Keeping Up with the Challenges Entailed by the Process of Translation

Undoubtedly, the book is a versatile collection of various interdisciplinary contributions authored by Bianca Han, organised thematically along the following lines and directions: literary translation and polysystem theories, highlighting the importance of translating national literature (in the canon) so as to integrate it to the world literature and cultural heritage in an open system; translation and intercultural communication studies, with a special focus on the translator as cultural mediator in the global village and globalisation age and on the management of culture-specific items as epitomising domestication or foreignising strategies; the interconnection of translation and cultural studies, including postcolonialism perspectives; pragmatics and translation, which are not to be reduced to contextualisation issues, moving ahead to recontextualisation strategies and linguistic and aesthetic creativity; a market-oriented approach to translation so as to derive insights into ways of bridging theory and practice and into pathways for professionalisation; translation and technology, signposting the still important role of the human factor in translation quality assurance, and examining the role of CAT tools in the translation classroom and at the workplace; translation pedagogy, translation being no longer subordinated to foreign language teaching, the development of translation competence keeping a high profile; translation studies and corpus linguistics, hinting at the principles of corpus design and use in literary translation; defining the borders of specialised translation (revolving around the translation of the Bible); translatorship as a well-deserved recognition of the translator’s status, professional behaviour and merits in achieving what is rated a successful translation on the market, etc. In addition, the status, identity, evolution and multiple functions of English as a lingua franca are addressed in relation to most of the topics listed above, raising the question of ownership, and of situating translation on a market which is dominated by translation(s) from English.

Professor Titela Vilceanu, PhD