Sono lietissima di presentare un altro saggio nella serie degli Occasional Papers, una collana al... more Sono lietissima di presentare un altro saggio nella serie degli Occasional Papers, una collana all'interno dei Quaderni del Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali (CeSLiC), un centro di ricerca del quale sono responsabile e che svolge ricerche nell'ambito del Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere e Moderne dell'Alma Mater Studiorum -Università di Bologna. Gli Occasional Papers finora pubblicati sono: Fusari, Sabrina, Il direct mail per le organizzazioni nonprofit: analisi retorica interculturale italiano-inglese -http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00000953/01/CESLIC_OP1.pdf Louw, Bill, Dressing up waiver: a stochastic collocational reading of 'the truth and reconciliation' commission (TRC) -http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00001142/ Nobili, Paola, 'Saper vivere' con gli altri -http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00001148/ Witalisz, Alicja, English Linguistic Influence on Polish and other Slavonic Languageshttp://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00000918/ Larisa Poutsileva, Raccontare il mondo in lingue diverse: Sara' lo stesso mondo?http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00002289/ A queste si aggiungono inoltre le altre pubblicazioni del CeSLiC: 1) la serie di manuali dei Quaderni del CeSLiC: Functional Grammar Studies for Non-Native Speakers of English -http://www2.lingue.unibo.it/ceslic/e_libri_1_func_grammar.htm -che già vanta tre volumi pubblicati, e un quarto in preparazione; e 2) gli Atti dei Convegni patrocinati dal centro: • a cura di D. Londei, D.R. Miller, P. Puccini, Gli atti delle giornate di studio del CeSLiC del 17-18 GIUGNO 2005: "Insegnare le lingue/culture oggi: Il contributo dell'interdisciplinarità", http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00002055 ora disponibile anche in versione cartacea: Londei D., Miller D.R., Puccini P.(a cura di), 2006, Insegnare le lingue/culture oggi: Il contributo dell'interdisciplinarità, Quaderni del CeSLiC, Bologna, Edizioni Asterisco.
Proprietà letteraria riservata. I diritti di traduzione, memorizzazione elettronica, di riproduzi... more Proprietà letteraria riservata. I diritti di traduzione, memorizzazione elettronica, di riproduzione e di adattamento totale e parziale di questa pubblicazione, con qualsiasi mezzo (compresi i microfilm, le fotocopie e altro), sono riservati per tutti i paesi.
The Benjamins Translation Library aims to stimulate research and training in translation and inte... more The Benjamins Translation Library aims to stimulate research and training in translation and interpreting studies. The Library provides a forum for a variety of approaches (which may sometimes be conflicting) in a socio-cultural, historical, theoretical, applied and pedagogical context. The Library includes scholarly works, reference works, post-graduate text books and readers in the English language.
The issue of ‘role’, perhaps one of the broadest and at the same time most complex aspects of com... more The issue of ‘role’, perhaps one of the broadest and at the same time most complex aspects of community interpreting, has assumed a prominent place in the debate in this discipline. This is indeed not surprising given its unique positioning in the interface between theory and practice on the one hand, and academia and professional institutions on the other. This situation is exacerbated by its hybrid nature as both a sub-discipline of Translation/Interpreting Studies and as a profession in its own right. Although it is a profession that has been practiced from time immemorial, it does not, however, have the support that academic disciplines usually enjoy nor the industrial protection that safeguards – at least in theory – the basic rights of practitioners in most established professions. What is interesting in our discipline, we believe, is that this interface is at the heart of the profession’s profoundly troubled nature and yet is at the same time the driving force behind its uniquely dynamic character. The current status quo, then, is a result of its position at the interface between different strands of knowledge, practice and ethics that have only recently ‘discovered each other’: Interpreting Studies has relatively recently woken up to the fact that interpreting is more than conference interpreting, and professional interpreters are only recently beginning to feel that they have the support of an academic and institutional network and that they are a ‘real’ academic discipline. Practitioners and academics, two separate discourse- and professional communities, are thus coming to the discipline from different ontological angles, leading to an interpreting-focussed job-centred approach (especially regarding theory and interpreter ethics) that must be aligned with an institution- and task-focussed approach (related to practice and institutional ethics). Although the interface between these two aspects generates vitality and debate, they are not, however, always compatible: Practice, research, academic descriptive/prescriptive knowledge and professional ethics do at times, clash. In our view, both in the literature and in the field, this clash is most evident in the issue of ‘the interpreter’s role’. Indeed, as well as more obvious aspects such as the interpreter’s participation and involvement, his/her tasks and responsibilities, ‘role’ affects a host of less apparent factors. These include institutional budget constraints that require the interpreter to multi-task and that affect the (lack of) staff recruitment of (in particular trained professionals vs. less costly ad-hoc solutions such as bilingual staff, short-term training, relatives and friends as interpreters).
