Book review
Rakefet Sela-Sheffy & Miriam Shlesinger, eds. Identity and Status in the Translational Professions
(Benjamins Current Topics 32). Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2011. XIII + 282 pp. ISBN 978 90 272 0251 2 €95.00. $143

Reviewed by Gisella M. Vorderobermeier
University of Graz
Table of contents

This volume sets out to “contribute to the emerging research on the social formation of translators and interpreters as specific occupational groups” (blurb). It does so with a focus on the “translator’s social background, status struggles and sense of self.” The extension “in the translational professions” in the book’s title does not promise too much; in reality, the volume covers considerable ground, ranging from the uneasy co-existence of legal and translational occupations in translationrelated sectors of the legal field to literary translation and conference and signlanguage interpreting. This wide thematic (but also geographical) scope makes it all the more appropriate to re-issue these 14 articles—previously published in two consecutive special issues of Translation and Interpreting Studies—in the series Benjamins Current Topics. The volume provides valuable insights to practitioners of other disciplines that take an interest in the translational professions and offers a wide-reaching and differentiated view of the theoretical resonances of the professional sphere in the academic context of Translation Studies.

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