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© Intercultural Studies Group Universitat Rovira i Virgili For a sociology of intercultural irritation Anthony Pym.

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Presentation on theme: "© Intercultural Studies Group Universitat Rovira i Virgili For a sociology of intercultural irritation Anthony Pym."— Presentation transcript:

1 © Intercultural Studies Group Universitat Rovira i Virgili For a sociology of intercultural irritation Anthony Pym

2 © Intercultural Studies Group

3 The research EC Directorate General for Translation Addresses six main questions Survey of surveys 98 experts and informants 139 associations (103 in EU Member States) In-depth analysis of SFT survey Asymmetric information theory Theory of adverse selection

4 © Intercultural Studies Group Angels?

5 © Intercultural Studies Group Transaction costs over time

6 © Intercultural Studies Group Degrees and training?  Translation is an “unprotected title” except in Slovakia.  Employers recognize the IOL Diploma and Diplom-Überstetzer status.  Most employers (including intergovernmental organizations) do their own testing.

7 © Intercultural Studies Group Authorised/sworn translation?  Most countries have “authorized/sworn translator” as a protected title not delivered by an academic institution.  In five countries access to the title can be via an academic institution.  In seven countries, translations are certified by notaries or legal professionals, if at all.  Greece is in flux.

8 © Intercultural Studies Group Authorized/sworn translation? This distribution does not correspond to Common vs. Statutory law.

9 © Intercultural Studies Group Cross-border recognition? I have done a translation (FR>EN) of a diploma from a Belgium university and now the client asks for it to be sworn. I am English and live in England, client is Belgian living in Belgium (I guess), and I got the work via a Swedish agency. Needless to say I do not know the client.

10 © Intercultural Studies Group Associations? Many and varied:  Certification (CIOL, ATA)  Unionization / political representation  Information / training  Job agency  Protection of degrees from particular institutions (Greece, Cyprus, Estonia)

11 © Intercultural Studies Group Associations?

12 © Intercultural Studies Group Fragmentation of the market 1950s-1960s: Large prestigious associations 1970s: Literary translators separate 1970s: Interpreters separate 1970s-1980s: Separate associations for sworn and legal translators 1980s: Separate associations for regional langauges 1990s: Audiovisual translators separate 2000s: Small interactive groups, incorporating job markets (decreasing signaling power)

13 © Intercultural Studies Group Associations? 333,000 professional translators and interpreters in the world (not 700,000)

14 © Intercultural Studies Group Associations Oversupply = weak signals

15 © Intercultural Studies Group Employers?  Employers expect translators to have a university degree, although not necessarily in translation.  They give slightly more weight to experience.  They tend to run their own tests for new recruits.  The field of technical translation and localization shows relatively few signs of market disorder.

16 © Intercultural Studies Group Press clippings 40 police in Malaga interrogated for corruption 2 interpreters arrested, one of them accused of selling information

17 © Intercultural Studies Group Press clippings 3 police interpreters sentenced for falsifying nationality of immigrants

18 © Intercultural Studies Group Press clippings 2 sworn translators arrested for relations with money forgery operation

19 © Intercultural Studies Group Press clippings Trial suspended because Chinese translator does not know Spanish

20 © Intercultural Studies Group Press clippings Trial suspended because the only translator of Chinese was the accused

21 © Intercultural Studies Group Recommendations  Address paraprofessionals and “immigrant” languages.  Address languages of export and negotiation.  Ensure payment by the main beneficiaries.  Seek cross-border recognition of qualifications and certifications;  Coordinate with certification systems operative in the United States, Canada, Australia and China.  Be wary of granting automatic professional certification on the basis of academic degrees alone.

22 © Intercultural Studies Group Modes of employment? Approximately how many translators are part-time, in- house or freelance?  Part-time: about 60 percent (shared with teaching, interpreting, editing, writing)  Freelance: about 74 percent, with much variation  Women: 70 percent or above

23 © Intercultural Studies Group

24 Bourdieu - Habitus - (people learn) - Accumulation and conversion of capitals - (behaviorist psycho-sociology of the workplace) - Field - (A sterile debate) - The defense of society? - (Simeoni: Bourdieu and Toury on the state)

25 © Intercultural Studies Group Bourdieu

26 © Intercultural Studies Group Luhmann - Boundary maintenance systems (Talcott Parsons) - Systems as communication - Between systems, “irritation” – which makes the theory unsuited to translation?

27 © Intercultural Studies Group Luhmann - The concept of irritation […] refers to the form with which a system is able to generate resonance to events in the environment, even though its own operations circulate only within the system itself and are not suitable for establishing contact with the environment (which would have to mean, of course, that they are functioning partly inside and partly outside). - This concept of irritation explains the two-part nature of the concept of information. The one component is free to register a difference which marks itself as a deviation from what is already known. The second component describes the change that then follows in the structuring of the system, in other words the integration into what can be taken to be the condition of the system for further operations. - (The Reality of the Mass Media 2000: 22)

28 © Intercultural Studies Group Luhmann - Irritation is a part of all aesthetic experience: the play of forms functions as an irritation (118); order “emerges from self- irritation” (147); one “takes delight in sheer irritation and provocation” (201); this refers back to the classical topos of  or admiratio (265) - Art as a Social System (2000: 352)

29 © Intercultural Studies Group A sociology of translation? The question is not which sociologist to apply to translation. It should be how translation, as a cross-border activity, transfigures sociological models.


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