Translation and Conflict. A Narrative Account

Mona Baker

Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account demonstrates that translation is part of the institution of war and that translators and interpreters participate in circulating as well as resisting the narratives that create the intellectual and moral environment for violent conflict. Drawing on narrative theory and using numerous examples from historical as well as contemporary conflicts, the author provides an original and coherent model of analysis that pays equal attention to micro and macro aspects of the circulation of narratives in translation, to translation and interpreting, and to questions of dominance and resistance.

The study is particularly significant at this juncture of history, with the increased interest in the positioning of translators in politically sensitive contexts, the growing concern with translators' and interpreters' divided loyalties in settings such as Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and a host of other arenas of conflict, and the emergence of several activist communities of translators and interpreters with highly politicized agendas of their own, including Babels, Translators for Peace, Tlaxcala, ECOS and Translators and Interpreters Peace Network. Including further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter, Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account will be of interest to students on courses in translation, intercultural studies and sociology as well as the reader interested in the study of social and political movements. [text quoted from book blurb]

Posted by Chris Rundle on 8th May 2006
in New Publications

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