Mona Baker

The University of Manchester, Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies, Faculty Member

Followers

9,173

Following

Public Views

Mona Baker is Professor Emeritus of Translation Studies at the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester, UK. She is editor of Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution, Routledge, 2016) and with Bolette Blaagaard Citizen Media and Public Spaces: Diverse Expressions of Citizenship and Dissent (Routledge 2016), author of In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (Routledge, 1992, 2011; third edition in preparation) 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); Critical Concepts: Translation Studies (Routledge, 2009); and Critical Readings in Translation Studies (Routledge, 2010). She is also founding Editor of The Translator (St. Jerome Publishing, 1995-2013, now published by Taylor & Francis), former Editorial Director of St. Jerome Publishing (1995-2013), and founding Vice-President of IATIS (International Association for Translation & Intercultural Studies, 2004-2015 – www.iatis.org).
Address: Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies
School of Languages, Linguistics & Cultures
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL
UK

less

Interests

Uploads

Books by Mona Baker

In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (Second Edition)

Since the first edition of In Other Words was published, in 1992, numerous training programmes ha... more Since the first edition of In Other Words was published, in 1992, numerous training programmes have been set up for translators and interpreters across the world, most adopting this bestselling title as a coursebook. Translation has become a highly attractive career for young people with a love for languages and for engaging with other cultures. It has also become a more demanding career, requiring not only vocational but also a high level of intellectual skills, including the ability to reflect on a wide range of translational strategies and their implications.

Firmly grounded in modern linguistic theory, In Other Words starts at a simple level and grows in complexity by widening its focus gradually. The author explains with clarity and precision the concepts and theoretical positions explored within each chapter and relates these to authentic examples of translated texts in a variety of languages, although a knowledge of English is all that is required to understand the examples presented. This new, updated and extended edition features more examples and practical exercises that engage with new modes of translation. It also features a new chapter on ethics that attempts to respond to increased pressures on translators and interpreters to demonstrate accountability and awareness of the social impact of their decisions.

Ethics and the Curriculum: Critical Perspectives

A number of translation scholars and educators have begun to argue that the training of translato... more A number of translation scholars and educators have begun to argue that the training of translators and interpreters should include preparation not only for the market but also for society – for the concrete ethical dilemmas that face translators and interpreters in real life. Scholars and educators alike, however, have yet to engage fully with issues such as how students might be alerted to potential ethical dilemmas and encouraged to reflect on them as part of their training;; how educators themselves might reflect on the ethics of teaching; and whether it is possible to elaborate an ethics that is specific to teaching translators and interpreters. With rare exceptions, mostly in the area of literary translation, translator and interpreter education has typically sidestepped these questions, and the issue of ethics in general. At most, students are made aware of existing professional codes of practice (often misleadingly referred to as codes of ethics). These tend to focus on the rights of the fee-paying client and stress the need for impartiality and fidelity, notwithstanding growing public concerns and debate over the rampant consumerism that has accompanied globalization in recent years.

This special issue of the Interpreter and Translator Trainer provides a forum for reflection on questions of ethics in the context of translator and interpreter education. Covering a wide range of training contexts and types of translation and interpreting, contributors call for a radically altered view of the relationship between ethics and the translating and interpreting profession, a relationship in which ethical decisions can rarely, if ever, be made a priori but must be understood and taught as an integral and challenging element of one’s work.

Critical Readings in Translation Studies

This volume represents a much needed break from the canon that currently defines – but also restr... more This volume represents a much needed break from the canon that currently defines – but also restricts – the scope of translation studies. Read Venuti to see where we have come from; read Baker to see where we are heading. (Stuart Campbell, University of Western Sydney)

Critical Readings in Translation Studies is an integrated and structured set of readings that is prospective rather than retrospective in orientation. It opens up the field to innovative concepts and methods of research, and to voices and perspectives from a wide range of traditions. The emphasis is on contemporary critical material culled from a broad range of sources, including but not restricted to sources in mainstream translation studies. The divisions are based on thematic rather than chronological groupings and cut across modes and genres, thus overriding not only disciplinary divisions, but also internal divisions within translation studies. This collection provides students with a comprehensive overview of the latest developments in thinking about translation, both within and outside translation studies. Designed to be the most student-friendly volume available, this reader:

• Covers all the main forms of translation: oral, written, literary, non-literary, scientific, religious, audiovisual and machine translation
• Uses a thematic structure: topics covered include the politics and dynamics of representation, the positioning of translators and interpreters in institutional settings, issues of minority and cultural survival, and the impact of new media and technology
• Incorporates key approaches to conceptualizing translation: from textual and philosophical to cultural and political
• Includes core material from renowned scholars, but also innovative and less well-known work from scholars both in related disciplines and in the non-western world.

