Projeto de pesquisa – José Cyriel Gerard Lambert
Towards an empirical mapping of translation in contemporary Brazil
Descrição
Within our contemporary societies, translation phenomena can be envisaged and studied as a barometer of the internationalization phenomenon, or as a key component of internal and external relationships, both on behalf of national-institutional behavior and as part of everyday discourse. This is particularly relevant in a country like Brazil, given its wellknown traditional (“autochtonous”) languages on the one hand, and its history of organized and non-organized immigration, not to speak about border languages (e.g. portuñol). Given its size and its historical complexities, Brazil is a fascinating and fashionable topic for particular scholarly articles on translation. How this enormous country may be submitted to organizational rules as far as translation is concerned, remains an open question. Since Translation Studies claims to go for interdisciplinary approaches, it is not utopian any more to make use of sociological and organizational models that allow for more fundamental insights. A series of test cases will provide a few symptomatic answers, first of all in matters of international (and institutionalized) communication channels: official language policies, regional policies, e.g. in relation with so-called linguistic enclaves, Brazilian and other airlines, tourism, Internet practices, international organizations, customs, etc.- The confrontation with actual practices is a crucial issue, but will be planned at a later stage. The same applies to the Human Resources issue: e.g. the question of the actors, who is in charge of the people involved and who is charge of the execution (Brazilians/immigrants; international teams, etc.)? The goal is indeed not to evaluate the various results of the mapping, nor to influence the training of translators (see recent volumes on translators on the African continent) nor to analyze the translation market(s) from the sociological (Bourdieu oriented) perspective, but rather to prepare international confrontations. Possible recent measures since Brazil acquired the international BRIC status may lead into hypotheses and a few international confrontations.
