Presentation on the topic “Sociology

and translation studies”

СТУДЕНТКИ ГРУПИ 035-17-1

ТРЕМЕЛЬ КАТЕРИНИ
Plan
 Concept of Sociology
 Theoretical basis
 Future challenges
Concept of Sociology

Sociology
• Is the study of human interactions and societies
• Emerged as an empirical discipline in the late 19th century and expanded drastically in the 20th
century
• Goals :
• change of form and organization of societies
• understanding of relation of individual behaviour
to social structure
• social construction of ‘natural’ practices, facts and beliefs
Theoretical perspectives
Sociology and Translation

the sociological perspective in translation studies appeared only recently

a conference entitled ‘Translation and Interpreting as a Social Practice’ was a milestone for fostering dialogue
between sociology and translation studies, resulted in the volume ‘Constructing a Sociology of Translation’

contemporaries developed their own theoretical framework for explaining the social world

each theory has its own worldview and agenda, blind spots
 Pierre Bourdieu theory developed around the key concepts of field, habitus and symbolic capital
and the theory of
fields

the field refers to a relatively autonomous sphere of

interaction where the agents inhabiting the field share a common set of rules and agenda

the habitus refers to the unconscious product of training, developed through routinized practices, which
translates in the ability to be at ease in a given field

the dynamics of a field are governed by the agent’s attempts at acquiring

symbolic capital (i.e. a synthesis of economic, social and cultural capital)

intoduced two main lines of thinking:

1) embraces the model of the literary field and tries to understand how (literary) translation and
translators fit into it.
2) questions how (far) the concepts of habitus and field can be applied to the understanding
of translation practices and translation norms beyond the literary field
 Niklas Luhmann –
integrates ideas from diverse fields such as biology, organizational science,
the social system as linguistics, deconstructionist philosophy and cybernetics
communication

introduces three types of systems: living, psychic and social

systems are autopoïetic, meaning they exist and reproduce themselves through life,
consciousness and communication

a ‘communication event’ is the synthesis of information, enunciation and interpretation

the social system is made of the juxtaposition of functional (sub)systems

(politics, economics, science, religion, art, media, education, family and law)

as communication events occur and multiply, new subsystems are created

Bruno Latour -
starts with the assumption that the world is flat
actor-network
theory
the main goal is to unveil the strategies actors use to enrol others and fulfil their
objectives

a central metaphor of ANT is that the social world is a ‘seamless fabric’

there is no rupture between nature/culture, text/context, agent/structure, or human/non-human: through

constant processes of translation, there is continuity

it aims at revealing the multiple processes of translation (proper or general) involved in the production
and circulation of any artefact

translation symbolizes a transformation that occurs when an entity moves from one category of actors
to another

ANT does not reject the idea of unequal power relations but rather than taking those imbalances for granted
(as Bourdieu’s sociology would)
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Future challengest
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Investigation ofAnalysing
sociology thewithin
processes
translation studies
by which concepts and theories
y as a recent and different discursive
translate into
fields (within a language), into different languages, or even into
dynamic
different
trend
semiotic systems
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Thank you for your attention!