Abstract
Proceeding from accepted shared definitions of applied linguistics that stress its practical, real-world orientation and instrumentality, this article seeks to move the focus from the interdisciplinarity that has been identified as the nexus of translation studies in the past to how its applied branches should systematically engage with an emerging transdisciplinary research paradigm. It argues that the shift can and will be a key factor, challenge and opportunity in the onward development of applied translation studies as it seeks to adequately address the situated realities of professional translation. The article reveals how transdisciplinarity, operationalised as action research, offers a viable framework for investigating, understanding and learning about what translators really do in working contexts and settings, with a view to identifying issues, improving practices, processes and performance, and ultimately transforming the profession for the good of those it employs and serves. In doing so, it considers approaches from cognitive translatology, based largely on a 4EA cognitive paradigm, and translatorial linguistic ethnography, where researchers are gradually but progressively going out into the field to explore and describe the complex socio-cognitive, socio-technical activity of translation in situ. After presenting a use case from a large-scale research project on translation ergonomics at the authors home institution, the article puts forward a model for transdisciplinary action research in professional settings to guide the necessary transition from interdisciplinarity to transdisciplinarity. Such a model would allow professional processes and practices to be investigated, and the findings productively and transformatively applied, in the situated socio-cognitive and socio-technical contexts of translators workplaces - within, for, with and by the organisations that employ them.
Highlights
Brumfit (1995: 27) famously describes applied linguistics as “the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue”
By Strevens (2003: 112), sees applied linguistics as “a technology that makes abstract ideas and research findings accessible and relevant to the real world; it mediates between theory and practice”
Strevens endows the activities pursued in its name with the instrumental function of bridging a potential or actual theory-practice divide in order to make the study of language and communication relevant. These very broad but complementary perspectives share the notion that applied linguistics, by definition, can and should be practically used to address and help resolve relevant real-world issues that emerge from any locus of linguistic use, interaction or transfer
Summary
Brumfit (1995: 27) famously describes applied linguistics as “the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-world problems in which language is a central issue”. Strevens endows the activities pursued in its name with the instrumental function of bridging a potential or actual theory-practice divide in order to make the study of language and communication relevant These very broad but complementary perspectives share the notion that applied linguistics, by definition, can and should be practically used to address and help resolve relevant real-world issues that emerge from any locus of linguistic use, interaction or transfer. The expanded definition of transdisciplinarity sits extremely well with the claims and intentions of applied linguistics that have been noted above – and, by extension, those of the applied branches of translation studies It dovetails nicely with the aims and ambitions of action research, which overtly sets out to engage researchers directly with the beneficiaries of their research in pursuit of new knowledge and solutions to practical problems in the real world (cf Reason and Bradbury 2006: 1). A conscious, systematic adoption of transdisciplinary action research, it is argued, can beneficially expand the repertoire of applied translation research at a time when both the profession of translation and translation studies itself are undergoing profound practice-oriented and conceptual transformations (Gambier 2019)
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