On Translators’ Empowerment:Constructing A Professional Translation Production Network

With the advance of globalization,translation has transformed from a humanist activity into a globalized industry;however,in most traditional translation companies,which aggressively pursue profits at the expense of translation quality,translators remain so powerless that they are forced to accept excessive workload with low remuneration,resulting in the brain drain of translation talents and low price competition in the industry.In recent years,some new translation organizations represented by Shanghai Freelance Translators Team(SFTT)begin to emerge,which defy the management idea of their traditional counterparts and aim at empowering translators to ensure translation quality.But till now,little research has been done on the power relationship in these new translation organizations.This study combines Niklas Luhmann’s Social System Theory(SST)and Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory(ANT)as its theoretical framework.From a macroscopic viewpoint,SFTT will be explored through three perspectives: the new translation organization as a subsystem of translation industry,the organization as a social system in the society and the organization coexisting with other social systems,and from a microscopic perspective,the dynamic “translation” process of SFTT’s actornetwork will be examined.Adopting ethnographical methods such as questionnaire,interviews and observing members’ communication,this study seeks to tentatively deal with five research questions: 1)the power relationship in traditional translation companies;2)the background of new translation organizations’ emergence;3)the “translation” process of SFTT’s actor network;4)the distribution of power in new translation organizations;5)the relationship between new translation organizations and other social systems in the society.By considering the new translation organization as a subsystem of translation industry,findings show that as a new communication form,new translation organizations arise from translators’ powerless status in traditional translation industry to empower translators,because traditional translation companies stick to “capitalist” code and pursue profits by lowering price and increasing work,and the working net in such companies features a hierarchical structure where translators situate at the bottom of the network and have little say in translation quality and prices,which forces translators into increasing their working efficiency to make ends meet at the sacrifice of translation quality;while new translation organizations stick to the code “professional” and aim at providing readers with qualified translation products by considering themselves trustworthy agencies of readers,forming a flattening network in which translators are allowed to participate in the negotiation of translation quality,price and workload and so on.To regard SFTT as a social system in the society and take insights from the concept “translation” in ANT,which comprises steps of problematisation,interessement and enrolment,this study explores interactions between core members of SFTT,the client company Deloitte China and SFTT’s part-time translators in the translation project of 2019 White Paper on Environment for Foreign Investment in Shanghai.Findings of this study show that in the process of “translation”,which reflects how entities are interested and enrolled in certain production networks,new translation organizations represented by SFTT usually set themselves as the obligatory passage point by ensuring translation quality to interest potential clients,which turn out to be those large companies willing to pay comparatively high price for excellent translation service.Furthermore,these new translation organizations succeed in defining translation quality and are able to circulate inscriptions such as contracts and regulations that defend translators’ interests;therefore,they are capable to accept or refuse to undertake certain translation projects according to their own standards.In addition,as solvers of problems encountered by translators,new translation organizations interest and enroll translators through interessement devices such as promising reasonable workload,open communication,professional training and flattening working network,which ensures that translators can work for the quality-oriented goal and thus avoid the moral hazard jeopardizing readers’ interests caused by crashing schedules.Lastly,considering SFTT as a social system coexisting with other systems,this study finds that as social systems,new translation organizations such as SFTT are the products of the structural coupling of political and economic system,enterprise system,reader system,college system and technology system,in which these systems stay on an equal footing and cooperate with other systems on the premise of defending their own interests,which indicates that the power relationship among various social systems that constitute the new translation organization features equality and cooperation.