"I don't translate what I think is social injustice": Translators' ideology and emotion

Abstract

This study explores how translators in a public service translation setting retrospectively reveal their personal ideologies and emotions that were triggered during the translation process and how these factors are reflected in their translation output. It applies an ethnographic narrative approach to the cases of two English-to-Japanese translators and shows that the individuality and subjectivity manifest in their textual interpretation, production and translation outputs are influenced by their earlier experiences, opinions and emotions and that these factors are inextricably linked with one another. The illustrated individuality and subjectivity, which seem to conflict with the professional ethical principle of neutrality, are discussed in relation to the translators' views on the «ethics of being human». For the translators in this study, this human ethics transcends a rule-governed professional ethics. The study aims to fill a lacuna in the study of ideology and emotion in translation. It proposes an understanding of the translators' ideological and emotional individuality as the basis for an ethical framework that is flexible enough to reflect the individual and subjective human factors and practices of translators.