Non-professional translators and the media

Abstract

This chapter aims to explore how non-professional translation relates to the media and reflects on how the media allow and further the proliferation of non-professional translation. While different types of media where non-professionals translate are mentioned, more detailed consideration is given to audiovisual translation, activist translation and Web-based fan protests and networks. More specifically, following a discussion of the nature and relationship of non-professional translation to the media, the chapter explores the area of audiovisual translation known as fansubbing, then discusses activist translation with a focus on socially and politically engaged citizens and mediators, to finally concentrate on networking and amateur translations of Harry Potter. The chapter reflects on how non-professional translation challenges some well-established concepts in translation studies. What media-based types of non-professional translation discussed in this chapter have in common is that they proliferate as technologically advanced communities facilitating and amplifying, but also remoulding and redirecting cultural and informational flows of globally circulating media content. Translating activists, harrypotterians and fansubbers undermine the logic of commercial mechanisms of production, selection and distribution, changing our traditional understanding of the media.