Ethics of Translation Flashcards
(37 cards)
9 Ethics Principles from AUSIT code of ethics
- Professional Conduct
- Confidentiality
- Competence
- Impartiality
- Accuracy
- Clarity of Role Boundaries
- Maintaining Professional Relationships
- Professional Development
- Professional Solidarity
Professional Conduct
Honesty, integrity, dignity and decorum. Reliable and manage disputes.
Confidentiality
Not disclose information acquired during their assignments. Translated documents are the property of the client.
Competence
Only undertake assignments according to their qualifications and accreditation and level of language expertise. Preparation before accepting assignments is required.
Impartiality
Importance of being objective. Reject assignments where they cannot be objective. Keep opinions to themselves, avoid situations of conflicts of interest.
Accuracy
Whole message clearly conveyed, uncertainties clarified, omissions avoided.
Clarity of Role Boundaries
Any tasks may be undertaken by other parties involved in the assignment, such as giving advice or solving issues or advocating
Maintaining Professional Relationships
Role is understood, appropriate working conditions, good relationships with employers or clients
Professional Development
Maintaining and improving skills as Translators and Interpreters and also the skills of their colleagues
Professional Solidarity
Respecting and supporting colleagues.
Four current models of translation ethics
- Ethics of representation
- Ethics of service
- Ethics of communication
- Norm-based ethics
Ethics of representation
Highlights the values of fidelity and truth: the translator must represent the source text, or source author’s intention, or even the source culture, faithfully and truly, like a good mirror.
Ethics of service
A translator is deemed to act ethically if the translation complies with the instructions set by the client and fulfils the aim
of the translation as set by the client and accepted or negotiated by the
translator
Ethics of communication
The emphasis is not on representing the Other but on communicating with others
Norm-based ethics
Descriptive translation studies investigates the
norms that determine or influence translation production and reception. These
norms state what acceptable translation products should look like, and how
they vary from period to period and from culture to culture
Problem with the representation model
The representation model is vulnerable to arguments about the impossibility of totally true
representation, about the relative status of originals and translations, about
the illusion of perfect equivalence
Problem with the service model
The service model stresses the translator’s expertise, but also seems to
make a virtue of translatorial invisibility, weakening the translator’s autonomy
to some extent
Problem with the communication model
The communication model risks expanding the translator’s responsibility
to cover aspects of cross-cultural relations that may have more to do with
clients and readers than with the translator
Problem with the norm based model
The norm based model seems unduly conservative, underplaying the pos-
sibility of change or improvement; but norms do change over time, partly as
a result of translatorial action.
Definition of a virtue
A virtue can be defined as an acquired human quality that helps a person strive for strive for excellence in a practice.
All terms for Baker
- Virtue ethics
- Deontological models
- Teleological models
- Relativism
- Universalists
- Consequentialist theories (e.g. utilitarianism)
- Act utilitariansists
- Rule utilitarianists
- Kantian ethics
Virtue ethics
Rather than focusing on the question ‘What should I do?’, we must each be concerned with the question ‘What kind of person should I be?’
Deontological models
define what is ethical by reference to what is right in
and of itself, irrespective of consequences, and are rule-based
Teleological models
define what is ethical by reference to what produces the best results
