Organizational ergonomics of translation as a powerful predictor of translators’ happiness at work?

ABSTRACT

Following the sociological turn in translation studies, researchers’ attention has shifted from studying a translatum to the translator. In connection with unexplored socio-psychological aspects of translator-oriented research, their happiness at work has been paid scant attention. More recently, interest in the translation process as a ‘situated activity’, i.e. the translator’s workplace, has come to the fore. Intermingling these new research avenues, the overarching aim of the paper is to find out to what extent ergonomics of translation has an influence on translators’ happiness at work. More specifically, components of organizational ergonomics of translation will be explored, along with their impact on agency translators’ happiness at work. The paper is built upon a quantitative analysis of 98 questionnaires completed by agency translators in Slovakia. The paper explores correlations between the agency translators’ support for workflow, opportunity to discuss translation problems, autonomy at work, time pressure, clarity of deadlines, feedback, variety in deskbound routines on the one hand and happiness at work (HAW) on the other hand. The research has revealed significant relationships between the translators’ HAW and their working environment, text type, time pressure and ability to maintain concentration.

KEYWORDS:

• Translator
• sociology of translation
• psychology of translation
• ergonomics
• happiness at work (HAW)
• agency translators

Disclosure statement

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

Notes on contributor

Klaudia Bednárová-Gibová is Associate Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Presov in Slovakia. She has published extensively on EU translation and translation techniques of non-literary and literary texts. Her latest research interests include the sociology of translation. She has authored three monographs on institutional translation (cf. e.g. Towards an Understanding of EU Translation, second revised edition 2020), three textbooks and 45 academic papers. She has given lectures in the UK, France, Poland, Greece and Finland and sits on the editorial board of several journals including Rudn Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics, Language – Culture – Politics and Radomskie Studia Filologiczne. She is also a member of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST).

Notes

1 See https://www.iea.cc/whats/index.html

2 See https://www.iea.cc/whats/index.html

3 See https://www.iea.cc/whats/index.html

4 See https://www.iea.cc/whats/index.html

5 https://www.socscistatistics.com/tests/chisquare2/Default2.aspx.