Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Translation
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Translation
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The Nature of Translation
- Part II Translation in Society
- 6 Translation and Translanguaging in (Post)multilingual Societies
- 7 Less Translated Languages
- 8 The Translation Professions
- 9 Translation Studies and Public Policy
- 10 Translator Associations and Networks
- Part III Translation in Company
- Part IV Translation in Practice: Factual Genres
- Part V Translation in Practice: Arts
- Part VI Translation in History
- Index
- References
8 - The Translation Professions
from Part II - Translation in Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2022
Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Translation
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of Translation
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The Nature of Translation
- Part II Translation in Society
- 6 Translation and Translanguaging in (Post)multilingual Societies
- 7 Less Translated Languages
- 8 The Translation Professions
- 9 Translation Studies and Public Policy
- 10 Translator Associations and Networks
- Part III Translation in Company
- Part IV Translation in Practice: Factual Genres
- Part V Translation in Practice: Arts
- Part VI Translation in History
- Index
- References
Summary
Chapter 8 addresses the question of how and to what extent translation practices have become professions. In sociology, a profession is understood as an occupation that has been formally established, with boundaries determined by a canonized body of knowledge and formulated ethics, methods and technologies and recognition and authority given by the state. In contrast, translation occupations mostly form a heteronomous field that lacks formalized standards and controls. The chapter argues that this reflects a tension between professionalization as defined in sociology and ‘the rules of art’ or ‘the intellectual field’ as described by Bourdieu. In the latter, norms and value-scales depend on practitioners’ ethos and images rather than on institutional parameters.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Translation , pp. 160 - 180Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
Abbott, A. (1988). The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ackroyd, S. (2016). Sociological and organisational theories of professions and professionalism. In Dent, M. et al., eds., The Routledge Companion to the Professions and Professionalism. Routledge Handbooks Online, available at www.routledgehandbooks.com/citation?doi=10.4324/9781315779447.ch1.Google Scholar
Ali Abu-Ghararah, B. (2017). The gap between translator training and the translation industry in Saudi Arabia. Arab World English Journal for Translation & Literary Studies, 1(4), 107–18.Google Scholar
Allen, E., and Bernofsky, S. (2013). In Translation. Translators on Their Work and What It Means. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Angelelli, C. V. (2010). A professional ideology in the making: Bilingual youngsters interpreting for their communities and the notion of (no) choice. Translation & Interpreting Studies, 5(1), 94–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antonini, R., Cirillo, L., Rossato, L., and Torresi, I., eds. (2017). Non-professional Interpreting and Translation: State of the Art and Future of an Emerging Field of Research. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, P., Reid, M., and Sheldrake, P. (1977). Medical mystique. Sociology of Work and Occupations, 4(3), 243–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baer, B. J., and Koby, G. S., eds. (2003). Beyond the Ivory Tower: Rethinking Translation Pedagogy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Bailey, J. L., and Stefaniak, G. (2002). Preparing the information technology workforce for the new millennium. ACM SIGCPR Computer Personnel, 20(4). https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/571475.571476.Google Scholar
Bajčić, M., and Dobrić Basaneže, K., eds. (2016). Towards the Professionalization of Legal Translators and Court Interpreters in the EU. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Banfield, J. (2017). Amateur, professional and proto-practices: A contribution to ‘the proficiency debate’. AREA, 49(2), 130–6.Google Scholar
Baños, R. (2019). Fandubbing across time and space. In Ranzato, I. and Zanotti, S., eds., Reassessing Dubbing: Historical Approaches and Current Trends. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 146–67.Google Scholar
Barbour, J. B., and Lammers, J. C. (2015). Measuring professional identity: A review of the literature and a multilevel confirmatory factor analysis of professional identity constructs. Journal of Professions and Organization, 2(1), 38–60.Google Scholar
Barnes, L. L. (2003). The acupuncture wars: The professionalizing of American acupuncture – A view from Massachusetts. Medical Anthropology, 22, 261–301.Google Scholar
Barton, T. D., Thome, R., and Hoptroff, M. (1999). The nurse practitioner: Redefining occupational boundaries?. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 36, 57–63.Google Scholar
