Focus groups session no. 1

In the data from the first focus group session, when the students had studied for two months, there is a striking number of examples of Perry’s Dualism, in particular the division between We-Right-Good and They-Wrong-Bad (Moore 2002:20).⁴ At first, this distinction seems to concern what “other people”, or “the public”, think of translation and the translation profession, both on a more general level and in more specific cases. One example of the latter is the nature of translation criticism in literary reviews:

(1) Eva Exactly, if something is bad, then it’s commented.⁵

This is accompanied by a feeling of being misunderstood, which can be seen in utterances such as “People really have no clue […] about the situation in that respect”, and “[t]here’s not really an awareness that you actually need a masters’ degree”. At the same time, the students willingly acknowledge that they themselves did not have much knowledge of translation when they entered the programme two months earlier:

(2) Eva Almost nothing.

Erik You thought you knew a bit more than you actually knew.

3 Similarly, the SL and country in question will be referred to as “the SL” and “this country”, etc.

4 The first term includes courses in translation, translation theory and text analysis.

5 All examples have been translated into English by the author.

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They criticise the public’s (lack of) knowledge of translation, but their own utterances reflect the same ambiguity. This becomes clear when I ask them what characterises a good translation. After an attempt at a definition, Emma concludes:

(3) Emma It’s easier to define a bad translation than a good one.

Another feature of Perry’s Dualism is that the students have a strong faith in the Authority, who is a holder of Truth. In a translation education setting, the translation teacher can be considered the Authority whose feedback on a translation assignment points the way to the Truth, i.e. a “good” translation. As has been described earlier, Toury (1995b:284) considers feedback to be a central part for learning to play the social role as translator. Therefore, I was interested in hearing the students’ thoughts about receiving regular feedback on translation assignments. However, as I asked about their sentiments on this topic, Eva’s initial response was “Have we had that at all!?” This led to confusion about their working procedures, which, in turn, led to my not realising the consequences of the lack of feedback until the second focus group. Already in the first focus group, however, the students were very clearly discontent with not receiving any feedback, although they were not openly critical of the teacher. This can be seen in the following example:

(4) Emma Well, we have these [translation] seminars when we’re supposed to do it [review the translations] as well, to go through the source text and all the different target texts that we’ve produced…

Eva But there’s not really time…

Erik It’s not really that careful…

Eva It’s more on a general level…

Not to be openly critical to the Authority is in line with Dualism. On a more practical level, it is of course hard to measure one’s development without having any idea of the desirable outcome. In Toury’s terms, the environmental feedback is missing. At the same time, this can also be interpreted as a case when the Authority is the holder of Truth. The students discuss the use of translation theory in translation training:

(5) Eva So far I think it’s been more of a historiography of translation studies rather than giving any special guidelines or, how to say, of how a translator should act.

In this example we can distinguish a request for prescriptive guidelines on how a translator should act, i.e. the Truth. In the discussion below, which directly followed the previous example, Eva’s statement is somewhat nuanced:

(6) Edvin More of an orientation of the whole research discipline…

Emma But that’s the point as well I guess.

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Edvin Yes exactly, that’s what you’re supposed to know, it’s important to be aware of the history, especially if you want to do an academic thesis or research…

Eva It feels like it’s more useful in that context than in a hypothetical professional life, but then I suppose that it makes you reflect on how you translate yourself, which makes it useful.

Emma Yes, since most of the theories we’ve been reading about are quite old, it really shows how the views on translation have changed since then and what mistakes you may make if you become too narrow in your way of looking at the whole of it.

Here we can see how the students try to find their roles in a new community. Regarding the issue of positioning themselves on the market – how to work, where to work and what to work with – the students differ slightly. Emma and Eva express the wish to work with literary translation, although they do not seem very optimistic about their chances:

(7) Emma Most people I’ve talked to think that I’ll work with literary translation and then I try to convince them that it’s not very probable. And then they say: “Maybe you’ll start with technical manuals but then later on, once you’ve made a name for yourself, then you can get a novel to translate!” But that’s not really what I expect from the profession.

There seems to be a clash between the students’ and the public’s views. This might very well be a common experience for all translation students, but what makes this specific group somewhat more insecure is the fact that they will be the first university-trained translators in this language combination in Sweden. When discussing the possibility of not entering the programme and instead choosing to “just start translating”, the students agree that it is not an option:

(8) Eva Not now when this program exists. Then you would be in competition with the students [from the program].

Erik It feels like it’s very hard to enter the market if you don’t have a degree or haven’t translated for several years already, so I feel that it’s hard to just start.

Edvin You have a great advantage if you go through the programme.

The reason for “do[ing] the programme” is more linked to the translation market and that they will be documented university-trained translators, rather than what the students hope to learn. Emma concludes:

(9) Emma I feel that joining [the programme] gives me security, for my part. And that you have the right to call yourself a translator, and to demand proper rates as well. I feel that if I didn’t take the programme, I might still have been able to

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handle the profession, but I would still have felt insecure, I think.

The situation of the SL makes it very hard to estimate what the market actually looks like.

On the one hand, the graduates will be in a very unique position, but on the other hand, there might not be a demand for their translation services, which concerns the students.

The majority of the students would like to start working in a translation agency and then maybe with time move towards freelancing. However, they are very reluctant to work in an agency but not translating from their main SL. Edvin comments: “It would almost feel like a waste.”

One question intimately connected with translators’ societal self-image is the topic of translators’ visibility. On a question about whether translators are visible in society in general, the students respond:

(10) Emma [Translators are] very invisible, but as far as I’m concerned that’s fine. I don’t know, of course it would be nice if it got greater recognition as an occupation so you actually understand how much effort it takes, but I don’t feel that it’s that important that people actually understand what I do.

Me For you personally, you don’t need that…

Emma No, exactly.

Edvin I feel like that as well.

Me That you’d rather remain in the shadow?

Edvin Yes, it doesn’t really matter. It would be nice if the status increased a bit.

Eva If it could help to raise the rates yes, then…

In this example, the question of status seems to be interpreted by the students as their individual status as translators; they personally do not need recognition from the public.

In light of the previous examples, where they criticise the public’s lack of insight into translation matters, their own opinion seems somewhat ambivalent.

The expression “to make yourself a name” appears twice during the first focus group session, for the first time in (7) above. When discussing theory, Emma states:

(11) Emma In a way it can be hard to relate what we’re reading about to the professional role as a non-literary translator, it’s more about literary translation. So it also feels like once you’ve made yourself a name you can take the liberty of doing things that one that has to make a living out of it cannot.

The statement can be seen as a recognition that a translatorship must be earned, as Toury claims; the (literary) translator creates himself a position which makes it possible for them to, in the first case “get a novel to translate”, and, in the second, disregard certain norms which normally constrains translators. Here we can see an individualism that has also been described by Katan (2009b:123), that “translating is a profession when it is ‘earned’

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individually as a result of having made a name for oneself individually”, and that Sela-Sheffy (2008:4) has called a “personal reputation of select individuals”.