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Part of
Translating Asymmetry – Rewriting Power
Edited by Ovidi Carbonell i Cortés and Esther Monzó-Nebot
[Benjamins Translation Library 157] 2021
► pp. 361–377

Chapter 16
Agency and social responsibility in the translation of the migration crisis

ORCID logo | Universidade Nova de Lisboa | CETAPS

This paper looks at translator agency and ethics in the light of the current migration crisis, focusing on two concrete situations, one from the legal sphere and one from news translation-reportage. The first discusses how irresponsible choices in the translation of legal documents can proliferate in the online environment, generating a kind of “lexicoprudence” (Guia 2016) that produces alarming consequences in the real world. The second looks at the reportage in the British press of speeches by foreign politicians concerning the problem of unaccompanied “child migrants” in the wake of the dismantling of the Calais “Jungle.” Both will be discussed in the light of recent debates about translation agency and ethics.

Keywords: translator agency, translator ethics, social responsibility, migration, legal translation, news translation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Case 1: Illegal or irregular?
  • 3.Case 2: The children of the “Jungle”
  • 4.The translator’s agency
  • 5.Ethics and social responsibility in the translation profession
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 August 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.157.16ben
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