On the ethics of translators' interventions 1
Channel: Anthony Pym
Date: 2009-05-28

Talk at the conference
Profession, Identity and Status 
Translators and Interpreters as an Occupational Group 
 March 15-19, Tel Aviv University & Bar Ilan University
Profession, Identity and Status
Translators and Interpreters as an Occupational Group

Abstract:
Continued military and sociopolitical aggression by the Israeli state provides an immediate and
reprehensible example of the difficulties of communicating across extreme non-ethical
asymmetries. In such a situation, endemic professional deontologies of mediation, based on
illusions of objectivity and neutrality, fidelity and equivalence, must be called into question.
Translators cannot be trained merely to represent whatever is in the text presented to them; they
cannot be considered subservient to the desires of clients; translatorial intervention must be
recognized and oriented, necessarily within some kind of ethical frame. We propose that the
search for such an ethics should involve at least the following considerations: 1) training should
not be for limited professions such as translator or interpreter; it should recognize and
operate within the wider frame of intercultural communication (which others nowadays call
cultural translation, and which crucially includes processes of text selection); 2) since strong
asymmetric cultural relativism is part of the hazards to be negotiated, there can be no ideological
recourse to notions of human rights  for the purposes of training, there are no rights, not to
understanding, not to human dignity, not to freedom of speech; there are only selfinterests;
3) since we are dealing with communication, there can be no ideological recourse to
individualistic ethical hygiene of the kind one finds in damp dark islands: do what you think is
best, refuse work if you think you must or do not work for someone you dont respect  all
these positions simply refuse communication; 4) similarly inadequate and unethical are narrative
closures that exclude dialogue and experiments as learning processes, that is, as fundamental
modes of knowledge  translation cannot be of the finite text or chronology, but must be seen as
a step in an extended exchange; 5) the one hope that is to be maintained is the constant
possibility of mutual benefits, that is, of long-term cooperation. These issues will be dealt with
through examples of Hebrew and Arabic translations of various peace proposals (drawing on the
work of Ahmad Ayyad), and with passing reference to the role of Hebrew within the Masters in
Translation at Al-Quds University.
Anthony Pym is Director of the Intercultural Studies Group at the University Rovira i Virgili in
Tarragona, Spain. He is the author, editor or co-editor of some 15 books on Translation and
Intercultural Studies, including Pour une éthique du traducteur (1997). His research group has had a
cooperation agreement with Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem since 2004.