Translating Institutions An Ethnographic Study of EU Translation

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 I

2. 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 II

4. 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 identifications

5.1. 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    

Biography

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.