Academic literary translators: a happy ‘elite’ or not?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Part of an ongoing research project mapping various segments of the Slovak translation industry, this follow-up study centres on investigating academic literary translators’ happiness at work. Although job satisfaction has been thoroughly researched in regard to various occupations, literary translators as an uneasy and marginal professional group have been somehow eschewed. The study aims to explore correlations between selected sociodemographic, occupational prestige variables and happiness at work (HAW) in a selected stratum of literary translators. Using the self-report data, the study employs contingency tables in order test several research hypotheses. The research reveals that, schizophrenically enough, the majority of academic literary translators exhibit fairly positive happiness styles despite their average status, influence, appreciation and low remuneration. We found an indirect relationship between time dedicated to translation and HAW. We also identified direct correlations between the academic literary translators’ status, the level of remuneration and HAW. The results of the study not only cast precious light on up until now under-investigated aspects of literary translators’ self-perceptions of the strands of their professional happiness, but can be used as a roadmap for exploring the selected correlations both in the same as well as different translatorial microhabitus in domestic and foreign translator landscapes.