Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators

Beginning with the paradox that characterizes the history of translation studies in the last half century – that more and more parameters of translation have been defined, but less and less closure achieved – the first half of Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators calls for radical inclusionary approaches to translation, including a greater internationalization of the field. The book investigates the implications of the expanding but open definition of translation, with a chapter on research methods charting future approaches to translation studies. In the second half of the book, these enlarged views of translation are linked to the empowerment and agency of the translator. Revamped ideological frameworks for translation, new paradigms for the translation of culture, and new ways of incorporating contemporary views of meaning into translation follow from the expanded conceptualization of translation, and they serve as a platform for empowering translators and promoting activist translation practices.

Addressed to translation theorists, teachers, and practising translators alike, this latest contribution from one of the leading theorists in the field sets new directions for translation studies.

Maria Tymoczko is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Author of the prize-winning Translation in a Postcolonial Context (St. Jerome, 1999), she has written many articles on translation theory and practice and has lectured on these topics throughout the world. She is editor of the forthcoming Translation and Resistance and (with Edwin Gentzler) of Translation and Power (2002). For her translations from early Irish literature into English, published as Two Death Tales from the Ulster Cycle (Dolmen 1981), she received a translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. With an international scholarly reputation in Celtic medieval literature and Irish studies, Professor Tymoczko also publishes on literary and cultural theory. Her broad scholarly interests, as well as her lifelong political involvements, inform the arguments in Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators.