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8 - The Translation Professions

from Part II - Translation in Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2022

By
Rakefet Sela-Sheffy
Edited by
Kirsten Malmkjær
Kirsten Malmkjær
Affiliation:
University of Leicester
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Summary

Chapter 8 addresses the question of how and to what extent translation practices have become professions. In sociology, a profession is understood as an occupation that has been formally established, with boundaries determined by a canonized body of knowledge and formulated ethics, methods and technologies and recognition and authority given by the state. In contrast, translation occupations mostly form a heteronomous field that lacks formalized standards and controls. The chapter argues that this reflects a tension between professionalization as defined in sociology and ‘the rules of art’ or ‘the intellectual field’ as described by Bourdieu. In the latter, norms and value-scales depend on practitioners’ ethos and images rather than on institutional parameters.

Keywords

Professionsoccupationssociologystate authorizationstandardscontrolsintellectual fieldethics
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Translation , pp. 160 - 180
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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