Metaglossia: The Translation World
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Metaglossia: The Translation World
News about translation, interpreting, intercultural communication, terminology and lexicography - as it happens
Curated by Charles Tiayon
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The Social Role of Translations in Centuries Past

To understand the current translation market and its new trends, it is necessary to go back to the origins of this discipline and look at its evolution step by step.
The main purpose of translating texts was to make the original understood by a larger number of people, i.e., the translator increased the potential number of people who received the message of each author.
By allowing and facilitating the possibility of disseminating information, the translator has been a major agent of progress throughout history.
The first major market segment that recognized the benefits of a translation was the Church, given its learned membership. The first translators were, therefore, men of faith who knew several languages.
These educated men, inspired by their faith, wanted to spread the Lord’s word to all the people on Earth.

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CFP: Sociology of translation

Call for papers -- Special issue
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Volume 31(3), 2013

The sociology of translation in a developmental context

Guest editors: Sergey Tyulenev and Marlie van Rooyen

One of the ways in which one can conceptualise the evolution of Translation
Studies as a scholarly discipline over the past five decades is as a series of
shifts from micro to macro approaches, from text to context, from language to
society, and from colonially exclusive to post-colonially inclusive paradigms.
Whichever way one looks at it, there seems to be a growing interdisciplinary
interest between translation studies and sociology. This interest relates, among
other things, to the role of the translator and translation in the development
of a society and the interplay between the constraints that society places on
the translator and translation praxis, on the one hand, and the activism and
resistance of the translation agency, on the other. This interest has been
reflected in Translation Studies readers, monographs, edited collections,
special editions of TS journals, and a multitude of articles. The uniqueness of
this special issue of SALALS (http://www.nisc.co.za/journals?id=9) is that it
will consider the role of translation specifically in the developmental context.

Although neither the UN or WTO or OECD suggest any definition of what a
developing country might be, the group of developed countries being "a highly
diverse group" (http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/dev1_e.htm),
the entry 'developing country' in New American Oxford Dictionary captures well
the common feature of all developing countries, that is, all of them are
"seeking to become more advanced economically and socially". Consequently, such
countries put the translator and translation in the developmental context.

The main questions to be addressed in this SALALS issue are:

What is the role of translation in social development in general and in
developing countries in particular?

What are the theoretical and methodological implications thereof?

Related questions may include (but are not limited to) the following:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/itit/message/2840

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CFP: Sociology of translation

Call for papers -- Special issue
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Volume 31(3), 2013

The sociology of translation in a developmental context

Guest editors: Sergey Tyulenev and Marlie van Rooyen

One of the ways in which one can conceptualise the evolution of Translation
Studies as a scholarly discipline over the past five decades is as a series of
shifts from micro to macro approaches, from text to context, from language to
society, and from colonially exclusive to post-colonially inclusive paradigms.
Whichever way one looks at it, there seems to be a growing interdisciplinary
interest between translation studies and sociology. This interest relates, among
other things, to the role of the translator and translation in the development
of a society and the interplay between the constraints that society places on
the translator and translation praxis, on the one hand, and the activism and
resistance of the translation agency, on the other. This interest has been
reflected in Translation Studies readers, monographs, edited collections,
special editions of TS journals, and a multitude of articles. The uniqueness of
this special issue of SALALS (http://www.nisc.co.za/journals?id=9) is that it
will consider the role of translation specifically in the developmental context.

Although neither the UN or WTO or OECD suggest any definition of what a
developing country might be, the group of developed countries being "a highly
diverse group" (http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/dev1_e.htm),
the entry 'developing country' in New American Oxford Dictionary captures well
the common feature of all developing countries, that is, all of them are
"seeking to become more advanced economically and socially". Consequently, such
countries put the translator and translation in the developmental context.

The main questions to be addressed in this SALALS issue are:

What is the role of translation in social development in general and in
developing countries in particular?

