Chapter 16
Agency and social responsibility in the translation of the
migration crisis
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.
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
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Acknowledgements
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Notes
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References