One of the basic premises of this paper is the paradigm shift in translation and interpreting stu... more One of the basic premises of this paper is the paradigm shift in translation and interpreting studies away from a simplistic positivism to a context-based approach. This paper will, in the context of community interpreting (or ‘public service interpreting’), examine how previously held positivist axioms of equivalence and ‘neutrality’ are being replaced by a more dynamic, interactional approach which looks at the community interpreter as an active agent in the construction of ‘meaning’ and attempts to account for cultural and individual factors involved in the translation/interpreting process. The findings of a survey conducted recently on job-induced trauma among community interpreters will also be touched upon (Baistow 2000). One of the many interesting points that has emerged from this survey is that an important source of stress for the community interpreter was the expectation that s/he should be ‘neutral’. Recognizing the community interpreter’s dynamic role as an active, decision-making protagonist rather than as a “pane of glass” or “conduit” (traditional translating/interpreting metaphors) during the interpreting encounter is, this paper claims, crucial and could offset the negative effects of stress (as described in Baistow’s study) for the community interpreter. The aim of this paper is therefore twofold: Firstly, to look more closely at what is really meant by ‘neutrality’. Is this, seemingly objective criterion, culturally defined? Secondly, to explore the community interpreter’s interactive role as a cross-cultural facilitator and to problematize cross-cultural differences.
This paper assumes that ideology, discourse and power are intimately connected, and that
discours... more This paper assumes that ideology, discourse and power are intimately connected, and that discourse is the mouthpiece of ideology. Power is thus negotiated, manipulated, expressed, rejected and challenged interpersonally through discourse in settings defined by institutional power asymmetry. This paper examines the issue of power as a governing factor in community —and public service interpreting by using Fairclough’s distinction between power behind discourse and power in discourse, that is, hidden power that guides the interpreter’s status and role, guiding the interpreter’s discourse and interpreting strategies. Three categories of institutional relationships are examined: relations between actors in any institutional setting, these same relations in cross-cultural encounters, and these same relations in interpreter-mediated public service encounters. Lastly, the paper discusses power in relation to the interpreter’s role.
Summary. This essay traces some of the major epistemological shifts in the humanities over the la... more Summary. This essay traces some of the major epistemological shifts in the humanities over the last century, in particular anthropology, which have informed and profoundly altered language- and literary disciplines in Western academia, in particular those relating to the subjectivity of the observer (the anthropological ‘Gaze’), the complex interconnectedness of language and the surrounding socio-cultural network, the ephemeral nature of language itself, and the issue of textual authorship-ownership. Giving due appreciation to the institutional-practical nature of the discipline, the paper attempts to put into relief the interface of philosophical issues that arises as a result of these paradigmatic shifts with practical issues of professional ethics and role-definition in community interpreting. The paper also attempts to show that what emerged in translation studies as the ‘cultural shift’ has already taken place in community interpreting (not necessarily across the board in other forms of interpreting) due both to influences from other related domains and also to the specific cross-cultural nature of community interpreting itself.
This paper will focus on the relationship between professionalism and cultural constructions of s... more This paper will focus on the relationship between professionalism and cultural constructions of selfhood, in particular the differences between group-based and individual-based identity-building processes. The underlying assumption in this paper is that the interpreter’s cultural parameters affect his/her view of professional role and professionalism. This assumption further raises the question of whether or not s/he is also guided (consciously/unconsciously) by the host country’s understanding of ethics and professionalism and if these two potentially opposing values tend to converge over time: in other words do interpreters’ professional values and professional codes of ethics change as they are increasingly integrated into the host society? Case studies based on interviews with community interpreters in Italy about what they understand as being essential to professionalism will be reported on, shedding light on and potentially corroborating these claims.
