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Abstract
The paper is a review of the major trajectories of research in translation studies during the decade 2005–2015 and an updated projection of research trajectories for the decade 2016–2025. It concludes with a brief case study illustrating the many possibilities for research related to translation opened by current discoveries in neuroscience.
Notes
1. This article began as my keynote lecture to the fourth meeting of the Asian-Pacific Forum, held in Durham, England, in October 2015 on the topic “Current Trends in Translation and Intercultural Studies”.
2. For example, in 2014 there was a conference titled “China in Translation: Theory, History, Practice” sponsored by Harvard University.
3. See, for example, Cheung (Citation2006a, Citation2006b), Hermans (Citation2006), Hung and Wakabayashi (Citation2005), Marais (Citation2014), Rose (Citation2000), Sato-Rossberg and Wakabayashi (Citation2012), Tymoczko (Citation2006), and Wakabayashi and Kothari (Citation2009).
4. Mona Baker has rightly suggested that it is time to give up the use of the metaphor of “turns” in translation studies; her suggestion is appropriate in view of the fact that the discipline continues to deploy all the various approaches and tools that it has developed in more than half a century of work, including the earliest linguistic approaches.
5. For example, see the groundbreaking studies in the early collection edited by Dingwaney and Maier (Citation1995) and more recently Marais (Citation2014).
6. Such shifts supplement the canonical texts on systems approaches found in Even-Zohar (Citation1978, Citation1990) and Toury (Citation1980, Citation1995).
7. The continuing relevance of literary translation studies is exemplified by studies in Boase-Baier et al. (Citation2014) and Massardier-Kenney, Baer, and Tymoczko (Citation2015); cf. Tymoczko (Citation2014b).
8. See, for example, the descriptive studies in Olohan and Salama-Carr (Citation2011) and the earlier historical investigation in Montgomery (Citation2000), as well as sources cited in these volumes. Olohan (Citation2016) focuses on the practice of scientific and technical translation.
9. On the variation of the concept translation see Tymoczko (Citation2007, 54–106). Cf. the ways that the definition of the mathematical concept proof changed after the acceptance of the computer proof of the four-color theorem (Tymoczko Citation1979).
10. At present this trajectory is reflected in calls in many US universities to merge the humanities with the non-computational social sciences into a broader field with an administrative structure that stresses the continuities across these areas of research, thus encouraging cross-fertilization among the disciplines.
11. Mona Baker and Moira Inghilleri have been leaders in examining these questions. Important work has emerged from the series of conferences in the last decade on translation and conflict sponsored by the University of Manchester.
12. For example, the Islamic State (also ISIL, ISIS, Daesh) uses translation in varied and sophisticated ways which include recruiting bilinguals and having native speakers of a target language produce fluent texts for propaganda.
13. On research protocols that meet scientific standards, see Tymoczko (Citation2007, 140–186).
14. More detailed discussions of all three areas and additional findings of neuroscience relevant to translation studies will be found in Tymoczko (Citationforthcoming). See also Tymoczko (Citation2014a).
15. For example, red and white have different prevalence and connotations across cultures and thus are associated with different objects and situations. In the U.S. brides usually wear white, but in India red is more common. In India white is associated with garments of the aged and in China white is worn at funerals, but in Europe and the U.S. people have traditionally worn black in old age and to funerals.
16. The cultural specificity of associations of words are seen in the following chain of signification. Items that are of importance in a culture usually have words to denote them. The items denoted, however, often or even usually differ in their perceptual qualities cross-culturally: edible fruits, common animals, tools, clothing, toys, and so forth. Absent information to the contrary, a person’s cultural default will shape expectations about the meaning of a word or its translation, even in cultures that use a common language.
17. Infant-onset multilinguals learn more than one language before the age of seven. In this essay, I am using the term multilingual to refer to any person who knows more than one language; thus it includes bilinguals.
18. Here, we should observe that the line between a language and a dialect cannot be clearly drawn; accordingly in many cases knowledge of two significantly different “dialects” of a language probably also results in a person having the cognitive profile of an infant-onset multilingual. Research remains to be done on this question and Chinese might be an ideal language to test the hypothesis because of the significant differences between northern and southern language varieties spoken in China.
19. Cf. Bhabha (Citation1994, 212–235), who suggests that translation is a means by which “newness enters the world”.
20. In fact, there are many words for translation in world languages that imply the normality of adapting and altering texts in the process of translating, and it is possible that some of those changes are motivated by awareness of asymmetries in cultures and cognitive limitations for accepting cultural divergence on the part of translators and audiences. Such words include the Middle English awendan and Chinese fan yi, both of which literally mean “turn over”. A great deal of evidence about translation in oral contexts also indicates that change and adaptation to the target culture have been norms in such circumstances. Cf. Tymoczko (Citation1990; Citation2007, 54–106).
21. A fuller discussion is found in Tymoczko (Citationforthcoming, chap. 4) and sources cited.
22. The interaction between the vast store of nonconscious memory with conscious memory in complex learning processes is one reason that machine translation has not yet been able to replace human translators.
23. Long-term potentiation is a preliminary step in converting short-term memory to long-term memory. Myelination is the process by which fibers of axons in the brain are coated with myelin, thus establishing or strengthening connections and networks between specific areas of the brain and speeding the transmission of signals between specific areas.
24. Ironically, if such an effort were not universal, it could mean that hegemonic cultures would fall behind in the types of cognition that citizens of the world need, because the languages of such cultures tend to be the link-languages in the world. Thus, speakers of link languages might not feel the same need to learn foreign languages.
25. Key to explicit memory, the hippocampus is the only structure in the brain that is capable of integrating conscious memories and multisensory experience, and that coordinates integrated multisensory memories in ways that serve voluntary attention and conscious thought.
26. The relationship between vocabulary and multisensory memories is congruent at the level of the brain with the nature of the relationship between language and perception of the world discussed in Section 4.1. above. The bilateral nature of human brains means that perceptual memory is also stored bilaterally.
27. See Tymoczko (Citationforthcoming, chap. 2).
28. We should note that at present these standards are currently being strongly reasserted in the natural sciences because discoveries announced in key papers that were published in reputable journals have not been able to be replicated.