Pym is Distinguished Professor of Translation and Intercultural Studies and coordinator of the Intercultural Studies Group at the
Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain where he also ran a doctoral program.[10] In addition, Pym is Professor Extraordinary at
Stellenbosch University and an international advisory board member for the Translation and Inter-Cultural Research Cluster at the
University of Western Australia.[11]
Pym was one of the first to move the study of translation away from texts and towards translators as people.[14][15][16] He argued that translators are “authors” who can select the thoughts and emotions to express rather than “animators,” who merely present other's words.[14] He views the translator as working with the author to create meaning, therefore, they both contribute to the meaning of the translation[14][15][16]
According to him, the development of the translation field in the West has been essentially a "history of translation theory", a limitation that he proposed to address by focusing on the translators themselves and the contexts in which they operate.[17]
Pym also conceptualized translating as a form of
risk management, rather than a striving for
equivalence.[18][19][20] According to Pym there are three types and levels of risks: credibility risk, uncertainty risk, and communicative risk.[21] The credibility risk concerns the specificity of translation and relations between people, where the risk is the probability of the translator losing credibility.[21] The second, uncertainty risk, involves a translator's
cognitive processes when they are uncertain about how to present something. The final risk that Pym identified, the communicative risk, involves the interpretation of texts and contextualizing them, while creating a balance between both the high-risks and low-risks and the interpretatio[21]
He has hypothesized that translators can be members of professional intercultures, operating in the overlaps of cultures, and that their highest ethical goal is the promotion of long-term cross-cultural
co-operation.[22] Pym has stressed that the translators' loyalty should be in their profession and that the value of translation efforts lies in its contribution to intercultural relations and
cross-cultural communication.[23]
He has been attracted to the concept of
inculturation, through which he sees translation as one of the ways in which minority cultures are absorbed into wider
cultural systems and can then modify those wider systems.[24] Pym has also cited the role of technology, particularly the Internet in the translation of materials tailored to a specific local market.[25] According to him, the proliferation of information does not necessarily mean that these will be received, hence, care should be taken so that the translated texts appeal to its target culture.[25]
Pym's ideas have been contrasted with those of the American translation theorist Lawrence Venuti by the Finnish translation scholar Kaisa Koskinen,[26] and Pym's critique of
Lawrence Venuti has been commented on by
Jeremy Munday,[27] and
Mary Snell-Hornby[28]
Translation and Text Transfer. An Essay on the Principles of
Intercultural Communication, Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1992. Revised edition: Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2010.
Epistemological Problems in Translation and its Teaching, Calaceite: Caminade, 1993.
Pour une éthique du traducteur, Arras: Artois Presses Université / Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1997.
Method in Translation History, Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 1998. Reprint with Chinese introduction: 北京 : 外语敎学与硏究出版社, Beijing, 2006.
Negotiating the Frontier: Translators and Intercultures in Hispanic History, Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 2000.
The Moving Text:
Localization, Translation and Distribution, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2004.
Exploring Translation Theories, London and New York: Routledge, 2010. Japanese translation, 翻訳理論の探求, trans. Kayoko Takeda, Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 2010. Translation rights sold for Portuguese and Korean.
The status of the translation profession in the
European Union, with François Grin, Claudio Sfreddo, Andy L. J. Chan. Luxembourg: European Commission, 2012.
On Translator Ethics. Principles for
Cross-cultural communication. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2012 (reworked version of Pour une éthique du traducteur).
Translation and Language Learning, with Kirsten Malmkjaer and Mar Gutiérrez. Luxembourg: European Commission, 2013.
Translation Solutions for Many Languages. Histories of a Flawed Dream. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.
What is Translation History? A Trust-Based Approach, with Andrea Rizzi and Birgit Lang. London: Palgrave, 2019.
