Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Last year a special issue of the American journal Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) was devoted to ‘Eurocentrism in Translation Studies’. It was an issue that generated interesting controversy and opposed viewpoints. This plenary lecture will start by reconstructing the arguments and counterarguments. Moreover it will ask to what extent continentally based terms are useful in the development of a metadiscussion. Eurocentrism as it is understood in Translation Studies brings with it a whole set of related terms which articulate and mobilize the term in various ways. These terms comprise the very definitions or conceptualisations of translation itself and how these definitions and conceptualisations have brought with them, reflected and perpetuated particular mindsets through history till the present day. These mindsets often build on antagonistic views on language, nation and culture. The starting point is often the supposed dominance or superiority of Eurocentric reflection in Translation Studies that subsequently is rejected on the basis of the assumption that the old European models are too static to cover modern cultural and multicultural realities. In many examples, an antagonistic perspective on European vs. non-European or non-European based research is adopted. To what extent is Eurocentrism to be perceived as an inevitable concept resulting from the development of a discipline? To what extent is it also a constructed or at least constructible concept? Should European scholars of whatever studies be tempted to become less European? The answers to these questions might have a considerable impact on how translation and the related scholarly discipline are perceived and what their role is considered to be in society and culture on different continents. Particularly in a phase of growing institutionalization of the discipline, these questions relate to the way scholars conceptualize and theorize translation both as an activity and as an area of study.
Source: Lirias
Author: Luc van Doorslaer
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2524345540