Anthony Pym Explained

Anthony Pym
Birth Date:1956
Birth Place:Perth, Australia
Discipline:Translation studies
Workplaces:Rovira i Virgili University
Stellenbosch University
Alma Mater:Murdoch University (BA)
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (PhD)
Citizenship:Australian, French

Anthony David Pym (born 1956 in Perth, Australia) is a scholar best known for his work in translation studies.[1] [2]

Pym is Distinguished Professor of Translation and Intercultural Studies at Rovira i Virgili University in Spain[3] and Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch University[4] in South Africa. He was a fellow of the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies[5] from 2010 to 2015, Visiting Researcher at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey from 2008 to 2016, Walter Benjamin Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna in 2015,[6] and President of the European Society for Translation Studies from 2010 to 2016.

Biography

Pym attended Wesley College (Perth, Australia) and the University of Western Australia, completing his BA (Hons) at Murdoch University in 1981.[7] He held a French government grant for doctoral studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, where he completed his PhD in sociology in 1985. In 1983–84 he was a Frank Knox Fellow in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. In 1992–94 he held a post-doctoral grant from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for research on translation history at the University of Göttingen, Germany. In 1994 he gave seminars on the ethics of translation at the Collège International de Philosophie, Paris.[8]

After years as a professional translator, journal editor and organiser of cultural events in France and Spain, he taught in the translation departments of the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. In 1994 he joined the Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain, where he set up the Intercultural Studies Group in 2000, postgraduate programs in translation in 2000, and a doctoral program in 2003.[9] He has been a Visiting Researcher at the Monterey Institute of International Studies since 2006. His permanent residence is in the village of Calaceite, Spain.

Pym is Distinguished Professor of Translation and Intercultural Studies and coordinator of the Intercultural Studies Group at the Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain where he also ran a doctoral program.[10] In addition, Pym is Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch University and an international advisory board member for the Translation and Inter-Cultural Research Cluster at the University of Western Australia.[11]

Pym was a visiting professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey from 2008 to 2016, where he conducted research and lectures.[7] From 2010 to 2015, he was a fellow of the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies.[5] He was also President of the European Society for Translation Studies from 2010 to 2016 and Walter Benjamin Visiting Professor at the University of Vienna in 2015.[12] In 2017, he joined the University of Melbourne's School of Languages and Linguistics.[13]

Thought and influence

Pym was one of the first to move the study of translation away from texts and towards translators as people.[14] [15] [16] He argued that translators are “authors” who can select the thoughts and emotions to express rather than “animators,” who merely present other's words.[14] He views the translator as working with the author to create meaning, therefore, they both contribute to the meaning of the translation[14] [15] [16]

According to him, the development of the translation field in the West has been essentially a "history of translation theory", a limitation that he proposed to address by focusing on the translators themselves and the contexts in which they operate.[17]

Pym also conceptualized translating as a form of risk management, rather than a striving for equivalence.[18] [19] [20] According to Pym there are three types and levels of risks: credibility risk, uncertainty risk, and communicative risk.[21] The credibility risk concerns the specificity of translation and relations between people, where the risk is the probability of the translator losing credibility.[21] The second, uncertainty risk, involves a translator's cognitive processes when they are uncertain about how to present something. The final risk that Pym identified, the communicative risk, involves the possible loss of cooperation between the participants in the communication act.[21]

He has hypothesized that translators can be members of professional intercultures, operating in the overlaps of cultures, and that their highest ethical goal is the promotion of long-term cross-cultural co-operation.[22] Pym has stressed that the translators' loyalty should be in their profession and that the value of translation efforts lies in its contribution to intercultural relations and cross-cultural communication.[23]

He has been attracted to the concept of inculturation, through which he sees translation as one of the ways in which minority cultures are absorbed into wider cultural systems and can then modify those wider systems.[24] Pym has also cited the role of technology, particularly the Internet in the translation of materials tailored to a specific local market.[25] According to him, the proliferation of information does not necessarily mean that these will be received, hence, care should be taken so that the translated texts appeal to its target culture.

