Ethnographic research in translation and interpreting studies

ABSTRACT

In tandem with the growing interdisciplinarity of translation and interpreting studies, and an increasing interest in participant- and process-oriented studies in the field, there has been a burgeoning of innovation in methodologies that transcend disciplinary boundaries. Ethnographic approaches have gained popularity in the last thirty years, as researchers have felt compelled to enter the field to study the agents, their practices and actual processes of translation and interpreting. Whilst the literature on ethnography has flourished in the social sciences, there has been little systematic reflection on how ethnography has expanded translation studies scholarship. In parallel, the divide between translation and interpreting scholars adopting ethnographic approaches has limited the internal dialogue in the field. This article expands the definition of ethnography in translation studies beyond its methodological application to include an understanding of ethnography as an overarching research framework. It also looks into the reasons that explain the relatively late adoption of ethnography in translation studies. Finally, the overview of articles included in the special issue demonstrates how ethnography can contribute to diverse areas of translation studies and points towards future possibilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Research methodologies in translation and interpreting
• ethnography in translation and interpreting
• fieldwork in translation and interpreting

Acknowledgments

This article was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under Grant PID2020-119957RJ-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; and Faculty of Arts Research Impact Fund (Hong Kong Baptist University) under Grant RIF2013. We would like to thank the editors of this journal, Loredana Polezzi and Rita Wilson, for their feedback on previous drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maialen Marin-Lacarta

Maialen Marin-Lacarta is Senior Researcher in the Department of Arts and Humanities at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain) and teaches in the SISU Translation Research Summer School at the Baker Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies. She is currently the Principal Investigator of a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science of Innovation, collaborating with a team of eight researchers. Prior to joining UOC, she was an Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, where she worked for six years. Her research focuses on the position and circulation of Chinese and Sinophone literatures in the global literary system. Her more recent work centres on ethnographies of digital publishing initiatives and literary translator collectives. She has published in journals such as Translation Studies, The Translator, Perspectives, and Meta. Marin-Lacarta is also an award-winning Chinese literature translator into Spanish and Basque, and the co-editor of the journal 1611: Revista de historia de la traducción.

Chuan Yu

Chuan Yu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Intercultural Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, Associate Editor of the journal Interpreting and Society - An Interdisciplinary Journal, and an Affiliate Lecturer in the Department of Human Centered Computing at Monash University. She is the author of Online Collaborative Translation in China and Beyond: Community, Practice, and Identity (Routledge 2022). Her research lies at the intersection of Translation Studies, Anthropology, and Media and Communication Studies. Her research interests include collaborative translation, non-professional translation, the use of ethnographic methodologies in TS research, citizen media and Chinese internet research. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Translation Studies and The Journal of Specialised Translation.