Workplace studies in translation: challenges and opportunities

LOCATION: Room A130, College Building

This presentation reports on a research project which sets out to investigate workplace practices in UK translation companies. It begins by addressing the main methodological challenges of conducting workplace research in an ethnographic framework. A number of areas for analysis are then explored; these include the pivotal role of the project manager, the deployment of technologies in translation companies and role of trust in relationships between project managers, translators and clients. The presentation concludes by reflecting on the potential usefulness of workplace studies to complement other forms of research in the field of translation studies.

Maeve Olohan is senior lecturer in translation studies at the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester, where she delivers postgraduate courses in commercial, scientific and technical translation, translation technologies and research methods in translation studies. She is author of Introducing Corpora in Translation Studies (2004), editor of Intercultural Faultlines: Research Models in Translation Studies I (2000) and co-editor of Text and Context: Essays on Translation and Interpreting in Honour of Ian Mason (20110) and a special issue of The Translator (2011) on the translation of science.