Pym's ideas have been contrasted with those of the American translation theorist Lawrence Venuti by the Finnish translation scholar Kaisa Koskinen,[26] and Pym's critique of Lawrence Venuti has been commented on by Jeremy Munday,[27] and Mary Snell-Hornby[28]

Works

Pym has authored, co-authored, and edited over 30 books and 230 articles about translation and intercultural relations:

Translations of Anthony Pym's Works

External links

Notes and References

  1. [Douglas Robinson (academic)|Douglas Robinson]
  2. Web site: Visiting Faculty: Anthony Pym. Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. 1 November 2016.
  3. Resolución de 28 de julio de 2011, de la Universidad Rovira i Virgili, por la que se nombra Catedrático de Universidad a don Anthony David Pym http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2011/08/10/pdfs/BOE-A-2011-13666.pdf. Full oficial de la URV May 19, 2016 https://seuelectronica.urv.cat/fou/index.php?day=19&month=05&year=2016
  4. Stellenbosch University Yearbook: Web site: Archived copy . 2012-11-21 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120903212116/http://www.sun.ac.za/university/jaarboek/2012/Algemeen2012.pdf . 3 September 2012 . dmy .
  5. Three URV lecturers recognized by the ICREA Academia program for outstanding careers in research: https://archive.today/20130213043216/http://www.ceics.eu/news/news/47/three-urv-lecturers-recognized-by-the-icrea-academia-program-for-outstanding-careers-in-research
  6. Centre for Translation Studies-Gastprofessur Web site: Centre for Translation Studies » Gastprofessur . 2015-03-11 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150627110400/https://transvienna.univie.ac.at/en/forschung/gastprofessur/ . 27 June 2015 .
  7. Web site: People | Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Visiting Faculty: Anthony Pym. Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. 1 November 2016.
  8. See the Introduction to Anthony Pym, Pour une éthique du traducteur, Arras: Artois Presses Université / Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1997.
  9. Web site: BOE.es - BOE-A-2004-12566 Resolución de 22 de junio de 2004, de la Dirección General de Universidades, por la que se conceden Menciones de Calidad a programas de doctorado de las Universidades españolas para el curso académico 2004-2005.
  10. Web site: http://www.est-translationstudies.org/research/2011_DGT/team.html. The Status of the Translation Profession in the European Union: Research Team. Intercultural Studies Group. 1 November 2016.
  11. Web site: Home. Translation and Inter-Cultural Research Cluster: International Advisory Board Members. The University of Western Australia. 1 November 2016.
  12. Web site: http://www.est-translationstudies.org/news/2012_vienna_program.html. EST Symposium: Same Place, Different Times. European Society for Translation Studies. 1 November 2016.
  13. Web site: Professor Anthony Pym joins the School of Languages and Linguistics — School of Languages and Linguistics. Marcus. Bunyan. 17 October 2016. Faculty of Arts.
  14. Michaela Wolf, "The emergence of a sociology of translation", in Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, eds Constructing a sociology of translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins, p. 14 ff.
  15. Riitta Jääskeläinen, “The Changing Position of ‘the Translator’ in Research and in Practice”, Journal of Translation Studies 10(1) (2007), 1–15
  16. Andrew Chesterman, “The Name and Nature of Translator Studies”, Hermes 42 (2009), 13–22.
  17. Book: Translation and Translation Studies in the Japanese Context. Sato-Rossberg. Nana. Wakabayashi. Judy. 2012. A&C Black. 9781441139825. London. 53.
  18. [Jeremy Munday]
  19. Mahmoud Akbari, "Risk management in translation", The Sustainability of the Translation Field, ed. Hasuria Che Omar et al. Kuala Lumpur, 2009: 509–518
  20. Maggie Ting Ting Hui, Risk management by trainee translators, A study of translation procedures and justifications in peer-group interaction, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2012
  21. Web site: Canfora. Carmen. Ottmann. Angelika. Who's Afraid of Translation Risks?. 17 September 2016. Gutenberg Universität. 8th EST Congress and Johannes Mainz. 30 November 2016.
  22. Helen Baumer, Johann Jacob Bodmer, Interculturalist. Cultural realignment in the 18th century and the role of a Zurich translator. University of Auckland, 2004
  23. Book: Translation Today: Trends and Perspectives. Anderman. Gunilla M.. Rogers. Margaret. 2003. Multilingual Matters. 1853596183. Clevedon. 225.
  24. Anthony Pym, "On inculturation" (2011), and "Inculturation as elephant: On translation and the spread of literary modernity” (2012).
  25. Book: Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies, Fourth Edition. 2014. Routledge. 9780415506700. Oxon. 87.
  26. Koskinen. Kaisa. Beyond Ambivalence: Postmodernity and the Ethics of Translation. 2000. Tampere University Press.
  27. Munday. Jeremy . Jeremy Munday . Introducing Translation Studies. 2012. 3rd Edition. London and New York: Routledge.
  28. Snell-Hornby. Mary. The Turns of Translation Studies.. 2006. 146–147. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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