Resumen de Motivating the translation-development nexus: exploring cases from the African Continent
Kobus Marais, Carmen Delgado Luchner
Translation and interpreting phenomena in development contexts are shaped by local and global affordances and constraints. In order better to understand these phenomena as meaningful attempts to overcome language barriers or manage complex mul- tilingualism, the authors present an interdisciplinary framework incorporating concepts from both development studies and trans- lation studies. The authors argue that a development perspective allows translation scholars to study translation and interpreting practices that have so far been neglected by the discipline. Africa in particular presents many instances of informal or ad hoc lan- guage mediation that might be dismissed hastily as examples of unprofessional or inaccurate translation if one fails to account for the affordances and constraints that make them meaningful adap- tations to local development tasks. To illustrate this point, the authors draw on different examples from conference interpreting, public service interpreting, and the informal economy in Africa, which they analyse using this interdisciplinary framework.
