The translator as an intervenient being

1
The translator as an intervenient being

• Carol Maier

2

• Change of focus in translation studies
• Concept of intervenience
• Need for a change in translation studies
• Use of experiential material in the analysis of
  translators
• New developments in translation studies

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CHANGE OF FOCUS IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

• In the past no interest for the role of the
  translator.
• After Lawrence Venutis article
• Change of focus in the translation studies.

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CHANGE OF FOCUS IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

• The translator is more visible
• Translation can have complex effects on
  individual translators and on the society

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CHANGE OF FOCUS IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

• New works about
• The influential and even dangerous nature of
  translation as a profession
• The translators unconscious and translating
  habitus
• Translations affect situations in which they
  partecipate

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CONCEPT OF INTERVENIENCE

• As an adjective
• being or coming in incidentally or extraneously
• Situated between different points or events
• intermediary

• As a noun
• One who intervenes

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CONCEPT OF INTERVENIENCE

• Maier suggests that
• Intervenience could evoke nothing but the feeling
  of impotence implicit in the recognition that one
  is mired in words
• As words, traslation can create only surface
  effects and a superficial impact

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CONCEPT OF INTERVENIENCE

• Intervenience can also have negative
  connotations
• General professional identity crisis caused by an
  ambivalence about the iterpreters role and
  insecurities (Sandra Hale)
• Traslators may find themself in the middle of the
  conflict
• Traumatic effect of the message(Elaine Basile)
• Unstable sense of identity (Rainier Grutman)

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NEED FOR A CHANGE IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

• Focus on traslators as people (Anthony Pym)
• A new model of translation neither
  source-oriented nor translator oriented but
  translator centred (Gengshen Hu)
• Need for an understanding of the translators
  unconscious (Lawrence Venuti)

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NEED FOR A CHANGE IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

• A closer look at the creativity of the individual
  translator
• (Susan Bassnett, Peter Bush)
• Need for more data because of the shortage of
  documents about translators (Jean-Marc Gouanvic)
• There is no research on translators
  personalities (Jean-Marc Gouanvic)
• Insufficiency of raw material
• (Jean-Marc Gouanvic)

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USE OF EXPERIENTIAL MATERIAL

• 3 forms of experiential material related to
  translators can offer valuable insights into the
  effects of intervenience
• Dramatization
• Non-fiction writing
• Autobiographical writing

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USE OF EXPERIENTIAL MATERIAL

• DRAMATIZATION
• Occurs in fiction but also in poetry
• Fictional representation as metaphors for varied
  aspects of life in a world marked by migration
• Offers a commentary of contemporary life

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USE OF EXPERIENTIAL MATERIAL

• NON FICTION WRITING
• Biographical studies about translators
• Real material (e.g. drafts, journals and
  correspondence for the future scholars)

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USE OF EXPERIENTIAL MATERIAL

• AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING
• Partecipation
• Physical impact of translation
• Translation can cause such disease that ones
  organism becomes literally diseased (e.g. Erik
  Saar and Kyla Williamss experience suffering
  in physical terms)

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NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

• Do different types of translation involve similar
  or different sorts of brain activity? (Tumocko)
• Neurophysiologists will soon be able to scan
  translators brains

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NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

• Interest in the translator as a person/ an
  individual