Directing the practice of translation: questions of directionality and power in translation practice

Macerata, 3-5 March 2016

Power relations in translation studies do not only refer to acts of censorship at textual or ideological level, or publishers’ translation policies. Questions of power may subtly concern also translation pedagogy and the ways in which translation is taught and practiced. Power is meant here in the sense of prevalent and unquestioned practice.
As early as 1998 Campbell claimed that “translating into a second language is very different from translating into the first language” (1998: 57), but several scholars have pointed out that the notion of directionality has not been paid enough attention in translation studies until recent years (Stewart 2008, 2011, Pavlovic 2007, 2013). Given the fact that native speakers are normally assumed to be more proficient in their mother tongue and more aware of the nuances of their own culture, direct or L1 translation, that is translation from a foreign into the native language has been taken for granted as the “natural” directionality (Newmark 1988, Hatim 2001).
Yet, things have moved fast in the last twenty years or so, in the wake of the advent of the communicative approach to language learning, together with the digital revolution that has made a plethora of linguistic resources accessible in real time. The response to this state of affairs has been a thorough investigation of the phenomenon of inverse or L2 translation.
Surprisingly, results point only to a slightly higher degree of effort required from translators working on L2 translation, as it seems that the problems involved in the two directionalities are very similar both in terms of type and frequency (Pavlovic 2013: 63, Fonseca 2015: 123). However, differences have been registered at the level of time management and revision: L2 translation takes more time and requires a higher degree of revising intervention (Pavlovic, ibid.). In conclusion, it would seem that an adequate training would enable translators to “produce L2 translations of equal quality as L1 translations” (Pavlovic ibid.).
These findings appear to put the ball back in the court of a specific translation pedagogy and find ways to encourage students to recognize the different patterns characterizing each translating directionality.

Contributions are invited addressing questions of power, prestige, process and/or product quality in the context of
1. translation pedagogy
2. L1/L2 translating practices

Deadline for paper proposal submission (to be sent to mirella.agorni@unicatt.it) :
20 December 2016