Translator and interpreter education has traditionally sidestepped the issue of ethics. At most, students are made aware of existing professional codes of ethics, which generally focus on the relationship between the translator and the client and stress the need for impartiality and fidelity. But translators and would be translators need to adopt a more reflective and critical stance towards the tasks in which they engage; they have a responsibility towards participants other than the client who pays their fees, and indeed towards society at large. Postgraduate education in particular must encourage translation and interpreting students to reflect on their own positioning and must prepare them for some of the ethical dilemmas they are likely to encounter in the real world. The presentation will elaborate on this argument and will focus on how ethics may be incorporated into the curriculum and how students may be encouraged to reflect on ethical questions in their own work and in the work of other translators and interpreters.
Mona Baker is Professor of Translation Studies at the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester, UK. She is author of In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (Routledge, 1992; second edition 2011) and Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account (Routledge, 2006), Editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (1998, 2001; second edition, co-edited with Gabriela Saldanha, 2009); Translation Studies (4 volumes, Routledge, 2009); and Critical Readings in Translation Studies (Routledge, 2010). She is also founding Editor of The Translator (St. Jerome Publishing, 1995- ), Editorial Director of St. Jerome Publishing, and founding Vice-President of IATIS (International Association for Translation & Intercultural Studies – www.iatis.org).
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