What are the theoretical and methodological implications thereof?

Related questions may include (but are not limited to) the following:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/itit/message/2840

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Translating Foreign Language Books into Tibetan

Kunleng discusses the vital importance of translating foreign language books into Tibetan, and the logistical and linguistic challenges confronting translato...
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Translation Demand-Supply Mismatch

Given the US$31.4 billion in language service revenue booked in 2011, it may seem counterintuitive to state that high-quality human translation may soon become a scarce, if not more expensive, offering. However, in our recent report on translation providers, we saw a coming shortage caused by burgeoning demand for translation, a chronic shortfall of qualified language specialists, and stagnant translator productivity (see “Translation Future Shock,” Apr12):
Enterprise information is on the rise. Our survey of the largest buyers found that content volumes have increased at 87.76% of them (see “Translation at Fortune 500 Companies,” Mar12). Smaller companies, new buyers, and new markets add even more to the demand for content to be translated.

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Ce que traduire veut dire : LE CRAN

Il existe dans le monde environ 7 000 langues, ce qui fait 24 496 500 paires de langues pour lesquelles la traduction est donc envisageable, dans un sens ou dans l’autre, soit 49 millions de traductions possibles au total. Bien entendu, les choses ne se passent pas ainsi. Au niveau international, près de 80 % des traductions se font à partir de l’anglais, 8 % seulement vers l’anglais. Bref, conclut David Bellos, « les traductions de l’anglais sont quasiment inévitables ; les traductions vers l’anglais sont à peu près introuvables ». C’est le signe le plus évident de la domination culturelle anglo-saxonne.

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ED interpreters help reduce medical errors

Employing professional translators for nonEnglish speaking patients in hospital emergency departments EDs reduces miscommunication and errors, study results suggest.
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Translation Demand-Supply Mismatch

Given the US$31.4 billion in language service revenue booked in 2011, it may seem counterintuitive to state that high-quality human translation may soon become a scarce, if not more expensive, offering. However, in our recent report on translation providers, we saw a coming shortage caused by burgeoning demand for translation, a chronic shortfall of qualified language specialists, and stagnant translator productivity (see “Translation Future Shock,” Apr12):

Enterprise information is on the rise. Our survey of the largest buyers found that content volumes have increased at 87.76% of them (see “Translation at Fortune 500 Companies,” Mar12). Smaller companies, new buyers, and new markets add even more to the demand for content to be translated.

The supply of translators is shrinking. Executives at language service providers (LSPs) regularly tell us they cannot find enough qualified language specialists to meet their needs. In every quarter of the six-year duration of our Global Business Confidence Survey, LSP respondents complained about not being able to find enough staff to do the job (see “Language Services and the Real Economy,” Jun11).

Translator productivity has stagnated. Estimates for translators typically range from two to three thousand words per day. In the survey we conducted for this report, we found that individual translators averaged just 2,684 words every day. This number hasn’t changed much for decades, if not centuries.

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L'Index Translationum et la sociologie de la traduction : comprendre les échanges culturels internationaux | Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'éducation, la science et la culture

Plus un groupe linguistique est central, plus sa part dans le nombre total de titres traduits est grande, affirme le sociologue hollandais Johan Heilbron. En utilisant les données de l’Index Translationum, il a mis en évidence les rapports de force entre les langues et l’accroissement de la domination de la langue anglaise dans le système mondial des flux de livres.

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Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz - Remapping "habitus" in translations studies

The international research symposium aims to reassess the role and application of the habitus concept in translation studies. It will attempt to reshape the conceptual framework of the habitus concept by integrating both critical perspectives and interdisciplinary insights.

The symposium addresses, on the one hand, established researchers whose recent work has focused primarily, or to a significant extent, on a Bourdieusian / Latourian / Lahirian sociology of translation. At the same time, it will be open to a select group of younger researchers who are starting to engage with this set of issues in their work.

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