The concept of translation in Wikipedia

ABSTRACT

Wikipedia is a resource for researchers due to its collaborative and disruptive characteristics, but it can also be a source of information on what the most widely held views on a topic are. This study looks at the entry for “translation” in Wikipedia in all the languages available in January 2015. Those entries are first categorized with respect to size (measured in bytes), activity (level of activity in 2014) and assigned quality labels. Discussion pages are then analysed to isolate any specific problem (vandalism, publicity and thinkgroups) and a content analysis is carried out to evaluate what features of translation are most frequently commented on in the wikis. The collected data is analysed in order to find out which ideas may be intrinsic to a global idea of translation, and which are more language-specific. The results are compared to the current situation of the translation industry and translation studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Wikipedia
• collaborative platforms
• translation definition
• online research
• multilingualism
• imagology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Ester Torres-Simón is a professional translator, teacher and researcher at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV). As a translator she specializes in the translation of cultural products (literature, audiovisual and art), and as a researcher, in Korean literary exchanges and the reception of translations. She is also an active defender of Wikipedia.

ORCID

Ester Torres-Simón http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8109-4357