The relationships among translation, interpreting , and globalization may be viewed as both recent and ancient. These dialectic relationships arise from cultures coming in contact because of voluntary or forced migration, military conflicts, colonization, economic partnerships, international legal institutions, transnational non-governmental organizations, and foreign humanitarian aid (Bodvarsson and Van den Berg 2009). The symbiotic relationship between interlanguage negotiation and accomplishing goals in a variety of human endeavors is such that it is difficult to imagine globalization as possible at any point in history without the communication brokerage afforded by translators and interpreters , even as translators often come through as concealed negotiators (St. André 2009).
What perhaps sets the recent globalization phase apart from previous eras is the intensified level of interconnectedness facilitated by greater access to air travel and international travel, and more international commercial exchange, all of which are factors highly dependent on multilingual communication that has intensified as satellite communication, portable communication devices, and the Internet have made it possible to communicate faster and cheaper. In 1991, Giddens described globalization in terms of “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa” (1991, 63).
Translation and translators seem to have been forgotten by globalization theorists, as sociologist Bielsa (2005) has noted. She points out that the focus of globalization theory, mainly concerned with explaining rapid flows of information and goods as a result of the access to instant communication, needs to account for the role of translation as an essential component of the infrastructure that makes globalization possible “as a material precondition for the circulation of meaning on a global scale” (Bielsa 2005, 139). Such is the nature of translation and, especially, interpreting that translators and interpreters often fade into the background. This inconspicuous standing is an aspect of translation that Pym (2009) proposes for a re-examination within the framework of translation studies or even intercultural studies, for translators are at the center of translation events. Translation is an essential infrastructure element that makes globalization possible. It follows that forms of globalization would not have been possible in ancient times and would be non-existent today without translators, interpreters , and their products, as explained by Pym (2000) and Federici and Tessicini (2014).
Globalization phenomena are fundamentally mediated by translation and translators. Circumscribed within the so-called information age, which is the “translation age” as suggested by Cronin (2013), globalization has intensified the demand for more translation and faster turnaround:
Seeing our contemporary age as a translation age rather than information age better defines not only changing understandings of information and technology but also the alterations, the mutability in relations between languages and culture brought about by new translation media. (Cronin 2013, 104–105)
As the field of translation studies continues the interdisciplinary journey it began in the early 1970s and the 1980s (Holmes 1972/2000; Lambert 2013) in search of the boundaries that may define the field, professors, researchers, translators, and interpreters contribute to that quest in the different discourse spaces where translation and interpreting either occur or are the object of reflection and study. The challenge in defining translation studies is to conceptualize a field that is as dynamic and complex as the nature of discourse itself and the contexts in which it occurs, and, consequently, it is marked by the flux of ideas coming from different fields.
Translation studies mirrors the versatile roles of the agents of text negotiation and transformation , namely, translators and interpreters , the recipients and users of translation, and the different approaches to the analysis of translation sites , events, objects , and elements. One key locus of translation studies is the classroom, the space where translators and interpreters , whether students or professionals already employed in the translation industry , may gain the kind of specialized knowledge that Cordero (1994) describes as “one of the defining characteristics of a learned profession ” (176). The classroom is the hub where theory , method, analysis, reflection, and practice are engaged in dialogue with one another and with the products of translating and interpreting . It is the place where all texts can be considered in their own right and where student-translators and interpreters may come to understand the nuances of both written and oral texts as manifestations of a continuum that spans the poetic and the prosaic and many hybrid combinations in between. As Newmark (2003) remarked, reflecting on the relationship between institutions of higher education and the market, “…every text serves its purpose in its time and its place…” (66).
As early as 1972, James S. Holmes wrote a reflective, forward-looking essay entitled “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies.” Holmes made a persuasive case for adopting “translation studies” as a rubric with the potential not only to indicate how theory and practice approach written and oral modes of text, but also to underscore the dialectical dynamic of the relationships among theory, practice, and pedagogy. At the time, Holmes could not foresee the emergence of the Internet, its rapid and profound impact on natural language communication, or its role as catalyst and agent of globalization. Were he to have written his essay today, he would have had to remark that it is no coincidence that, in works such as the present volume, the reader may observe the coexistence of ideas which, in the infancy of translation studies as a discipline, could only have been conceived as grouped in separate yet complementary publication venues.
In linking together multiple translation practices and approaches in the same volume, the purpose is to highlight the interdisciplinarity of translation studies as one of globalization’s many hybridizing consequences. Part II of the volume considers diverse instances of global exchange dating from the first century through recent times, while Part III privileges late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century globalization as a social phenomenon that, aided by the rapid development of information technologies, now touches all human endeavors. If the chapters on pedagogy, community practice, and computer-assisted translation (CAT) interrogate the roles of contemporary technologies more directly, the volume collectively queries how translation practices, technologies , and knowledges have shaped and have been shaped by accelerating transnational and transcultural networks.
Part II: Translation as Global Translocation
Inherently political, philosophical, and theoretical, the work of translation creates new knowledges and, with them, new worlds, conceptual, perceptual, and real. This section begins by reflecting on how the translation of even a single author can shape transnational literatures and cultural histories. More specifically, the first three chapters focus on the translation, reception, and appropriation of Cormac McCarthy , Olfa Youssef , and Pliny the Elder . Whereas Doyle examines how translation impacts “glocalization ,” the local production of a cultural text always already intended for global markets , Benyoussef’s chapter incorporates her own translation and transcreation into her study, which follows Youssef’s translocation from Arabic into English. For their part, Agostini and Kaniklidou address translocation by examining how ancient Roman literature and international news, respectively, are localized into specific geo-temporal contexts .
Doyle’s chapter articulates the thesis that, in today’s global market for cultural products, the artistic creations of iconic novelists and film directors, such as Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers, are born “glocal .” That is, what they produce as a source language text or movie in one specific locale, “made in America,” is from conception strategized as marketable in other locales around the globe. This study examines illustrative aspects of what becomes of Cormac McCarthy’s novel No Country for Old Men and its film adaptation by the Coen Brothers when they are glocalized as No es país para viejos and Sin lugar para los débiles ; it analyzes what becomes of such American iconic brands when they are repositioned and rebranded linguistically and culturally from one cultural market (American English) for other markets (the Spanishes of Spain and Latin America). Doyle argues that transglocal repositioning and rebr...