The Sociology of Translation: A New Research Domain

Abstract

Translation has become an object of study for the social sciences, especially sociology. Sociology approaches translation both as a social practice and as a cultural product involving agents (such as authors, translators, editors, and critics) and institutions (such as translation schools, literary and academic journals, publishing houses, and state policies). It is practiced by agents – translators – endowed with specific skills (linguistic, literary, academic, or technical), under various material conditions (for profit or not) and status (scholarly practice, profession). As a social activity, translation can be studied from different sociological perspectives: the sociology of professions, the sociology of culture, the study of international cultural exchanges, social functions, and fields (the political field, the economic field – publishing, the literary field), the social conditions of the international circulation of ideas, and the epistemology of the human and social sciences. While sociology brings new perspectives to translation studies, translation raises, as an object, interesting questions for sociology.

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