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SPA Traductor DAN Oversætter |
origins
The English term translator (Middle English: translatour, from Old French: translatour, translateur, translator) comes from the Latin word translator, an agent noun derived from the perfect passive participle translatus. The inifinitive form, transferre, is composed of trans (‘across’, ‘over’, ‘through’) and ferre (‘carry’, ‘bring’).
abstract
Is a translator ‘someone who translates’, without further ado? As fundamental as it may seem, the question is rarely asked. Nor is the answer as simple as it seems. This entry therefore devotes some attention to defining ‘translator’. The search for an appropriate definition, in this case a purely descriptive one, takes us via an analysis of the multifaceted nature and many names of the mother concept of ‘translation’ – notoriously resistant to definition too – to a description of some common categories of translators and typical translator profiles. Contrasting the typical and the ideal translator allows us to identify the criteria which are sufficient to define ‘translator’, on the one hand, and those which are only desirable, on the other. The entry also discusses translator identity, naming conventions and, from a research perspective, the tricky issue of tracing the elusive translation practitioner. It concludes with an account of research that focuses primarily and explicitly on the translator and a discussion of the contribution of this line of research.
record
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Helle V. Dam |
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2024 |
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Dam, Helle V. 2024. "Translator" @ ENTI (Encyclopaedia of Translation & Interpreting). AIETI. |
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10951551 |
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https://www.aieti.eu/enti/translator_ENG |