Bayerl, P. S., Horton, K. E., and Jacobs, G. (2018). How do we describe our professional selves? Investigating collective identity configurations across professions. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 107, 168–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, H. (1970). The Nature of a Profession. In Becker, H., Sociological Work: Method and Substance. Chicago: Aldine, 87–103.Google Scholar
Beegan, G., and Atkinson, P. (2008). Professionalism, Amateurism and the Boundaries of Design. Journal of Design History, 21(4), 305–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billett, S., Harteis, C., and Gruber, H. (2018). Developing occupational expertise through everyday work activities and interaction. In Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, Ericsson, K. A., Hoffman, R. R., Kozbelt, A. and Williams, A. M. eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 105–26.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1983). The field of cultural production, or: The economic world reversed. Poetics 12, 311–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1996 [1992]). Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brian, D. (1991). Practical knowledge and occupational control: The professionalization of architecture in the United States. Sociological Forum, 6(2), 239–68.Google Scholar
Brown, A. D., and Coupland, C. (2015). Identity Threats, Identity Work and Elite Professionals. Organization Studies, 35(10), 1285–1313.Google Scholar
Buzelin, H. (2014). How devoted can translators be?: Revisiting the subservience hypothesis. Target, 26(1), 63–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cao, D. (1996). Towards a model of translation proficiency. Target, 8(2), 325–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colley, H., and Guéry, F. (2015). Understanding new hybrid professions: Bourdieu, illusio and the case of public service interpreters. Cambridge Journal of Education, 45(1), 113–31.Google Scholar
Cronin, M. (2005). Deschooling translation. In: Training for the New Millennium, Tennent, M. (ed.), Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 249–65.Google Scholar
Dam, H. V., and Zethsen, K. K. (2010). Translator status: Helpers and opponents in the ongoing battle of an emerging profession. Target, 22(2), 194–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dam, H. V., and Zethsen, K. K. (2011). Status of professional business translators on the Danish market: A comparative study of company, agency and freelance translators. Meta, 56(4), 976–97.Google Scholar
Dent, M., and Whitehead, S. (eds.) (2002). Managing Professional Identities: Knowledge, Performativity and the ‘New’ Professional. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
DeRue, D. S. and Ashford, S. J. (2010). Who will lead and who will follow? A social process of leadership identity construction in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 35(4), 627–47.Google Scholar
Duflou, V. (2016). Be(com)ing a Conference Interpreter: An Ethnography of EU Interpreters as a Professional Community. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Dybiec-Gajer, J. (2014). Going professional: Challenges and opportunities for the contemporary translator educators. In Piotrowska, M. and Tyupa, S., eds., in TRAlinea. Special issue: Challenges in Translation Pedagogy. Available at www.intralinea.org/specials/article/2104.Google Scholar
Elsaka, N. (2005). New Zealand journalists and the appeal of ‘professionalism’ as a model of organization: An historical analysis. Journalism Studies, 6(1), 73–86.Google Scholar
Evetts, J. (2003). The sociological analysis of professionalism: Occupational change in the modern world. International Sociology, 18(2), 395–415.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferreira-Alves, F. (2011). Job perceptions, identity-building and interpersonal relations among translators as a professional group in northern Portugal. ILCEA: Revue de l’Institut des langues et cultures d’Europe, Amérique, Afrique, Asie et Australie, 14, 1–15.Google Scholar
Fournier, V. (1999). The appeal to ‘professionalism’ as a disciplinary mechanism. Sociological Review, 47(2), 280–307.Google Scholar
Furmanek, O. (2012). Professionalization of interpreters. In Chapelle, C. A., ed., The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, pp. 1–8.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Goldie, J. (2012). The formation of professional identity in medical students: Considerations for educators. Medical Teacher, 34(9), e641–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grbić, N. (2010). ‘Boundary work’ as a concept for studying professionalization processes in the interpreting field. Translation & Interpreting Studies, 5(1), 109–23.Google Scholar
Gouanvic, J.-M. (2005). A Bourdieusian Theory of Translation, or the Coincidence of Practical Instances’. The Translator, 11(2), 147–166.Google Scholar
Hammond, C., and Czyszczon, G. (2014). Home-based family counseling: An emerging field in need of professionalization. Family Journal, 22(1), 56–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, B. (1978). The difference between natural and professional translation. Canadian Modern Language Review, 34(3), 417–27.Google Scholar
