Edwin Gentzler, Univ. Massachusetts (Amherst)
The Micro-Turn in Translation Studies: Translation within the United States
Translation studies in the United States is quite a new discipline: the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association (ATISA) has been in existence for less than ten years; out of over 2500 universities, there are only 10 MA and two PhD programs; no history of translation in the United States has been written. Yet in the United States, over 150 languages are spoken, and one in five children are born into a non- or limited-English speaking family. Translation takes place on a daily basis in the schools, hospitals, courts, and social service agencies. The United States has been analyzed often in terms of race, class, and gender, but seldom in terms of translation or language minorities. This looks at how translation functions in smaller communities in the United States--cities, communities, prisons, reservations, and individual families--operating more often than not in a hidden, counter-culture fashion at micro-levels of culture.