Sono lietissima di presentare un altro saggio nella serie degli Occasional Papers, una collana al... more Sono lietissima di presentare un altro saggio nella serie degli Occasional Papers, una collana all'interno dei Quaderni del Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali (CeSLiC), un centro di ricerca del quale sono responsabile e che svolge ricerche nell'ambito del Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere e Moderne dell'Alma Mater Studiorum -Università di Bologna. Gli Occasional Papers finora pubblicati sono: Fusari, Sabrina, Il direct mail per le organizzazioni nonprofit: analisi retorica interculturale italiano-inglese -http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00000953/01/CESLIC_OP1.pdf Louw, Bill, Dressing up waiver: a stochastic collocational reading of 'the truth and reconciliation' commission (TRC) -http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00001142/ Nobili, Paola, 'Saper vivere' con gli altri -http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00001148/ Witalisz, Alicja, English Linguistic Influence on Polish and other Slavonic Languageshttp://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00000918/ Larisa Poutsileva, Raccontare il mondo in lingue diverse: Sara' lo stesso mondo?http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00002289/ A queste si aggiungono inoltre le altre pubblicazioni del CeSLiC: 1) la serie di manuali dei Quaderni del CeSLiC: Functional Grammar Studies for Non-Native Speakers of English -http://www2.lingue.unibo.it/ceslic/e_libri_1_func_grammar.htm -che già vanta tre volumi pubblicati, e un quarto in preparazione; e 2) gli Atti dei Convegni patrocinati dal centro: • a cura di D. Londei, D.R. Miller, P. Puccini, Gli atti delle giornate di studio del CeSLiC del 17-18 GIUGNO 2005: "Insegnare le lingue/culture oggi: Il contributo dell'interdisciplinarità", http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00002055 ora disponibile anche in versione cartacea: Londei D., Miller D.R., Puccini P.(a cura di), 2006, Insegnare le lingue/culture oggi: Il contributo dell'interdisciplinarità, Quaderni del CeSLiC, Bologna, Edizioni Asterisco.
Proprietà letteraria riservata. I diritti di traduzione, memorizzazione elettronica, di riproduzi... more Proprietà letteraria riservata. I diritti di traduzione, memorizzazione elettronica, di riproduzione e di adattamento totale e parziale di questa pubblicazione, con qualsiasi mezzo (compresi i microfilm, le fotocopie e altro), sono riservati per tutti i paesi.
The Benjamins Translation Library aims to stimulate research and training in translation and inte... more The Benjamins Translation Library aims to stimulate research and training in translation and interpreting studies. The Library provides a forum for a variety of approaches (which may sometimes be conflicting) in a socio-cultural, historical, theoretical, applied and pedagogical context. The Library includes scholarly works, reference works, post-graduate text books and readers in the English language.
The issue of ‘role’, perhaps one of the broadest and at the same time most complex aspects of com... more The issue of ‘role’, perhaps one of the broadest and at the same time most complex aspects of community interpreting, has assumed a prominent place in the debate in this discipline. This is indeed not surprising given its unique positioning in the interface between theory and practice on the one hand, and academia and professional institutions on the other. This situation is exacerbated by its hybrid nature as both a sub-discipline of Translation/Interpreting Studies and as a profession in its own right. Although it is a profession that has been practiced from time immemorial, it does not, however, have the support that academic disciplines usually enjoy nor the industrial protection that safeguards – at least in theory – the basic rights of practitioners in most established professions. What is interesting in our discipline, we believe, is that this interface is at the heart of the profession’s profoundly troubled nature and yet is at the same time the driving force behind its uniquely dynamic character. The current status quo, then, is a result of its position at the interface between different strands of knowledge, practice and ethics that have only recently ‘discovered each other’: Interpreting Studies has relatively recently woken up to the fact that interpreting is more than conference interpreting, and professional interpreters are only recently beginning to feel that they have the support of an academic and institutional network and that they are a ‘real’ academic discipline. Practitioners and academics, two separate discourse- and professional communities, are thus coming to the discipline from different ontological angles, leading to an interpreting-focussed job-centred approach (especially regarding theory and interpreter ethics) that must be aligned with an institution- and task-focussed approach (related to practice and institutional ethics). Although the interface between these two aspects generates vitality and debate, they are not, however, always compatible: Practice, research, academic descriptive/prescriptive knowledge and professional ethics do at times, clash. In our view, both in the literature and in the field, this clash is most evident in the issue of ‘the interpreter’s role’. Indeed, as well as more obvious aspects such as the interpreter’s participation and involvement, his/her tasks and responsibilities, ‘role’ affects a host of less apparent factors. These include institutional budget constraints that require the interpreter to multi-task and that affect the (lack of) staff recruitment of (in particular trained professionals vs. less costly ad-hoc solutions such as bilingual staff, short-term training, relatives and friends as interpreters).
