Translators' Ethics: Case Studies of English-Japanese Translators in Community Translation

Abstract

The ethical role of translators in various translation settings, including community translation, is contested across academia and professional fields. In this research, I investigated translators' interpretations and experiences of their ethics, aiming to elucidate individuals' 'realities' concerning the dimensions of translator ethics. The study applied a mixed methods design consisting of a questionnaire and three case studies based on two translation tasks and semi-structured interviews. This study foregrounded the often-hidden journeys of individual translators and the moral, emotional and ideological complexities of their practice. The investigation highlighted the interpretive and imaginative moral works the translators engaged in from the beginning to the end of a translation job, as well as throughout their translation careers. The study found that the translators' constructions of and dialogues with the intended target text readers were extremely personal and found different dispositions required by translators to deploy moral interpretants. These moral aspects of translators' work seem to be deeply influenced by various habitus-making factors including personal life experiences, training and certification backgrounds and professionalisation processes. In light of this study's findings, I argued in favour of the possibility of humanising translator ethics in two senses. Humanising translator ethics, as I propose, cannot eliminate all the uncertainty in inter- and cross-cultural communications, nor can it make the black box of translators' work completely transparent. However, acknowledging the diverse values, identities and practices as they are held, imagined and experienced by human translators is essential in constructing a meaningful discussion on how human translators, machine translation and people everywhere can cooperate to create a more just society.