Translation and interpreting

Increased globalization, growing mobility of people and commodities, and the spread and intensity of armed conflicts since the turn of the 21st century have established translation and interpreting more firmly in the public consciousness. Following a brief introduction and historical survey of translation and interpreting studies as a scholarly discipline, this chapter explores a range of issues that have interested both translation scholars and applied linguists in recent years. These include the contribution that translation and interpreting make to the delivery of institutional agendas in various settings, the negotiation of power differentials in a range of social settings, the role of translation in social movements and activist initiatives seeking to redress inequality, and the involvement of translators and interpreters as important political players in armed conflicts. The chapter then focuses on the role that translation and interpreting play in promoting cultural and linguistic diversity against the backdrop of the dominance of English as a lingua franca, examining the challenges posed by new multimodal genres arising from technological developments in digital culture. Future directions for the discipline of translation and interpreting studies are considered in the concluding section.