Complete with full editorial support, including a general introduction as well as detailed, critical summaries of each of the readings, a set of follow-up questions for discussion and recommended further reading for each article, this is an essential resource for all students of translation studies.

Readings from: Talal Asad, Mona Baker, Pascale Casanova, Eric Cazdyn, A.E.B Coldiron, Michael Cronin, Brad Davidson, Johan Heilbron, Theo Hermans, Moira Inghilleri, Hephzibah Israel, Marco Jacquemet, Alexandra Jaffe, Mohja Kahf, Indra Levy, Karen Littau, Ian Mason, Abé Mark Nornes, Vicente Rafael, Rita Raley, Samah Selim, Zrinka Stahuljak, John Sturrock, Maria Tymoczko, Lawrence Venuti

See http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415469555/

Download

Critical Concepts: Translation Studies, 4 Volumes (1600 pages), London & New York: Routledge, 2009

"Translation studies has grown at a phenomenal speed since the 1980s. This growth is well charted... more "Translation studies has grown at a phenomenal speed since the 1980s. This growth is well charted in several recent publications (Kuhiwczak and Littau 2007, Trivedi 2007, Tymoczko 2007, among others), and is evident in such developments as the increase in the number of journals dedicated to translation and/or interpreting, the increase in the number of institutions offering degree courses in translation and interpreting, the number of publishers now launching series dedicated to the subject, the availability of dedicated abstracting and indexing services, and the stream of encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries, readers and other anthologies of primary material which have been appearing steadily since 1997, with various large projects still under preparation. The current reader reflects this development and provides the most extended and ambitious collection of writings on translation and interpreting to date. It differs from all existing works of reference in the field in its emphasis on contemporary critical material and the range of disciplines on which it draws. Only some of the material included here is drawn from mainstream translation studies literature. Translation being a pervasive phenomenon that has attracted the attention of scholars working in a variety of disciplines, some of which have a much longer history and stronger disciplinary base than translation studies, it would have been odd to ignore the wealth of original, critical thinking on translation that is spread across a wide range of fields in the humanities. Many of the articles included here are thus written by scholars of history, postcolonial studies, literary studies, film studies, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and a variety of other disciplines. Several are translated from other languages specifically for this reader, and among those that are originally written in English many deal with translation and/or interpreting in non-Western and minority cultures.

This reader consists of 74 articles and book chapters and is divided into sixteen sections, as follows:

Part 1: Conceptualizing Translation: Transformation, Creation, Mimesis, Commentary
Part 2: Incommensurability of Paradigms
Part 3: Travelling Theory
Part 4: Translation at the Interface of Cultures: Contact Zones, Third Spaces and Border Crossings
Part 5: World Literature and the Making of Literary Traditions
Part 6: Politics and Dynamics of Representation
Part 7: Environments of Reception
Part 8: Translation as Ethical Practice
Part 9: Modes and Strategies
Part 10: Discourse and Ideology
Part 11: The Voice of Authority: Institutional Settings and Alliances
Part 12: Voice, Positionality, Subjectivity
Part 13: Minority: Cultural Identity and Survival
Part 14: Instruments and Mechanisms of Domination
Part 15: The Dynamics of Power and Resistance
Part 16 : Changing Landscapes: New Media, New Technologies
"

Download

Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account, London & New York, Routledge, 2006.

Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account demonstrates that translation is part of the instit... more Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account demonstrates that translation is part of the institution of war and that translators and interpreters participate in circulating as well as resisting the narratives that create the intellectual and moral environment for violent conflict. Drawing on narrative theory and using numerous examples from historical as well as contemporary conflicts, the book provides an original and coherent model of analysis that pays equal attention to micro and macro aspects of the circulation of narratives in translation, to translation and interpreting, and to questions of dominance and resistance. The study is particularly significant at this juncture of history, with the increased interest in the positioning of translators in politically sensitive contexts, the growing concern with translators' and interpreters' divided loyalties in settings such as Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and a host of other arenas of conflict, and the emergence of several activist communities of translators and interpreters with highly politicized agendas of their own, including Babels, Translators for Peace, Tlaxcala and ECOS.

Including further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter, Translation and Conflict will be of interest to students on courses in of translation, intercultural studies and sociology as well as the reader interested in the study of social and political movements.

Text and Context: Essays on Translation and Interpreting in Honour of Ian Mason

Ian Mason has been a towering presence in the now flourishing discipline of translation studies s... more Ian Mason has been a towering presence in the now flourishing discipline of translation studies since its inception, and has produced some of the most influential and detailed analyses of translated text and interpreted interaction to date. The sophistication, dynamism and inclusiveness that have characterized his approach to all forms of mediation are the hallmarks of his legacy.

