Translation and Practice Theory

Translation and Practice Theory is a timely and theoretically innovative study linking professional practice and translation theory, showing the usefulness of a practice-theoretical approach in addressing some of the challenges that the professional world of translation is currently facing, including, for example, the increasing deployment of machine translation.

Focusing on the key aspects of translation practices, Olohan provides the reader with an in-depth understanding of how those practices are performed, as translators interact with people, technologies and other material resources in the translation workplace. The practice-theoretical perspective helps to describe and explain the socio-material complexities of present-day commercial translation practice but also offers a productive approach for studies of translation and interpreting practices in other settings and periods.

This first book-length exploration of translation through the lens of practice theory is key reading for advanced students and researchers of Translation Theory. It will also be of interest in the area of professional communication within Communication Studies and Applied Linguistics.

It takes ingenuity as well as courage to return to a familiar question with new urgency, as Olohan does when asking which practices translators and translation scholars designate as "translation." By thinking deeply through the significance of the practice turn, Olohan provides a fascinating, new perspective on problems at the very heart of Translation Studies.

Lavinia Heller, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany