Translating the Social World for Law

Translating the Social World for Law
Author: Elizabeth Mertz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2016
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199990557

In coordinated papers that are grounded in empirical research, the volume contributors use careful linguistic analysis to understand how attempts to translate between different disciplines can misfire in systematic ways.

Translating the Social World for Law

Translating the Social World for Law
Author: Elizabeth Mertz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2016-06-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199990565

This volume examines the linguistic problems that arise in efforts to translate between law and the social sciences. We usually think of "translation" as pertaining to situations involving distinct languages such as English and Swahili. But realistically, we also know that there are many kinds of English or Swahili, so that some form of translation may still be needed even between two people who both speak English-including, for example, between English speakers who are members of different professions. Law and the social sciences certainly qualify as disciplines with quite distinctive language patterns and practices, as well as different orientations and goals. In coordinated papers that are grounded in empirical research, the volume contributors use careful linguistic analysis to understand how attempts to translate between different disciplines can misfire in systematic ways. Some contributors also point the way toward more fruitful translation practices. The contributors to this volume are members of an interdisciplinary working group on Legal Translation that met for a number of years. The group includes scholars from law, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, political science, psychology, and religious studies. The members of this group approach interdisciplinary communication as a form of "translation" between distinct disciplinary languages (or, "registers"). Although it may seem obvious that professionals in different fields speak and think differently about the world, in fact experts in law and in social science too often assume that they can communicate easily when they are speaking what appears to be the "same" language. While such experts may intellectually understand that they differ regarding their fundamental assumptions and uses of language, they may nonetheless consistently underestimate the degree to which they are actually talking past one another. This problem takes on real-life significance when one of the fields is law, where how knowledge is conveyed can affect how justice is meted out.

Values in Translation

Values in Translation
Author: Galit A Sarfaty
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2012-06-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0804782229

“Cogently analyzes the culture of the [World] Bank to explain successes and failures in the adoption of human rights norms . . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice The World Bank is the largest lender to developing countries, making loans worth over $20 billion per year to finance development projects around the globe. To guide its investments, the Bank has adopted a number of social and environmental policies, yet it has never instituted any overarching policy on human rights. Despite the potential human rights impact of Bank projects—the forced displacement of indigenous peoples resulting from a Bank-financed dam project, for example—the issue of human rights remains marginal in the Bank’s operational practices. Values in Translation analyzes the organizational culture of the World Bank and addresses the question of why it has not adopted a human rights framework. Academics and social advocates have typically focused on legal restrictions in the Bank’s Articles of Agreement. This work’s anthropological analysis sheds light on internal obstacles—including the employee incentive system and a clash of expertise between lawyers and economists over how to define human rights and justify their relevance to the Bank’s mission.

The Oxford Handbook of Translation and Social Practices

The Oxford Handbook of Translation and Social Practices
Author: Sara Laviosa
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 600
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0190067225

The discipline of translation studies has gained increasing importance at the beginning of the 21st century as a result of rapid globalization and the development of computer-based translation methods. Today, changing political, economic, health, and environmental realities across the world are generating previously unknown inter-language communication challenges that can only be understood through a socially-oriented and data-driven approach. The Oxford Handbook of Translation and Social Practices draws on a wide array of case studies from all over the world to demonstrate the value of different forms of translation - written, oral, audiovisual - as social practices that are essential to achieve sustainability, accessibility, inclusion, multiculturalism, and multilingualism. Edited by Meng Ji and Sara Laviosa, this timely collection illustrates the manifold interactions between translation studies and the social and natural sciences, enabling for the first time the exchange of research resources and methods between translation and other domains' experts. Twenty-nine chapters by international scholars and professional translators apply translation studies methods to a wide range of fields, including healthcare, environmental policy, geological and cultural heritage conservation, education, tourism, comparative politics, conflict mediation, international law, commercial law, immigration, and indigenous rights. The articles engage with numerous languages, from European and Latin American contexts to Asian and Australian languages, giving unprecedented weight to the translation of indigenous languages. The Handbook highlights how translation studies generate innovative solutions to long-standing and emerging social issues, thus reformulating the scope of this discipline as a socially-oriented, empirical, and ethical research field in the 21st century.

