The discursive (re-)construction of translational ethics

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a descriptive approach to translational ethics, one that takes a bird’s-eye view of the participants, processes and contents of the many discourses that influence how translational agents think and act. It sketches a model that takes into account the various voices that take part in the discursive (re-)construction of ideas about translational ethics, the communicative spaces they inhabit and some of the ideas currently in circulation among institutions, scholars, source-text authors, translators, journalists and ‘regular’ recipients. Bakhtinian discourse theory helps us see how these ideas on ethics intersect, diverge, emerge and re-emerge slightly altered in different contexts. Looking at the complexity of the discursive edifice that is erected through the constant negotiations of the different participants in the discourse, the article suggests that it is not obvious who translational agents are most likely to listen to. On the other hand, it is not obvious that translational agents should be expected to bow to any one authority in the matter: the inevitably conflicting pressures from various corners of this edifice suggest that critical awareness of the differing opinions should be fostered, allowing translational agents to develop their own voice.

KEYWORDS:

• Translational ethics
• Bakhtin
• discourse
• dialogism
• voice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Annjo Klungervik Greenall is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the Department of Language and Literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. She has published widely within the fields of pragmatics, sociolinguistics and translation studies on topics such as linguistic norm-breach and implicature; the role of English in Scandinavian countries; linguicism; language mixing in popular culture; translation of pragmatic features of texts; expectancy norms in subtitling; first- vs. second-language translation, etc. She is co-editor of the recent book Cultural Mélange in Aesthetic Practices (2015), with Domhnall Mitchell (NTNU), and Textual and Contextual Voices of Translation (2017), with Cecilia Alvstad (University of Oslo), Hanne Jansen (University of Copenhagen) and Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov (University of Turku). She has published a number of articles within the growing field of popular song translation, most recently on the translation of Bob Dylan’s songs into Norwegian. She is a song translator and jazz singer and has released a CD with translations of Billie Holiday’s songs into Norwegian (Eg vandrar langs kaiane/I cover the waterfront, 2012, Øra Fonogram), and another with translations of English-language pop songs written by Norwegian artists, translated into Norwegian: Løgn og forbannet gjendiktning/Lies and damned rewriting (2018, Øra Fonogram).

Notes

1. Bakhtin (1981) refers to such voices as a ‘speaking personalities’ or ‘speaking consciousnesses’ (p. 434; see also Alvstad et al., 2017b).

2. Potentially one of the reasons why one of Jansen’s (this issue) respondents refers scornfully to the Nomenclature as an undue encroachment upon the translator’s freedom of action (p. Xxx)?

3. At least not in any top-down sense – communities or individual members could of course choose to adopt or relate to such codes.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Research Council of Norway [grant number 213246].