Hélène Buzelin

Unexpected Allies: How Latour’s Network Theory Could Complement Bourdieusian Analyses in Translation Studies

Abstract Whereas Bourdieu assumes that society can only be explained by analyzing practices and relating them to their authors’ position in society as well as to their own trajectory in their field, Latour claims that to understand a society one must, above all, analyze the way humans and non-humans interact, i.e., how the artefacts that circulate in this society (starting with scientific and technological ones) are produced. As such, Latour favours the study of science in the making, which can be done, primarily, through ethnographic analysis of research labs. This article explores how Bruno Latour’s actor-network’s theory could complement Bourdieusian analyses in translation studies, allowing us to move further in the development of a more agent- and processoriented type of research. The paper presents the key concepts, goals and achievements of Latour’s approach and analyzes the way his framework relates to – or confronts – Bourdieu’s sociology. It also discusses three major limits to the polysystemic framework addressed in Hermans (1999): the lack of consideration for agents involved in the translation process; the somewhat deterministic character of this theory; and its bias towards contextual rather than cognitive aspects of translation. In each case, the paper considers the extent to which Bourdieu and Latour’s concepts and research methods have helped, or might help, to overcome these limits.

Translating the American textbook

This article analyzes the development of academic textbook publishing from a translation studies viewpoint. Based on the existing literature and on the analysis of the paratextual features of a few key titles, the author first outlines the specificities of this genre of academic writing and editorial product as it developed in the twentieth century in the United States. Then follows an exploration of how a few of the most distinguished representatives of this genre made their way into other European languages, and of the factors that either favored or impeded the “translation” of the underlying textbook adoption system. The focus is on French-speaking contexts. As a conclusion, it is argued that to understand the international circulation and translation of academic textbooks, one needs to consider – in relation to the dimensions commonly acknowledged in sociologies of translation, such as the size of publishing industries and markets, or the relative position and symbolic capital of the languages, fields and authors involved – the narrative, semiotic, editorial and material features of the books. In other words, the story of why these books were selected for translation is closely related to that of how they were originally conceived and produced in English.

On translating the ‘bible of marketing’

In 1967, Prentice Hall publishers released the first edition of Marketing Management by Philip Kotler. Since then and through more than four decades, this title has established itself as a bestseller with an exceptional history of transformations. As a canonical graduate-level textbook in a popular discipline in which textbooks are myriad, Marketing Management can be taken as an archetype for the study of translation practices in higher education publishing – an influential sector of the book industry which heavily relies on translation (both in its restricted and extended definitions) but has thus far received scant attention in translation studies. The present article focuses on interlingual translations of Kotler’s volume in three languages (Spanish, French and Italian), which are considered in relation to other forms of rewritings such as new editions and English-language adaptations. The authors analyse and compare the formal characteristics of these interlingual translations; they explore by whom and for what purposes they were initially produced, as well as how they evolved over time. While highlighting the specific trajectory of Marketing Management in each language, the study also reveals common features and questions to what extent these reflect the agency of those who produced the translations as well as ongoing transformations in higher education publishing.