Distribution and translation

Abstract

Translation has traditionally been viewed as a branch of applied linguistics. This has changed drastically in recent decades, which have witnessed translation studies growing as a field beyond, and sometimes against, applied linguistics. This paper is an attempt to think translation back into applied linguistics by reconceptualizing translation through the notions of distributed language, semiotic repertoire, and assemblage. It argues that: (a) embedded within a larger textual-media ecology, translation is enacted through dialogical interaction among the persons, texts, technologies, platforms, institutions, and traditions operating within that ecology; (b) what we call translations are second-order constructs, or relatively stable formations of signs abstracted from the processual flux of translating on the first-order; (c) translation is not just about moving a work from one discrete language system across to another, but about distributing it through semiotic repertoires; (d) by orchestrating resources performatively, translations are not just interventions in the target language and culture, but are transformative of the entire translingual and multimodal space (discursive, interpretive, material) surrounding a work. The paper argues that distributed thinking helps us de-fetishize translation as an object of study and reimagine translators as partaking of a creative network of production alongside other human and non-human agents.