One of the basic premises of this paper is the paradigm shift in translation and interpreting stu... more One of the basic premises of this paper is the paradigm shift in translation and interpreting studies away from a simplistic positivism to a context-based approach. This paper will, in the context of community interpreting (or ‘public service interpreting’), examine how previously held positivist axioms of equivalence and ‘neutrality’ are being replaced by a more dynamic, interactional approach which looks at the community interpreter as an active agent in the construction of ‘meaning’ and attempts to account for cultural and individual factors involved in the translation/interpreting process. The findings of a survey conducted recently on job-induced trauma among community interpreters will also be touched upon (Baistow 2000). One of the many interesting points that has emerged from this survey is that an important source of stress for the community interpreter was the expectation that s/he should be ‘neutral’. Recognizing the community interpreter’s dynamic role as an active, decision-making protagonist rather than as a “pane of glass” or “conduit” (traditional translating/interpreting metaphors) during the interpreting encounter is, this paper claims, crucial and could offset the negative effects of stress (as described in Baistow’s study) for the community interpreter. The aim of this paper is therefore twofold: Firstly, to look more closely at what is really meant by ‘neutrality’. Is this, seemingly objective criterion, culturally defined? Secondly, to explore the community interpreter’s interactive role as a cross-cultural facilitator and to problematize cross-cultural differences.
This paper assumes that ideology, discourse and power are intimately connected, and that
discours... more This paper assumes that ideology, discourse and power are intimately connected, and that discourse is the mouthpiece of ideology. Power is thus negotiated, manipulated, expressed, rejected and challenged interpersonally through discourse in settings defined by institutional power asymmetry. This paper examines the issue of power as a governing factor in community —and public service interpreting by using Fairclough’s distinction between power behind discourse and power in discourse, that is, hidden power that guides the interpreter’s status and role, guiding the interpreter’s discourse and interpreting strategies. Three categories of institutional relationships are examined: relations between actors in any institutional setting, these same relations in cross-cultural encounters, and these same relations in interpreter-mediated public service encounters. Lastly, the paper discusses power in relation to the interpreter’s role.
Summary. This essay traces some of the major epistemological shifts in the humanities over the la... more Summary. This essay traces some of the major epistemological shifts in the humanities over the last century, in particular anthropology, which have informed and profoundly altered language- and literary disciplines in Western academia, in particular those relating to the subjectivity of the observer (the anthropological ‘Gaze’), the complex interconnectedness of language and the surrounding socio-cultural network, the ephemeral nature of language itself, and the issue of textual authorship-ownership. Giving due appreciation to the institutional-practical nature of the discipline, the paper attempts to put into relief the interface of philosophical issues that arises as a result of these paradigmatic shifts with practical issues of professional ethics and role-definition in community interpreting. The paper also attempts to show that what emerged in translation studies as the ‘cultural shift’ has already taken place in community interpreting (not necessarily across the board in other forms of interpreting) due both to influences from other related domains and also to the specific cross-cultural nature of community interpreting itself.
This paper will focus on the relationship between professionalism and cultural constructions of s... more This paper will focus on the relationship between professionalism and cultural constructions of selfhood, in particular the differences between group-based and individual-based identity-building processes. The underlying assumption in this paper is that the interpreter’s cultural parameters affect his/her view of professional role and professionalism. This assumption further raises the question of whether or not s/he is also guided (consciously/unconsciously) by the host country’s understanding of ethics and professionalism and if these two potentially opposing values tend to converge over time: in other words do interpreters’ professional values and professional codes of ethics change as they are increasingly integrated into the host society? Case studies based on interviews with community interpreters in Italy about what they understand as being essential to professionalism will be reported on, shedding light on and potentially corroborating these claims.
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Papers by Mette Rudvin
discourse is the mouthpiece of ideology. Power is thus negotiated, manipulated, expressed,
rejected and challenged interpersonally through discourse in settings defined by institutional
power asymmetry. This paper examines the issue of power as a governing factor in
community —and public service interpreting by using Fairclough’s distinction between
power behind discourse and power in discourse, that is, hidden power that guides the interpreter’s
status and role, guiding the interpreter’s discourse and interpreting strategies. Three
categories of institutional relationships are examined: relations between actors in any institutional
setting, these same relations in cross-cultural encounters, and these same relations
in interpreter-mediated public service encounters. Lastly, the paper discusses power in relation
to the interpreter’s role.
discourse is the mouthpiece of ideology. Power is thus negotiated, manipulated, expressed,
rejected and challenged interpersonally through discourse in settings defined by institutional
power asymmetry. This paper examines the issue of power as a governing factor in
community —and public service interpreting by using Fairclough’s distinction between
power behind discourse and power in discourse, that is, hidden power that guides the interpreter’s
status and role, guiding the interpreter’s discourse and interpreting strategies. Three
categories of institutional relationships are examined: relations between actors in any institutional
setting, these same relations in cross-cultural encounters, and these same relations
in interpreter-mediated public service encounters. Lastly, the paper discusses power in relation
to the interpreter’s role.