Translating Institutions

Kaisa Koskinen is Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at the School of Modern Languages and Translation Studies, University of Tampere, Finland. She is author of Beyond Ambivalence: Postmodernity and the Ethics of Translation (2000) and various articles that examine theoretical and methodological questions in translation studies, retranslation, translation in the European Union, and the ethics of translation. Her interest in EU translation stems from her previous insider role as a translator working for the European Commission.

• 1. Introduction Net-weaving The European Commission as a translated institution Ethnography: a weaving method Small is beautiful Role of the researcher The logic of both/and Aims and structure of the book PART I2. Translating institutions and institutional translation 2.1. Institutions 2.2. Rules, norms, and beliefs 2.3. Institutional translation 2.4. Categories of translated institutions Supra-national institutions Multilingual and bilingual administration Public services 2.5. Translating institutions and translator training in Finland 3. Ethnographic approach to institutional translation 3.1. How to research institutional translation? 3.2. Essentials of ethnography 3.3. Ethnography in translating institutions 3.4. Probing cultural relations Operationalizing culture Nexus approach to culture 3.5. Identifications Split identities Questioning identification Textual identities 3.6. Who is who: Positioning myself Reminiscences Ethical considerations PART II4. Language work in the European Commission 4.1. Institutional Ethnography 4.2. Framework documents Institutional multilingualism Building Europe Legal selves in a law-based administration: Staff Regulation 4.3. Translating in the European Commission DGT Mission Material environment: JMO The Finnish Unit 4.4. Living in Luxembourg 4.5. Conclusions 5. Institutional identifications5.1. European identities 5.2. Provoking representations with the help of focus groups Ethnography and focus groups Focus groups in the translation unit Mind map and questionnaire Transcription and translation Limits of focus groups 5.3. Translation unit as a nexus of relations Officials and translators Socialization to the organization Socialization to the profession: the issue of educational background Readers and readability Transnational expatriates 5.4. The role of laughter Laughing together Laughing at ambiguities 5.5. Conclusion 6. Institutional text production 6.1. Social study of texts Mapping the process Focus on shifts Focus on interpersonal shifts 6.2. Drafting process Political redrafting (ORI-00 → ORI-01) Institutional redrafting (ORI-01 → ORI-02) Reframing the document (ORI-02 → ORI-03) Drafting process: summary 6.3. Translation process Communicating in Finnish (independent reading of TRA-02) Continued institutionalization (ORI-02 → TRA-02) Analysis of shifts vs. independent reading Improved AND deteriorated version (ORI-03 →TRA-03) Translation process: summary 6.4. From shouldness to maybeness? 6.5. Conclusions: Us and them 7. Net results 7.1. Rules, norms and beliefs: the question of culture in institutional translation 7.2. Readability 7.3. Recognition 7.4. Towards reflexive practice