Hanna Risku at the Translation Colloquium at Kent State University

07.04.2021

Hanna Risku was invited to speak at the Translation Colloquium organized by the Center for Research and Innovation in Translation and Translation Technology (CRITT) at the Kent State University on March 19, 2021.

Her contribution 'Rethinking Translation Expertise: A Workplace Perspective' can be watched HERE

Hanna Risku presented the background to a research project (H. Risku, D. Schlager, J. Milošević, R. Rogl) that aims to contribute to the understanding of how translation expertise is seen and constructed in translation practice. The research project is informed by translation workplace studies and approaches the topic primarily from a qualitative, ethnographic perspective. The question of what translation expertise means in authentic work settings has so far been under researched. Accordingly, the objective of this research project is to explore how expertise is socially constructed and rationalized in the field and how it manifests itself in day-to-day activites. The main focus thereby lies on the social and international construction of what is required to perform translators' tasks. This includes normative descriptors as well as the actual workplace praxis observed and the interpretations or rationalizations of the various social actors involved.

In the talk, the conceptualization and investigation of translation expertise in translation studies as well as the description of what it means to contextualize translation expertise in the workplace were discussed.