Choice of words, expressions of mind: Understanding the marginality of translation in Singapore’s public services

ABSTRACT

The value of translation is underestimated in Singapore, resulting in the marginalization of translators and interpreters. This study adopts a stylistic approach to investigating the marginality of translation in the public services with a view to identifying issues that could have hindered the professionalization of translation and interpreting in Singapore. The data of this study is public discourse drawn from government websites pertaining to translation. The article first examines the employment practices of government agencies. The subsequent stylistic analysis, aided by corpus linguistic software, focuses on deviant linguistic features in vocabulary, syntax, figures of speech, context and cohesion. Theories of point of view, framing and cooperative principles in conversations are integrated into the critical interpretation of policymakers’ word choices to understand their attitudes. The study reveals that linguistic repertoires in the public domain embrace abstractionism to reduce the salience of translation, perceived as the fringes of bilingualism.

KEYWORDS:

• Translator
• Singapore
• stylistics
• foregrounding
• framing
• public policy

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 https://www.nhb.gov.sg/what-we-do/our-work/community-engagement/education/resources/national-symbols/national-pledge

2 https://www.gov.sg/sgdi

3 https://www.parliament.gov.sg/about-us/structure/parliament-secretariat

4 https://www.judiciary.gov.sg/news-and-resources/news/news-details/new-fee-for-interpretation-services

5 https://www.judiciary.gov.sg/understand-legal-fees

6 https://www.judiciary.gov.sg/services/translation-court-documents

7 https://www.parliament.gov.sg/docs/default-source/Careers/career-opportunity---specialist-principal-specialist-(language-services)-(eng-tamil)-may-2018.pdf

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Yun Xu

Susan Yun XU is the Head of Translation and Interpretation programmes and Associate Professor at the School of Humanities and Behavioural Sciences, Singapore University of Social Sciences. She holds a PhD in Linguistics (with a focus on translation) from National University of Singapore.