Harris, B., and Sherwood, B. (1978). Translating as an innate skill. In Gerver, D. and Sinaiko, W., eds., Language Interpretation and Communication. New York: Plenum, pp. 155–70.Google Scholar
Ibarra, H. (1999). Provisional selves: Experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(4), 764.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johansen, P. (2001). Professionalisation, building respectability, and the birth of the Canadian Public Relations Society. Journalism Studies, 2(1), 55–71.Google Scholar
Katan, D. (2011). Occupation or profession: A survey of the translators’ world. In Sela-Sheffy, R. and Shlesinger, M., eds., Profession, Identity and Status: Translators and Interpreters as an Occupational Group. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 65–88.Google Scholar
Khalifa, A. W., ed. (2014). Translators Have Their Say? Translation and the Power of Agency. Zurich: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
King, H. (2017). Translator education programs and the translation labour market: Linear career progression or a touch of chaos? T & I Review, 7, 133–51.Google Scholar
Kinnunen, T., and Koskinen, K., eds. (2010). Translators’ Agency. Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press.Google Scholar
Kiraly, D. (2005). Project-based learning: A case for situated translation. Meta, 50(4), 1098–1111.Google Scholar
Kyratsis, Y., Atun, R., Phillips, N., Tracey, P., and George, G. (2017). Health systems in transition: Professional identity work in the context of shifting institutional logics. Academy of Management Journal, 60(2), 610–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, M. S. (1977). The Rise of Professionalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lester, S. (2015). On professions and being professional. Available at http://devmts.org.uk/profnal.pdf.Google Scholar
Lively, K. J. (2001). Occupational claims to professionalism: The case of paralegals. Symbolic Interaction, 24(3), 343–65.Google Scholar
Macnamara, B. N., and Conway, A. R. A. (2016). Working memory capacity as a predictor of simultaneous language interpreting performance. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 5(4), 434–44.Google Scholar
McKay, C. (2006). How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator. Boulder, CO: Two Rat Press and Translatewrite, Inc.Google Scholar
Mizab, M., and Bahloul, A. (2016). The Integration of professional translators’ 21st century profile in teaching translation at Batna University. Arab World English Journal, 3, 187–209.Google Scholar
Monzó, E. (2011). Legal and translational occupations in Spain: Regulation and specialization in jurisdictional struggles. In Sela-Sheffy, R. and Shlesinger, M., eds., Identity and Status in the Translational Professions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 11–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicey, J. (2016). Semi-professional amateurs. In Witschge, T., Anderson, C. W., Domingo, D. and Hermida, A., eds., The SAGE Handbook of Digital Journalism. London: Sage, pp. 222–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noordegraaf, M. (2007). From ‘pure’ to ‘hybrid’ professionalism: Present-day professionalism in ambiguous public domains. Administration & Society, 39(6), 761–85.Google Scholar
Noordegraaf, M., and Schinkel, W. (2011). Professional capital contested: A Bourdieusian analysis of conflicts between professionals and managers. Comparative Sociology, 10, 97–125.Google Scholar
Pérez-González, L., and Susam-Saraeva, S. (2012). Non-professionals translating and interpreting participatory and engaged perspectives. The Translator, 18(2), 149–65.Google Scholar
Pratt, M. G., Rockmann, K. W., and Kaufmann, J. B. (2006). Constructing professional identity: The role of work and identity learning cycles in the customization of identity among medical residents. Academy of Management Journal, 49(2), 235–62.Google Scholar
Pym, A. (2014). Translator associations – from gatekeepers to communities. Target, 26(3), 466–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pym, A., Grin, F., Sfreddo, C., and Chan, A. L. J. (2012). The Status of The Translation Profession in the European Union. Report to Europe Direct (Studies on Translation and Multilingualism) 7/2012, The European Commission.Google Scholar
Pym, A., Orrego-Carmona, D., and Torres-Simón, E. (2016). Status and technology in the professionalisation of translators: Market disorder and the return of hierarchy. Journal of Specialised Translation, 25, 33–53.Google Scholar
Robert, I. S., Remael, A., and Ureel, J. J. J. (2017). Towards a model of translation revision competence. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 11(1), 1–19. Available at https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2016.1198183.Google Scholar
Robinson, D. (2012). Becoming a Translator: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Translation. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ruokonen, M., and Mäkisalo, J. (2018). Middling-status profession, high-status work: Finnish translators’ status perceptions in the light of their backgrounds, working conditions and job satisfaction. Translation and Interpreting, 10(1), 1–17.Google Scholar
