Translation Spaces 6:1 (2017), 3–26. doi 10.1075/ts.6.1.01ris
issn 2211–3711 / e-issn 2211-372x © John Benjamins Publishing Company
Introduction
Translation practice in the feld
Current research on socio-cognitive processes
Hanna Risku, Regina Rogl and Jelena Milosevic
University of Graz
1. Introduction
Tis Special Issue of Translation Spaces focuses on recent research that studies
translators, interpreters and translation project managers in their authentic work
situations and environments, i.e., as embedded in a specifc temporal and spa-
tial context. In an attempt to extend the scope of analysis of translation process
research from individuals and texts to subjects or collectives in their social and
material worlds, particular attention will be paid to the following areas: current
translation and interpreting practice, the genesis of translations, the handling and
completion of translation projects in real working environments and the factors
shaping these translation/interpreting situations.
Most of the papers in this Special Issue were originally presented at the ffh
Translation Process Research Workshop (TPRW5) in December 2016 at the
University of Graz. Te biannual TPRWs are dedicated to current research on
cognitive and behavioural aspects of translation. As local hosts, we took the lib-
erty of giving TPRW5 an additional agenda by highlighting socio-cognitive ap-
proaches and workplace research. Tis focus has its roots in our own current re-
search project, Extended Translation: Socio-Cognitive Translation Processes in the
Workplace (ExTra), which is fnanced by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). In
this project, as in the articles in this Special Issue, we study the translation process
while taking account of the technological and social embeddedness of transla-
tors in their real working environments. Our primary objective is to contribute to
expanding the established tradition of experimental translation process research
(TPR) with an ethnographic approach that permits insights into the diversity and
complexity of translation practice, aspects that cannot really be reconstructed in
a laboratory setting.