monwabisi K. Ralarala. 2017. ‘Tell me the story is and do not leave out anything’. Social responsibility and ethical practices in the translation of complainants’ narratives: The potential for change. The Translator 23(2). 158–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2017.1327792.Search in Google Scholar
Iedema, Rick. 2001. Resemiotization. Semiotica 137. 23–39. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.2001.106.Search in Google Scholar
Iedema, Rick & Ruth Wodak. 1999. Introduction: Organizational discourses and practices. Discourse & Society 10(1). 5–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926599010001001.Search in Google Scholar
Inghilleri, Moira. 2017. Translation and migration. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315399829Search in Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 2012 [1959]. On linguistic aspects of translation. In Lawrence Venuti (ed.), The translation studies reader, 3rd edn. 113–118. Abingdon: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, Alison. 2013. Embedding police interviews in the prosecution case in the Shipman trial. In Chris Heffer, Frances Rock & John Conley (eds.), Legal-lay communication: Textual travels in the law, 147–167. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746842.003.0007Search in Google Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michal. 2016. Recontextualisation of neoliberalism and the increasingly conceptual nature of discourse: Challenges for critical discourse studies. Discourse & Society 27(3). 308–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926516630901.Search in Google Scholar
Linell, Per. 1998. Discourse across boundaries: On recontextualizations and the blending of voices in professional discourse. Text 18(2). 143–157. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1998.18.2.143.Search in Google Scholar
Linell, Per & Srikant Sarangi. 1998. Discourse across the professions—special issue. Text 18(2). 143–318. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1998.18.2.143.Search in Google Scholar
Pérez-González, Luis & Sebnem Susam-Saraeva. 2012. Nonprofessionals translating and interpreting. The Translator 18(2). 149–165. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799506.Search in Google Scholar
Ricouer, Paul. 2006. On translation. Abingdon: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Rock, Frances. 2013. “Every link in the chain”: The police interview as textual intersection. In Chris Heffer, Frances Rock & John Conley (eds.), Legal-lay communication: Textual travels in the law, 78–104. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746842.003.0004Search in Google Scholar
Rock, Frances, Chris Heffer & John Conley. 2013. Textual travel in legal-lay communication. In Chris Heffer, Frances Rock & John Conley (eds.), Legal-lay communication: Textual travels in the law, 3–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746842.003.0001Search in Google Scholar
Sarangi, Srikant. 1998. Rethinking recontextualisation in professional discourse studies: An epilogue. Text 18(2). 301–318. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1998.18.2.301.Search in Google Scholar
Schäffner, Christina. 2010. Political communication: Mediated by translation. In Ursula Okulska & Piotr Cap (eds.), Perspectives in politics and discourse, 255–278. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/dapsac.36.19schSearch in Google Scholar
Schouten, Barbara, Jonathan Ross, Rena Zendedel & Ludwien Meeuwesen. 2012. Informal interpreters in medical settings. The Translator 18(2). 311–338. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2012.10799513.Search in Google Scholar
Simon, Sherry. 2012. Cities in translation: Intersections of language and memory. Abingdon: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Tymoczko, Maria. 2014. Enlarging translation, empowering translators. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315759494Search in Google Scholar
Tymoczko, Maria & Edwin C.Gentzler. 2002. Introduction. In Maria Tymoczko & Edwin C. Gentzler (eds.), Translation and power, xi–xxviii. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press.Search in Google Scholar
Venuti, Lawrence. 2012. Genealogies of translation theory: Jerome. In Lawrence Venuti (ed.), The translation studies reader, 3rd edn. 483–502. Abingdon: Routledge.10.1215/01903659-2010-014Search in Google Scholar
Wortham, Stanton & Angela Reyes. 2015. Discourse analysis beyond the speech event. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315735207Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Recontextualisation and advocacy in the translation zone
- Towards an integrated approach: A sociolinguistic analysis of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane
- On the participatory agency of texts: Using institutional forms in performance appraisal interviews
- Legal reasoning: a textual perspective on common law judicial opinions and Chinese judgments
- The ART of apologizing: Entering the black box of an intervention program
- Interpreting real and fictional worlds in interaction: A socio-cognitive approach to reading group talk
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Recontextualisation and advocacy in the translation zone
- Towards an integrated approach: A sociolinguistic analysis of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane
- On the participatory agency of texts: Using institutional forms in performance appraisal interviews
- Legal reasoning: a textual perspective on common law judicial opinions and Chinese judgments
- The ART of apologizing: Entering the black box of an intervention program
- Interpreting real and fictional worlds in interaction: A socio-cognitive approach to reading group talk
