TRANSLATION, GLOBALISATION AND THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE
TRANSLATION, GLOBALISATION AND THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE

Summary/Abstract: The following is a critical examination of the systemic transformations in the cultures, politics and practices of translation under the pressures of global economy, multicultural language policies and the new information technologies. What I am particularly interested in observing is the relationship between the rise of professional translation and the current state of translation scholarship, and the extent to which they inform each other across the densely interdisciplinary field of translation studies. The enquiry veers therefore between aspects of the hermeneutics and the pragmatics of translation, hinging on the newly forming articulations between translation theories and translation industries. A derivative scope is that of refocusing the problematics of English as an international language in the global environment, shifting attention from translation as an interlingual to translation as an intercultural act. The thrust of my argument is that, in absence of a heightened translation consciousness, the radical transformations in global economy coupled with the new technology assisting the translation process make it easy to overlook the role of the agency of translation and remain confined to a viewing of it in purely instrumental terms. Equally, the article is an attempt to grapple briefly with the issue of the proliferation of Englishes in circulation and the continuing rift between the practices and theories of translating. It seems to me a like consideration is now long overdue.

• Details
• Contents