Unleashing the potential of indirect translation

This poster focuses on indirect translation (ITr), understood in the widest sense as a translation of a translation (Gambier 1994), thus also encompassing relay interpreting. ITr has only recently become an object of systematic research and is still conspicuously absent from translator training, despite its long-standing history (e.g., Bible translation, the activity of the so-called Toledo School), widespread use in today’s society (e.g., audiovisual, community, literary, news and technical translation; localization; conference and community interpreting) and promising prospects for the foreseeable future (e.g. due to the increasing need to edit documents via the linguae francae, e.g., in international organizations, cf. Assis Rosa, Pięta and Maia 2017). Here we argue that - as translation researchers, trainers, and society in general - we should pay more attention to ITr because: (a) it is likely to challenge the traditional paradigms in translation research and training (underpinned by binary approaches, provoked by so-called imperialistic paradigms ignoring inter-peripheral exchanges), by stressing the (at least) tripartite (source-mediating-target language/text/culture) nature of many - if not all- translation processes, thereby having powerful implications for the current movement towards self-reflection in Translation Studies; (b) it is likely to enrich ongoing discussions about some of the main concerns of the world we live in (e.g., inaccessibility, inequality, language domination, migration, etc.). The above claims will be illustrated with examples taken from case-studies developed within the IndirecTrans network (http://www.indirectrans.com/network/about.html).