Moving Boundaries in Translation Studies

Abstract

This chapter introduces a collective volume entitled Moving Boundaries in Translation Studies. Its point of departure is that translation is in motion. Both translation practice and translation studies have seen considerable innovation in recent decades and, consequently, professional and academic boundaries have shifted and moved. Against this backdrop and departing from various vantage points, the authors and editors of the book take stock of and discuss the moving boundaries of translation (studies). They analyse recent developments in the field, addressing new translation phenomena, new practices and tools, new forms of organisation, new concepts and names as well as new scholarly approaches and methods. Analyses and reflections are offered on the boundaries within the discipline (internal boundaries) as well as those surrounding it (external boundaries); issues of delimitation and boundary struggles are focal points, as is the relationship between translation practice and translation studies. This introductory chapter gives an overview of the contributions to the book, and identifies and discusses key topics and movements foregrounded by the authors. Key movements identified include expanding external boundaries and blurring internal lines as well as scholarly attempts at bridging gaps and crossing borders, real or assumed. Translation is in motion. Both translation practice and translation studies (TS) have seen considerable innovation in recent decades, and we are currently witnessing a wealth of new approaches and concepts, some of which reflect new translation phenomena, whereas others mirror new scholarly foci. Volunteer translation, crowdsourcing, virtual translator networks, transediting and translanguaging are only some examples of practices and notions that are emerging on the scene alongside a renewed focus on well-established concepts that have traditionally been considered peripheral to the practice and study of translation: intralingual and intersemiotic translation are cases in point. At the same time, technological innovation and global developments such as the spread of English as a lingua franca are affecting wide areas of translation and, with them, TS. These trends are currently pushing or even crossing our traditional understandings of translation (studies) and its boundaries. The question is: how to deal with these developments? Some areas of the translation profession seem to respond by widening its borders, adding new practices such as technical writing, localisation, transcreation or post-editing to their job portfolios, whereas others seem to be closing ranks. The same trend can be observed in the academic discipline: some branches of translation studies are eager to embrace all new developments under the TS umbrella, whereas others tend to dismiss (some of) them as irrelevant or as merely reflecting new names for age-old practices. Against this backdrop, contributors to this collective volume were invited to take stock of and discuss the moving boundaries of translation (studies). The chapters in this book therefore analyse recent developments in the field, addressing new translation phenomena, new practices and tools, new forms of organisation, new concepts and names as well as new scholarly approaches and methods. Analyses and reflections are offered on the boundaries within the discipline (internal boundaries) as well as those surrounding it (external boundaries); issues of delimitation and 2boundary struggles are focal points, as is the relationship between translation practice and translation studies. Evidently, one book cannot provide full coverage of all new trends in such a wide and dynamic field as TS, but many are addressed, exhaustively or more briefly, in the chapters of the present volume.