Cornelia Zwischenberger and Alexa AlferIntroduction

Introduction
Introducing labour (and work) in translation and interpreting

Cornelia Zwischenberger and Alexa AlferUniversity of Vienna | University of Westminster
Publication history
Table of contents

In spite of Translation Studies’ growing interest in the rapidly evolving socio-economic and socio-technical conditions of the translation and interpreting professions, systematic investigations of the concept of labour in relation to translation and interpreting remain relatively scant. In our paper “Translaboration: Translation and Labour” (Zwischenberger and Alfer 2022), we offered a first conceptual differentiation between translational labour and translational work, arguing that, while work is, in professional discourses at least, more readily associated with translation, translation as labour (i.e., as an activity structurally embedded in capitalist chains of surplus-value production) has so far featured far less prominently in Translation Studies debates. This has resulted in the perpetuation of the positivist and neoliberal orders of discourse (Baumgarten 2017) that govern the translation industry and academia alike and further consolidate

Funding

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with University of Vienna.

References

Ahmed, Sara
2004 “Affective Economies.” Social Text 22 (2): 117–139. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1215​/01642472​-22​-2​_79​-117
Alfer, Alexa, and Cornelia Zwischenberger
eds. 2020 Translaboration: Exploring Collaboration in Translation and Translation in Collaboration. Special issue of Target 32 (2). https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/target​.20105​.alf
Arendt, Hannah
[1958] 1998 The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Ayan, Irem
2020 “Re-Thinking Neutrality through Emotional Labour: The (In)visible Work of Conference Interpreters.” TTR 33 (2): 125–146. https://​doi​.org​/10​.7202​/1077714ar
Bahbouh, Fardous
2026 “Collaboration or Exclusion? Why is Translation Studies Still Ignoring Power and Legitimacy?” Lingua Media Connect (blog), June 25, 2026. https://​linguamediaconnect​.com​/2026​/06​/25​/collaboration​-or​-exclusion​-why​-is​-translation​-studies​-still​-ignoring​-power​-and​-legitimacy/
Baumgarten, Stefan
2017 “Translation and Hegemonic Knowledge Under Advanced Capitalism.” Target 29 (2): 244–263. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/target​.29​.2​.03bau
Baumgarten, Stefan, and Carole Bourgadel
2024 “Digitalisation, Neo-Taylorism and Translation in the 2020s.” Perspectives 32 (3): 508–523. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/0907676X​.2023​.2285844
Baumgarten, Stefan, and Jordi Cornellà-Detrell
2017 “Introduction.” In Translation in Times of Technocapitalism, edited by Stefan Baumgarten and Jordi Cornellà-Detrell, special issue of Target 29 (2): 193–200. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/target​.29​.2​.001int
Baumgarten, Stefan, and Michael Tieber
eds. 2025 The Routledge Handbook of Translation Technology and Society. Abingdon: Routledge. https://​doi​.org​/10​.4324​/9781003271314
Berardi, Franco
2005 “What does Cognitariat Mean? Work, Desire and Depression.” Cultural Studies Review 11 (2): 57–63. https://​doi​.org​/10​.5130​/csr​.v11i2​.3656
Braverman, Harry
[1974] 1998 Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Carreira, Oliver
2024 “Market Concentration in the Language Services Industry and Working Conditions for Translators.” Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice 32 (5): 889–904. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/0907676X​.2023​.2214318
Cukur, Leandra
2025 Auswirkungen des bezahlten Crowdsourcings auf den Translationsberuf: Eine konsequentialistische Analyse von Übersetzungsplattformen [Effects of paid crowdsourcing on the translation profession: A consequentialist analysis of translation platforms]. Doctoral diss. University of Vienna.
Dam, Helle V., and Karen Korning Zethsen
2010 “Translator Status: Helpers and Opponents in the Ongoing Battle of an Emerging Profession.” Target 22 (2): 194–211. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/target​.22​.2​.02dam
Deci, Edward L., and Richard M. Ryan
1985 Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. New York: Plenum Press. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1007​/978​-1​-4899​-2271​-7
2000 “The ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior.” Psychological Inquiry 11 (4): 227–268. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1207​/S15327965PLI1104​_01
Eurofound
2012 Trends in Job Quality in Europe. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Fairwork
2024 Cloudwork (Online Work) Principles. Fairwork. https://​fair​.work​/en​/fw​/principles​/cloudwork​-principles/
Fırat, Gökhan
2021 “Uberization of Translation — Impacts on Working Conditions.” The Journal of Internationalization and Localization 8 (1): 48–75. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/jial​.20006​.fir
Fırat, Gökhan, Joanna Gough, and Joss Moorkens
2024 “Translators in the Platform Economy: A Decent Work Perspective.” Perspectives 32 (3): 422–440. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/0907676X​.2024​.2323213
