Special issue of JOSTRANS - The Translation Profession: Centres and peripheries

Special issue of The Journal of Specialised Translation
No. 25, January 2016

The translation profession: centres and peripheries

Edited by Helle V. Dam, Aarhus University, and Kaisa Koskinen, University of Eastern Finland

 

The point of departure for this special issue of Jostrans is that translation constitutes an entity of practice that is sufficiently stable to be identified, defined and delimited from other entities of practice, but also that its boundaries are porous and unstable and that the people and artefacts that inhabit it, its agents, are in constant movement between its centre and peripheries. Against this backdrop and departing from various vantage points, the contributors and editors of the special issue explore the topology of this entity, here referred to as the translation profession following current usage in the field, focusing on its centre-periphery relations and the way these relations develop over time and currently seem to be developing.

The special issue is rooted in the sociology of translation, and key topics analysed and discussed by authors and editors include: the location of different translation agents (e.g. business and literary translators, freelance and in-house translators, post-editors, multilingual communication specialists, amateur translators) on the profession’s centre-periphery continuum; professionalisation processes in the field of translation and threats to professional status; the role and implication of translation technologies and non-professional translators; naming conventions in the field of translation; the boundaries of the profession and boundary work that both professionals and academics engage in.

The issue consists of 12 contributions by 18 authors plus an introduction and a concluding article by the editors.

[url=http://www.jostrans.org/issue25/issue25_toc.php]http://www.jostrans.org/issue25/issue25_toc.php[/url]