Anthony Pym

Anthony Pym is Director of Postgraduate Programs in Translation and Localization at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. He is the author or co-author of 11 books in the field of translation and cross-cultural relations, the most recent of which is The Moving Text: Translation, Localization, and Distribution (Benjamins, 2004). He holds a PhD in Sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

Abstract of presentation:

Technology, localization, and the translators of tomorrow

Electronic technologies have been altering the nature of cross-cultural communication for many years. The changes have now reached the stage where much of what we still call “translation” is being reframed by “localization”, a term that comes from industry, not from the academy or established translation theory. Is there really anything new behind “localization”? How might it affect the way we train translators? By adopting an anthropological understanding of the role of technologies, particularly electronic networking, translation memories, and content-management systems, one can indeed locate radically new elements in the concept of localization, especially with regard to teamwork arrangements, specialization structures, one-to-many production patterns, and a progressive segmentation of the translation market. These new elements should in turn influence the way translators are being trained, not just in order to work with electronic technologies, but also to work against the negative sociological and epistemological consequences.