Human Rights & Gender Violence

Human Rights & Gender Violence
Author: Sally Engle Merry
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2009-07-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0226520757

Human rights law and the legal protection of women from violence are still fairly new concepts. As a result, substantial discrepancies exist between what is decided in the halls of the United Nations and what women experience on a daily basis in their communities. Human Rights and Gender Violence is an ambitious study that investigates the tensions between global law and local justice. As an observer of UN diplomatic negotiations as well as the workings of grassroots feminist organizations in several countries, Sally Engle Merry offers an insider's perspective on how human rights law holds authorities accountable for the protection of citizens even while reinforcing and expanding state power. Providing legal and anthropological perspectives, Merry contends that human rights law must be framed in local terms to be accepted and effective in altering existing social hierarchies. Gender violence in particular, she argues, is rooted in deep cultural and religious beliefs, so change is often vehemently resisted by the communities perpetrating the acts of aggression. A much-needed exploration of how local cultures appropriate and enact international human rights law, this book will be of enormous value to students of gender studies and anthropology alike.

Why Concepts Matter

Why Concepts Matter
Author: Martin Burke
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2012-05-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004194266

The volume explores distinctive issues involved in translating political and social thought. Thirteen contributors consider problems arising from the study of translation and cultural transfers of texts, in particular in terms of translation studies, and the history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte).

The Legal Environment of Translation

The Legal Environment of Translation
Author: Guillermo Cabanellas
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2015-04-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1317652924

Translation is subject to a complex and unique set of legal rules that govern its various practical and intellectual aspects. These rules derive from very different legal areas, such as intellectual property and labour law. While useful from a strictly legal point of view, the heterogeneity of sources operates as a major hurdle in terms of understanding the overall legal framework within which translation operates. This book offers a general overview of the legal rules applicable to different aspects of translation, allowing translators and other interested parties to form a broad and coherent picture of the rules applicable in this area. It draws on the provisions of the main legal systems of the world, as well as the basic international agreements relevant in this area, thus offering both a comparative perspective of the legal issues involved and a guide to relevant national legal rules. In addition to a description and analysis of the legal issues and rules involved, the book also presents hypothetical cases, with a discussion of the problems they pose and possible solutions. It explains the theoretical structure of the rules under discussion as well as their practical implications. The language and methodology of the book are sufficiently accessible to allow lawyers, translators and those who require translation work but do not have a formal legal background to follow the arguments presented.

Translating Food Sovereignty

Translating Food Sovereignty
Author: Matthew C. Canfield
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2022-04-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1503631311

In its current state, the global food system is socially and ecologically unsustainable: nearly two billion people are food insecure, and food systems are the number one contributor to climate change. While agro-industrial production is promoted as the solution to these problems, growing global "food sovereignty" movements are challenging this model by demanding local and democratic control over food systems. Translating Food Sovereignty accompanies activists based in the Pacific Northwest of the United States as they mobilize the claim of food sovereignty across local, regional, and global arenas of governance. In contrast to social movements that frame their claims through the language of human rights, food sovereignty activists are one of the first to have articulated themselves in relation to the neoliberal transnational order of networked governance. While this global regulatory framework emerged to deepen market logics, Matthew C. Canfield reveals how activists are leveraging this order to make more expansive social justice claims. This nuanced, deeply engaged ethnography illustrates how food sovereignty activists are cultivating new forms of transnational governance from the ground up.

Translation Issues in Language and Law

Translation Issues in Language and Law
Author: F. Olsen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2009-03-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0230233740

With contributions from world-class specialists this first book-length work looks at translation issues in forensic linguistics, where accuracy and cultural understandings play a prominent part in the legal process.