Text and Context celebrates Ian Mason's scholarship by bringing together fourteen innovative and original pieces of research by both young and established scholars, who examine different forms of translation and interpreting in a variety of cultural and geographical settings. In line with his own inclusive approach to the field, these contributions combine close textual analysis with keen attention to issues of power, modes of socialization, institutional culture, individual agency and ethical accountability. While paying tribute to one of the most innovative and influential scholars in the field, the volume offers novel insights into a variety of genres and practices and charts important new directions for the discipline.

Download

Papers by Mona Baker

The Changing Landscape of Translation & Interpreting Studies

In Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter (eds) A Companion to Translation Studies, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014, pp. 15-27.

Translation and interpreting studies is now a vast and growing area of scholarship. This essay of... more Translation and interpreting studies is now a vast and growing area of scholarship. This essay offers a broad overview of some of its main concerns, focusing on a number of themes that have received growing attention in the 1990s and the early part of the 21st century. These are: representation; minority/majority relations; globalization, the global economy, and global resistance. The essay concludes with a brief discussion of future directions, including further engagement with questions of ethics and trust, and the impact of new media cultures and technologies.

Download

Translation as an Alternative Space for Political Action

This article examines the genesis, dynamics and positioning of activist groups of translators and... more This article examines the genesis, dynamics and positioning of activist groups of translators and interpreters who engage in various forms of collective action. The activism of these groups is distinctive in that they use their linguistic skills to extend narrative space and empower voices made invisible by the global power of English and the politics of language. They further recognise that language and translation themselves constitute a space of resistance, a means of reversing the symbolic order. Their use of hybrid language, their deliberate downgrading of English, the constant shuffling of the order and space allocated to different languages on their websites – all this is as much part of their political agenda as their linguistic mediation of texts and utterances produced by others, in their capacity as translators and interpreters. The article examines the positioning of these groups vis-à-vis what Tarrow terms ‘the new generation of global justice activists’ on the one hand, and professional translators and interpreters on the other, and argues that they occupy a ‘liminal’ space between the world of activism and the service economy.

Narratives of Terrorism and Security: ‘Accurate’ Translations, Suspicious Frames

Constructing and disseminating ‘knowledge’ about a number of communities and regions widely desig... more Constructing and disseminating ‘knowledge’ about a number of communities and regions widely designated as a security threat is now a big industry. Much of this industry relies heavily on various forms of translation, and in some cases is generated by a team of dedicated translators working on full-blown, heavily funded programmes that involve selecting, translating and distributing various types of text that emanate from Arab and Muslim countries: newspaper articles, film clips, transcripts of television shows, selected excerpts from educational material, sermons delivered in mosques. Drawing on narrative theory and using examples from institutions involved in constructing this type of knowledge, this article argues that attempts to discredit such efforts by questioning the ‘accuracy’ of individual translations miss the point. What is needed, instead, is a more nuanced understanding of the subtle devices used to generate dehumanising narratives of Arabs and Muslims through carefully planned and generously funded programmes of translation.

Download

Interpreters and Translators in the War Zone: Narrated and Narrators

For reasons to do with the spread and intensity of armed conflicts since the early 1990s and the ... more For reasons to do with the spread and intensity of armed conflicts since the early 1990s and the increased visibility of translators and interpreters that accompanied this development, scholars both within and outside translation studies have begun to engage with various aspects of the role and positioning of translators and interpreters in war zones. Drawing on available studies and recent media reports on contemporary conflicts, and adopting a narrative perspective to make sense of the findings, this article focuses on two issues. The first is how translators and interpreters are narrated by other participants in the war zone, including military personnel, war correspondents, mainstream media, alternative media and local populations. The second is how they themselves participate in elaborating the range of public narratives of the conflict that become available to us, and, in so doing, influence the course of the war in ways that are subtle, often invisible, but nevertheless extremely significant. The discussion is set within the broader context of recurrent, stock political narratives that constrain and define relationships and identities in all war contexts, and demonstrates that despite attempts to contain them within those narratives, translators and interpreters retain their agency and exercise their power in diverse ways. See https://www.stjerome.co.uk/tsa/abstract/12239/.

format_quoteBy 2006, most Iraqi interpreters were replaced with foreigners due to perceptions of threat, illustrating profound distrust and the impact of narrative constructions.format_quote

Download

Ethics of Renarration

Download

Ethics in Interpreter & Translator Training: Critical Perspectives

This introduction to the ITT special issue on Ethics and the Curriculum argues the need to engage...