Developing a Blueprint for a Technology-mediated Approach to Translation Studies

Abstract

As Austermühl (2001) put it over a decade ago, the use of information and communication technologies is a fait accompli in the lives of today’s translators. Translation Studies (TS) have traditionally contemplated technologies only as supporting tools for translation practice, and translators’ tools have not enjoyed consideration as decisive actors in TS. Hence, their impact has been somehow underrepresented in the discipline. In the light of well-established translation paradigms (linguistic, functional, cognitive, sociological), we analyze the role played by technology. Most TS approaches are artifactual, this meaning that a rather simplistic and outdated distinction is made between translator minds and the tools they use. This paper proposes an instrumental approach to technologies within TS. In this, cohesive and mutual merging between translators and their technologies, both field-specific and generic tools lead us towards a concept that goes beyond purely linguistic or anthropocentric translation notions. A trans-human translation theoretical modeling is proposed to revisit TS paradigms in the context of the Information Society era. The trans-human translation closes the loop initiated by the fragmentation and dehumanization of first translation technologies, and envisages a stimulating future for translators, where they will use technological and social extensions in a creative and critical way.Comme Austermühl (2001) l’a mentionné il y a plus d’une décennie, l’utilisation des technologies de l’information et de la communication est un fait accompli dans la vie actuelle des traducteurs. La traductologie a traditionnellement envisagé les technologies comme étant seulement des outils de soutien dans la pratique de la traduction, et les outils des traducteurs n’ont pas bénéficié de considération à titre d’acteurs décisifs de ce domaine. C’est pourquoi leur impact, d’une certaine façon, a été sous représenté dans cette discipline. Nous analysons le rôle joué par la technologie selon plusieurs paradigmes de traduction bien établis (linguistique, fonctionnel, cognitif, sociologique). La plupart des approches et des études en traduction font une distinction, plutôt simpliste et périmée, entre les esprits des traducteurs et les outils qu’ils utilisent. Cet article propose une approche instrumentale des technologies en matière de traductologie. En cela, le fusionnement cohésif et mutuel entre les traducteurs et leurs outils de technologie, spécifiques à un domaine ou génériques, nous mène vers un concept qui dépasse les notions purement linguistiques ou anthropocentriques de la traduction. Un modèle théorique de transhumanisation de la traduction est proposé afin de revisiter des paradigmes traductologiques dans l’ère de la société de l’information. La transhumanisation de la traduction ferme la boucle lancée par la fragmentation et la déshumanisation des premières technologies de traduction, et envisage un futur stimulant, dans lequel les traducteurs emploieront des prolongements technologiques et sociaux d’une ma...

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