Translations of Anthony Pym's Works
Exploring Translation Theories (London and New York; Routledge, 2010). Revised edition: Routledge, 2014. Japanese translation, Kayoko Takeda, trans. Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 2010. Spanish translation, Teorías contemporáneas de la traducción. Materiales para un curso universitario, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2012; unauthorized publication: Havanna: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 2016; second edition 2016. Portuguese translation, Teorias Contemporâneas da Tradução, Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2013. Traditional Chinese translation 探索翻譯理論 第二版, Taipei: Bookman, 2016. Brazilian Portuguese, trans. Rodrigo Borges de Faveri, Explorando as teorias da tradução, Sao Paulo: Perspectiva, 2017. Russian trans. Теоретические парадигмы в переводоведении. Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg University Press, 2018. Collective Turkish translation as Çeviri Kuramlarını Keşfetmek, Istanbul: Everest, 2023. French translation by Hélène Jaccomard, Explorations des théories de la traduction, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group. 2024,
https://doi.org/10.17613/5e5b-kd90. Translation rights sold for Korean and Arabic.
Method in Translation History (London and New York: Routledge, 2014). Reprint with Chinese introduction: 北京 : 外语敎学与硏究出版社, Beijing, 2006. Arabic translation by Ali Kalfat: المنهج في تاريخ الترجمة, Cairo: National Center for Translation, 2010.
On translator ethics. Principles for mediation between cultures. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2012. Translation and rewrite of Pour une éthique du traducteur. Korean translation as 번역가 윤리: 문화 간의 중재 원칙 by Hyo-Eun Choi and Hye-Kyung Park, Seoul: Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Press, 2016; Persian translation اصول اخلاقی مترجم by Zahra Fallah Shahroudi and Farzaneh Me'mar, Teheran: Nashr-e Markaz, 2017.
References
^Douglas Robinson, What is translation?: centrifugal theories, critical interventions. Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 1997 (ch. 5).
^Stellenbosch University Yearbook:
"Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from
the original(PDF) on 3 September 2012. Retrieved 2012-11-21.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (
link)
^
abThree URV lecturers recognized by the ICREA Academia program for outstanding careers in research:
[1]
^See the Introduction to Anthony Pym, Pour une éthique du traducteur, Arras: Artois Presses Université / Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1997.
^"Home". Translation and Inter-Cultural Research Cluster: International Advisory Board Members. The University of Western Australia. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
^
abcMichaela Wolf, "The emergence of a sociology of translation", in Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, eds Constructing a sociology of translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins, p. 14 ff.
^
abRiitta Jääskeläinen, “The Changing Position of ‘the Translator’ in Research and in Practice”, Journal of Translation Studies 10(1) (2007), 1–15
^
abAndrew Chesterman, “The Name and Nature of Translator Studies”, Hermes 42 (2009), 13–22.
^Sato-Rossberg, Nana; Wakabayashi, Judy (2012). Translation and Translation Studies in the Japanese Context. London: A&C Black. p. 53.
ISBN9781441139825.
^Jeremy Munday, Introducing Translation Studies. Third edition. London and New York: Routledge, 2012, ch. 7
^Mahmoud Akbari, "Risk management in translation", The Sustainability of the Translation Field, ed. Hasuria Che Omar et al. Kuala Lumpur, 2009: 509–518
^Maggie Ting Ting Hui, Risk management by trainee translators, A study of translation procedures and justifications in peer-group interaction, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2012
^
abcCanfora, Carmen; Ottmann, Angelika (17 September 2016).
"Who's Afraid of Translation Risks?"(PDF). Gutenberg Universität. 8th EST Congress and Johannes Mainz. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
^Helen Baumer, Johann Jacob Bodmer, Interculturalist. Cultural realignment in the 18th century and the role of a Zurich translator. University of Auckland, 2004
^Anderman, Gunilla M.; Rogers, Margaret (2003). Translation Today: Trends and Perspectives. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. p. 225.
ISBN1853596183.
^Anthony Pym, "On inculturation" (2011), and "Inculturation as elephant: On translation and the spread of literary modernity” (2012).
^
abBassnett, Susan (2014). Translation Studies, Fourth Edition. Oxon: Routledge. p. 87.
ISBN9780415506700.
^Koskinen, Kaisa (2000). "Beyond Ambivalence: Postmodernity and the Ethics of Translation". Tampere University Press. {{
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^Munday, Jeremy (2012). "Introducing Translation Studies" (3rd Edition). London and New York: Routledge. {{
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^Snell-Hornby, Mary (2006). "The Turns of Translation Studies". Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 146–147. {{
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