Fuchs, Christian
2014 Digital Labour and Karl Marx. New York: Routledge. https://​doi​.org​/10​.4324​/9781315880075
Gandini, Alessandro
2019 “Labour Process Theory and the Gig Economy.” Human Relations 72 (6): 1039–1056. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1177​/0018726718790002
Giustini, Deborah
2024 “ ‘You Can Book an Interpreter the Same Way You Order Your Uber’: (Re)Interpreting Work and Digital Labour Platforms.” Perspectives 32 (3): 441–459. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/0907676X​.2023​.2298910
Gough, Joanna, Özlem Temizöz, Graham Hieke, and Leonardo Zilio
2023 “Concurrent Translation on Collaborative Platforms.” Translation Spaces 12 (1): 45–73. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/ts​.22027​.gou
Graham, Mark, Isis Hjorth, and Vili Lehdonvirta
2017 “Digital Labour and Development: Impacts of Global Digital Labour Platforms and the Gig Economy on Worker Livelihoods.” Transfer 3 (2): 135–162. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1177​/1024258916687250
Harding, Nancy
2013 On Being at Work: The Social Construction of the Employee. New York: Routledge. https://​doi​.org​/10​.4324​/9780203559031
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri
2004 Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: The Penguin Press.
Hochschild, Arlie
[1983] 2003 The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
ILO (International Labour Office)
2013 Decent Work Indicators: Guidelines for Producers and Users of Statistical and Legal Framework Indicators (Vol. 2). https://​www​.ilo​.org​/wcmsp5​/groups​/public​/-​--dgreports​/-​--integration​/documents​/publication​/wcms​_229374​.pdf
Katan, David
2011 “Occupation or Profession: A Survey of the Translators’ World.” In Identity and Status in the Translational Professions, edited by Rakefet Sela-Sheffy and Miriam Shlesinger, 65–87. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/bct​.32​.06kat
Massumi, Brian
2002 Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham: Duke University Press. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1215​/9780822383574
Marx, Karl
1867  Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Oekonomie [Capital: A critique of political economy]. Band 1: Der Produktionsprozess des Kapitalismus [Volume 1: The process of capitalist production]. Hamburg: Otto Meissner.
Moorkens, Joss
2020 “ ‘A Tiny Cog in a Large Machine’: Digital Taylorism in the Translation Industry.” In Fair MT: Towards Ethical, Sustainable Machine Translation, edited by Joss Moorkens, Dorothy Kenny, and Félix do Carmo, special issue of Translation Spaces 9 (1): 12–34. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/ts​.00019​.moo
Morozov, Evgeny
2013 To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism, and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don’t Exist. London: Penguin Books.
Porter, Michael
1985 Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. New York: Free Press.
Tekgül, Duygu
2020 “Faith-Related Interpreting as Emotional Labour: A Case Study at a Protestant Armenian Church in Istanbul.” Perspectives 28 (1): 43–57. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/0907676X​.2019​.1641527
Tieber, Michael, and Stefan Baumgarten
2024 “Introduction.” In Mean Machines? Sociotechnical (R)evolution and Human Labour in the Translation and Interpreting Industry, edited by Michael Tieber and Stefan Baumgarten, special issue of Perspectives 32 (3): 379–390. https://​doi​.org​/10​.4324​/9781003428435​-1
Toury, Gideon
1995 Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/btl​.4
Venuti, Lawrence
1995 The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge.
Walker, Callum, and Joseph Lambert
2026 The Routledge Handbook of the Translation Industry. Abingdon: Routledge.
Zwischenberger, Cornelia
2016 “Translationsethiken und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Zukunft der translatorischen Berufe [Translational ethics and their implications for the future of the translation professions].” In (Neu-)Kompositionen. Aspekte transkultureller Translationswissenschaft: Liber amicorum für Larisa Schippel [(New) Compositions. Aspects of transcultural Translation Studies: Liber amicorum for Laris Schippel], edited by Julia Richter, Cornelia Zwischenberger, Stefanie Kremmel, and Karlheinz Spitzl, 37–57. Berlin: Frank & Timme.
2024 “On Categorising Online Collaborative Translation and the Consequences for the Field of Research.” The Translator 30 (1): 13–28. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/13556509​.2023​.2275348
Zwischenberger, Cornelia, and Alexa Alfer
2022 “Translaboration: Translation and Labour.” Translation in Society 1 (2): 200–223. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1075​/tris​.21016​.zwi

Address for correspondence

Cornelia Zwischenberger

Centre for Translation Studies

University of Vienna

Gymnasiumstrasse 50

1190 VIENNA

Austria

[email protected]

Co-author information

Publication history
 
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-dark jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold-light jbe-platform.quadraat-sans-bold prag Twitter_Logo_Blue