Sakwe, G. M. (2015). The standard profile of the 21st century translator and its impact on translator training. International Journal of English Language & Translation Studies, 3(3), 86–104.Google Scholar
Sapiro, G. (2019a). The writing profession in France: Between symbolic and professional recognition. French Cultural Studies, 30(2), 105–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sapiro, G. (2019b). Rethinking the concept of autonomy for the sociology of symbolic goods. Biens symboliques [Symbolic Goods], 4. Available at https://revue.biens-symboliques.net/334.Google Scholar
Schäffner, C., and Adab, B., eds. (2000). Developing Translation Competence. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Sciulli, D. (2007). Professions before professionalism. European Journal of Sociology, 48(1), 121–47.Google Scholar
Scott, W. R. (2008). Lords of the dance: Professionals as institutional agents. Organization Studies, 29(2), 219–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2008). The translators’ personae: Marketing translatorial images as pursuit of capital. Meta, LIII(3), 609–22.Google Scholar
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2010). ‘Stars’ or ‘professionals’: The imagined vocation and exclusive knowledge of translators in Israel. In Fouces, O. D. and Monzó, E., eds., MonTI 2: Applied Sociology in Translation Studies / Sociologia aplicada a la traducció. Alicante: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante, pp. 131–52.Google Scholar
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2014). Translators’ identity work: Introducing micro-sociological theory of identity to the discussion of translators’ habitus. In Vorderobermeier, G. M., ed., Remapping Habitus in Translation Studies. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 43–55.Google Scholar
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2016). Elite and non-elite translator manpower: The non-professionalized culture in the translation field in Israel. In Koskinen, K. and Dam, H. V. (eds.) The Translation Profession: Centers and Peripheries [= Journal of Specialised Translation, 25], 54–73.Google Scholar
Setton, R., and Guo-Liangliang, A. (2011). Attitudes to role, status and professional identity in interpreters and translators with Chinese in Shanghai and Taipei. In Sela-Sheffy, R. and Shlesinger, M., eds., Identity and Status in the Translational Professions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 89–117.Google Scholar
Simeoni, D. (1998). The pivotal status of the translator’s habitus. Target, 10, 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snell-Hornby, M. (2002). Back to square one? On the troubled relationship between translation studies and linguistics. Logos and Language, 3(1), 21–30.Google Scholar
Stebbins, R. A. (1992). Amateurs, Professionals, and Serious Leisure. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephens, N., and Delamont, S. (2009). They start to get malicia’: Teaching tacit and technical knowledge. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(5), 537–48.Google Scholar
Subotnik, R. F., and Jarvin, L. (2005). Beyond expertise. In Sternberg, R. J. and Davidson, J. E., eds., Conceptions of Giftedness: Sociocultural Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 343–57.Google Scholar
Sveningsson, S., and Alvesson, M. (2003). Managing managerial identities: Organizational fragmentation, discourse and identity struggle. Human Relations, 56(10), 1163–93.Google Scholar
Toury, G. (2012 [1995]). A bilingual speaker becomes a translator: A tentative developmental model. In Toury, G., Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 241–58.Google Scholar
Tyulenev, S. (2015). Towards theorising translation as an occupation. Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, 2(1), 15–29.Google Scholar
Van Mannen, J. (2010). Identity work and control in occupational communities. In Sitkin, S. B., Cardinal, L. B. and Bijlsma-Frankema, K., eds., Organizational Control. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 111–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viaggio, S. (1991). Translators and interpreters: Professionals or shoemakers? Unpublished paper, presented at the annual meeting of the 1st International Language Conference, Elsinore, Denmark.Google Scholar
Webb, S. A. (2016). Professional identity and social work. In Dent, M., Bourgeault, I. L., Denis, J.-L. and Kuhlmann, E., eds., The Routledge Companion to the Professions and Professionalism. London: Routledge, pp. 355–70.Google Scholar
Whyatt, B. (2012). Translation as a Human Skill: From Predisposition to Expertise. Poznań: Wydział Anglistyki, Adam Mickiewicz University. Available at www.academia.edu/14900302/Translation_as_a_human_skill._From_predisposition_to_expertise?email_work_card=view-paper.Google Scholar
Wolf, M. (2007). The female state of the art: Women in the ‘translation field’. In Pym, A., Shlesinger, M. and Jettmarová, Z., eds., Sociocultural Aspects of Translating and Interpreting. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 129–41.Google Scholar
- 3
- Cited by