Structured literature review of published research on indirect translation (2017–2022)

ABSTRACT

Drawing on a structured literature review, this article offers a meta-analysis of published research on indirect translation in different domains between 2017 and 2022. The article first presents the rationale and method used in designing and implementing bibliographic searches, as well as in examining selected publications. It then presents the findings of the structured literature review, focusing on the date of selected publications, their authorship, translation domains and research approaches. The results show a significant increase in publications on indirect translation, with much more co-authored papers and a slight move towards author specialisation in this field. Our findings also show that literature is still the prevalent domain, and empirical studies prevail, particularly those that are product-oriented and look at the quality of indirect translations. Process-oriented, participant- oriented and context-oriented studies are still a minority, and they mainly emerge from research on non-literary texts. The article also includes a compilation of references to publications analysed as part of the literature review. A dataset resulting from this meta-analysis is shared in open access to ensure replicability. We hope that this meta-analysis will help highlight recent developments and blind spots, serving as useful tools for researchers wanting to diversify perspectives in indirect (literary) translation.

KEYWORDS:

• Indirect translation
• relay interpreting
• pivot translation
• structured review
• bibliometrics

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank members of the IndirecTrans members and other colleagues who helped in locating relevant publications and/or provided relevant language expertise.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

Hanna Pięta's research for this article was partially funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [grant number UIDB/04097/2020 and UIDP/04097/2020].

Notes on contributors

Hanna Pięta

Hanna Pięta is an assistant professor at Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (Portugal), a researcher at CETAPS (the Translationality Research Group) and an associate editor of the Translation Matters journal. Her research has focused on indirect translation in translator training, as well as in translation theory, practice and literacy. She has recently co-authored a book on how to translate well via a third language (Routledge 2022, with Rita Bueno Maia and Ester Torres-Simón) and co-edited a thematic section of Translation Spaces on how indirect translation impacts sustainable development goals (2022, with Jan Buts, Laura Ivaska and James Hadley).

Laura Ivaska

Laura Ivaska is a university lecturer of English at the School of Languages and Translation Studies of the University of Turku (Finland). She has recently co-edited the special issue of Target (34:3) titled “What can indirect translation do for translation studies?” She is also the editor of Mikael – Finnish Journal of Translation and Interpreting Studies, co-coordinator of the international IndirecTrans network and member of Young Academy Finland.

Yves Gambier

Yves Gambier is an emeritus professor at the University of Turku (Finland) where he taught translation and interpreting (1973–2014). He was also a visiting professor at the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University in Kaliningrad (Russia) from 2016 to 2020 and a fellow researcher at the Kaunas Technological University (Lithuania) from 2016 to 2023. He edited or co-edited more than 40 publications on socio-terminology, translation studies, audiovisual translation, etc. He acted as the General Editor of Benjamins Translation Library (2005–2017). He was Vice-President (1993–1998) and then President (1998–2004) of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST).