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2014 Gile The - Coming - of - Age - of - A - Learned - Society - in - Translation Studies. EST A Case
2014 Gile The - Coming - of - Age - of - A - Learned - Society - in - Translation Studies. EST A Case
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Daniel Gile
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Daniel Gile
ESIT, Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle
The author reviews ideas, projects and actions generated and implemented
within and with EST over the past twenty years. He concludes in his analysis that
predictors of success or failure for EST operations are individual motivation, or-
ganization with specific duties and institutional weight. He considers that EST is
doing rather well, suggests that there is potential for development in service pro-
vision in the form of short courses provided by experts from within the Society,
but that one should not be overambitious in terms of institutional influence.
1. Introduction
EST, the European Society for Translation Studies, was officially born under
Austrian law in November 1992. According to its “proponents” (Snell-Hornby and
Pöchhacker 1992), the Society was set up to meet the need for a forum for discus-
sion and cooperation in a “dynamic new discipline,” the aims being “to promote
not only research but also further education for teachers and trainers,” “to facilitate
contacts between the profession and academic training institutions,” and “to offer
urgently needed consulting services on issues where special expertise is required.”
How successful has EST been in achieving these aims? What other aims and
strategies have been developed and how successful have these activities been?
What lessons can be drawn from the experience? In this short paper, I should like
to review some salient facts and offer some reflections.
I should like to start by pointing out that as a learned society, EST is atypical
in at least two ways: first, it was set up to serve the interests of a discipline in the
making which covers a particularly wide range of topics and research paradigms
across the humanities and natural sciences divide, with a population of scholars
many of whom come from the practice of translation and interpreting and its
teaching as opposed to a scholarly and research tradition, not quite comparable
to those of more established disciplines. Second, typically, learned societies ei-
ther publish their own journals or invest much effort in fostering publishing in
their field (see for example the “Work of the Societies” page of the website of the
American Council of Learned Societies: cf. ACLS). EST does not publish its own
journal, which was probably the right decision to make, since many of its found-
ing members were already on the editorial board of at least one translation jour-
nal. Moreover, in Translation Studies, publication space is plentiful, perhaps too
much so, and there was no need to create a new journal. The TS environment may
change in the future, but at this point, it makes sense to assess EST’s operations
and achievement on a stand-alone basis.
2. Some facts
Outside EST, the Society is probably best known for its Congresses, which take
place every three years and for the ensuing proceedings published by John
Benjamins within the framework of the ‘EST subseries.’ The EST website may also
be familiar to some TS scholars outside EST. Members also know about the EST
Newsletter, and presumably about its grants and prizes.
Papers published in Congress proceedings are read, as is shown by references
to them in the literature. But how aware are EST members of the numerous at-
tempts made from the start within the Society to develop other useful activities?
The first concrete action taken by the Executive Board in 1992 was to set up
the semesterly EST Newsletter, which was to be not a translation journal, but a light
communication vehicle with “maximum communication efficiency” and “a mini-
mum of words, formality and bureaucracy” (Gile 1992, 2). The expectation was
that members would be encouraged by the informal style of the Newsletter to con-
tribute “an abundant input of materials, ideas, comments, queries or suggestions of
any kind” (Snell-Hornby and Pöchhacker 1992, 2). On the whole, this expectation
has not been met. The Newsletter did develop over time and is now much richer
than in its initial years, but the input comes from a very small number of members.
In the first issue of the EST Newsletter, in 1992, two types of activities were
suggested (3–4). One was “thematic coordination”: it was suggested that EST
members interested in cooperative research on particular topics write to a mem-
ber of the Executive Board or the Newsletter editor so that a list of topics could
be published and coordinators would be selected for each topic. The other activ-
ity was informal co-supervision of theses and other research projects to help out
whenever this was felt useful or needed. EST Newsletter 2 (May 1993) shows initial
responses to these suggestions: two upcoming conferences were announced, a list
of six themes for cooperative work with volunteer coordinators for five of them
was published, and two people volunteered to act as co-supervisors for theses.
Gile, the volunteer coordinator for theme 2 (“designing a syllabus for a graduate
course in Translation Studies”), suggested a three-part course and asked for input
from members. No single response was ever received. In EST Newsletters No. 3
(November 1993) and No. 4 (May 1994), a few more themes for cooperative work
were suggested, and a few more people volunteered to be thesis co-supervisors,
but apparently nothing came out of these initiatives, which were no longer men-
tioned in subsequent issues of the Newsletter.
EST Newsletter No. 4 does report on the first EST workshop, which was orga-
nized in March 1994 in Vienna to address the topic of curriculum design. It also
reports on the decision to hold EST Congresses every three years, the first to be or-
ganized in Prague in 1995. This turned out to be perhaps the most successful EST
activity over the past twenty years, with high turnout, membership renewals and
new memberships at the time of the Congress, and healthy financial outcomes.
In EST Newsletter No. 5 (November 1994), Mary Snell-Hornby launched an-
other activity, namely the collection of information on graduation/MA theses,
which, it was felt, are often “doomed to gather dust in obscure archives,” but which
often deserve wider circulation, and asked members to provide information on
such theses (Snell-Horny 1994). This is another idea which never came to fruition
and was eventually abandoned.
In her “President’s Message” in EST Newsletter No. 6 (May 1995), Mary Snell-
Hornby called the Members “to have their say, take initiatives and make deci-
sions” (2) at the General Meeting of September 30. Indeed, in September 1995,
several working groups were created: one on the use of corpora in Translation
Studies, one on Bibliography, one on Curriculum Development, one on Research
Training and one on Comprehension Processes in Translation and Interpreting
(see EST Newsletter No.7, November 1995 [January 1996]). The following issue of
the Newsletter (No. 8, May 1996) reports on the activity of some of these groups,
including a seminar in Moscow, questionnaires being set out on PhD and MA
thesis supervision, and research activities by individual researchers on compre-
hension processes in translation and interpreting. But Gile’s editorial in the same
issue mentioned the weak motivation and lack of initiative on the part of members
in general and suggested that the role of individuals who would take initiatives was
therefore particularly important.
In EST Newsletter No. 8, Gile also launched a questionnaire on the re-
sponse of TS conference participants to papers they hear in those conferences.
EST Newsletter No. 9 (November 1996) included an analysis of the 27 responses
once a month (see EST Newsletter No. 29, November 2006, p. 2–3). This was done
at the initiative of the newly elected President (the author of this paper), who also
wrote and updated these two sections (now and then, there were a few contribu-
tions from other EST members). According to viewing statistics, both sections
were visited regularly, and from comments by Andrew Chesterman and a few ref-
erences in the literature, it is known that the Research Issues section was actually
used in some TS centers as didactic material. And yet, when the President stepped
down after two terms and a new webmaster was appointed, both sections disap-
peared immediately.
In EST Newsletter No. 26 (May 2005), two further EST colloquia were an-
nounced, one to be organized in Ghent to address the topic of Publishing in TS
(Meylaerts 2005), and one to be organized in the following year, 2006, in Ljubljana,
on Skills Acquisition and Thesis Supervision (see Hansen 2006). These one-day
colloquia were organized around 4 speakers, each making a short presentation
to be followed by a long discussion in order to promote exchanges. The idea was
that the initial presentations would serve as position papers and that the ensuing
discussions would then lead to an exchange of opinions with new ideas, to be fol-
lowed by papers from participants and others and possibly a collective volume on
these important topics. The onsite response of participants in these symposia, as
well as in another symposium organized in September 2008 in Paris (see report in
EST Newsletter No. 33, November 2008, p. 2), was good, but no papers were sent
in as a follow-up.
EST Newsletter No. 27 (Nov 2005) announced the creation of the Literature
Grant (later renamed Book Purchase Grant — see EST Newsletter No. 37,
November 2010), which was an extension of an idea sketched in EST Newsletter
No. 23 (December 2003). EST Newsletter No. 31 (November 2007) announced the
EST Translation Studies Event Grant to help TS centers fund TS-related events.
EST Newsletter No. 37 (November 2010) announced the birth of three
new committees, a Doctoral Studies Committee, a Research Committee, and a
Translation Grant Committee as well as the creation of an Advisory Board, thus
showing again that each new Executive Board seeks to contribute creatively.
3. A general analysis
The long list of ideas which never materialized or had a very short life reported in
the previous section should not be mistaken as evidence that EST is not function-
ing well. There are enough stable and successful activities to show that this is not
the case. But it is interesting to see what worked and what did not, so as to draw les-
sons from the experience. In this respect, it seems that a few fundamental features
are good predictors of successful versus unsuccessful activities: those which have
survived and thrived, namely the EST Newsletter, the EST Congresses, the pro-
ceedings, the awards and grants are virtually all periodic operations which are
entrusted to specific people with specific duties. Committee chairs and members
generally act either every year or every three years (for the Young Scholar Prize)
under specific rules and with specific tasks. The tasks of the Newsletter Editors
are also periodic and well-defined. Only the Secretary General’s and webmaster’s
activities are more or less continuous, but here again, their tasks are well-defined,
and so are the tasks of the organizers of EST Congresses. Generally, activities that
depended on voluntary input from EST members without being assigned to spe-
cific people had a short life (for instance, the electronic group on training) or never
took off (the various ideas about volunteer supervision, pre-submission refereeing,
English editing, contributions to the Newsletter, to the Research Issues section in
the website, etc.).
It is also fair to say that some activities were made possible thanks to the com-
mitment and financial contribution of John Benjamins. This includes the Young
Scholar Award/Prize and the publication of EST Congress proceedings, alongside
the more commercial Translation Studies Bibliography in which EST is only one
of three partners.
Setting aside this single institutional contribution with funding, it seems that
commitment to EST activities comes when people accept specific assignments. As
long as they do not have such assignments, they view the Society rather neutrally,
without the feeling that it is a community they want or need to serve.
Is this likely to change? It is difficult to identify factors which would cause such
change. EST is rather small, with an international, essentially individual mem-
bership (as opposed to institutional membership) of about 200 to 400 people. It
has limited financial means and no real weight in national or international bodies
which have a strong influence on the fate of Translation Studies or of academics
in general. Thus, it cannot do much for young TS scholars who struggle to get
academic positions, tenure or promotion, at least directly. Understandably, they
focus on getting ahead with their own academic lives, in their own academic en-
vironment. In this sense, being an international Society may be a drawback. The
situation may be different for national associations such as CATS, the Canadian
Association for Translation Studies, which deals essentially with Canadian schol-
ars in Canada and is thus perhaps more likely to be influential in fostering their
interests.
This does not mean that young scholars have not shown dedication to the
Society. But when they have, it was essentially as members of the Executive Board.
Other members seem to be more interested in some opportunities that the Society
offers, mostly in the framework of EST Congresses and proceedings, and, to a
4. Moving ahead
All in all, EST is faring rather well. Its membership has been more or less stable and
has even grown in the past few years, its finances are healthy, its regular programs
and activities are not threatened in any way. In view of the facts and analysis pre-
sented above, how much further can one go?
As suggested earlier, I see no reason for the fundamental situation of EST to
change in the immediate future. No Executive Board so far has suggested major
changes in its operation or in its yearly fees for members, which means that mem-
bership, institutional influence (or the lack thereof) and commitment patterns are
likely to remain as they are.
So what are EST’s assets and what are the needs it can cater to at least to some
extent within the TS community?
I believe the main asset of EST is its membership, with a strong kernel of well-
known Translation Scholars. Not that the work of younger and/or less known
scholars is of lesser value — the contribution of young scholars in the successive
Executive Boards, working groups and committees has been substantial — but I
believe the reputation and status of many of the founding members and mem-
bers of the successive Executive Boards in the TS community has been a pow-
erful attractor and has given initial credibility to the Society in the eyes of both
newcomers to TS and other partners, in particular the prestigious publisher John
Benjamins. Over the past twenty years, some scholars who were beginning their
career in the 1990s have also gained experience, status and skills, and the Society
now has a powerful networking capability with experts in many branches of TS.
This asset is of particular interest when considering that within the TS commu-
nity, the quality of research is still far from homogeneous. The fact, which becomes
evident, inter alia, when one reviews manuscripts submitted for publication, can
be ascribed to several factors, and in particular to the lack of systematic training
in research methods in translator and interpreter training programs which have
become the main pool from which young TS scholars arise. Summer schools such
as CETRA are an important resource in this respect, and over the years, they have
trained many young scholars. But they are not sufficient to cover the needs, both
because they can accommodate only a small number of participants every year
and because they are rather costly, if only due to the fact that participants are re-
quired to travel to the places where they are held and to pay for accommodation
and meals. Training programs in various universities also invite experts to give
seminars or courses, but again, this is costly and out of reach for many.
One possibility would be for EST to offer short courses of perhaps two to three
days, to be given in various universities on specific topics by EST members with
the relevant expertise. For instance, a short course on research topic selection, a
short course on critical reading of research papers, one or several short courses
One institutional aspect of the discipline where EST could perhaps make a differ-
ence through technical work has to do with journal rankings. In many countries,
there is increasing pressure on young scholars to publish in journals ranked A or
B. And yet, translation journals are assessed by linguists, not by TS scholars, and
their rankings are challenged by many members of the TS community. In Alicante,
Javier Franco’s bibliographical database BITRA offers citation data mining in TS
publications, and this could help us do our own analysis and rank journals on solid
citation evidence — see for instance Franco Aixelá (2010). Such evidence could
then be presented to the authorities and at least be used in résumés submitted to
academic authorities for promotion. It could also be presented to European and
international authorities to help change rankings, if the outcome of such analyses
should show that existing rankings are not justified.
If EST could organize or sponsor such analyses, this could not only help in-
stitutionalize TS by making the discipline visible in the academic landscape, but
also gain institutional credibility for the Society. However, this requires long-term
commitment from a whole team of individuals. While some may be interested in
such work for their own purposes for a limited time, for instance when engaging
in a scientometric thesis or dissertation, previous experience as outlined earlier in
this paper suggests that sustainability of the operation would be difficult to achieve
without some form of external stimulus such as a salary. This is clearly not some-
thing that EST could do alone, though a partnership with another organization,
academic or commercial, is a possibility.
What about other institutional action, such as setting standards for doctoral
programs — by “drawing up clear criteria for the quality training of researchers in
our field” (Pym 2010, 2) — or lobbying to help TS and translator training programs
under threat of dismantlement? I doubt that at this point EST has the required in-
stitutional weight to achieve anything of the kind. We have technical knowledge
and skills and a rather extensive socio-academic network, and it is perhaps better
to engage in actions in which we can be efficient and useful, as EST has been doing
over the past twenty years.
Finally, should EST conduct research in its own name under contract? Setting
aside the experience of Assessti, I am not sure how wise this would be, since EST
as such would have no control, nor the required methodological and ethical au-
thority which would make such control legitimate, over the action of participants
engaged in the research proper. What the Society could perhaps do is help or-
ganizations who seek researchers to work on certain topics find experts among
its members. But the contract itself should preferably be signed by the members
themselves, or their respective universities.
To conclude
On the whole, while it is always possible to find fault with this or that aspect of a
Society’s operation, I believe the course set for EST from the start has proved well
suited to the TS microcosm and to the aims we wish to serve. There is nothing
wrong with airing new ideas and experimenting with them as long as this presents
no serious threat to the credibility or stability of the Society, but basically, it seems
that the successive Executive Boards have gradually adapted the modus operandi
of EST to the psycho-social features of its constituency and appointed committees
and working groups with well-specified tasks to perform the work as efficiently as
possible. And it has been working.
References
Author’s address
Daniel Gile
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris 3
École Supérieure d’Interprètes et de Traducteurs
Centre universitaire Dauphine
Place du Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny
75775 PARIS Cedex
France
daniel.gile@yahoo.com