Sohár Anikó (szerk.)

Tripliciter dicere

Szokott és szokatlan fordítási jelenségek

4 The interview data

Respondents repeatedly noted that most readers do not imagine a translator’s presence in the production of translated literature, nor do they pay attention to the names or identities of translators. These observations resonate strongly with Venuti’s discussion of the “invisibility” of translators as a structural condition of contemporary publishing, wherein the translator’s labour is rendered culturally and symbolically subordinate to that of the author (Venuti 1995). Interview data from both France and Hungary thus confirm that invisibility extends beyond discursive strategies of fluency and encompasses a broader social and professional invisibility within public culture.1

At the same time, many emphasized that when the profession becomes visible, public reactions tend to be positive. What differs more clearly between the French and Hungarian cases is the perceived trajectory of change. French respondents were noticeably more optimistic about recent improvements and pointed to the role of professional organisations, while Hungarian respondents stressed continued invisibility, weak professional structures, and limited societal recognition.

In France, translators described this invisibility in everyday encounters:

In reality, many people do not know this profession—they don’t even think about it. […] So there is a rather positive perception and a lot of curiosity, but above all a great lack of knowledge, because it’s a profession that is not very visible. (A) 2

Another French respondent similarly remarked:

Generally speaking, people who are aware that translators exist tend to see them positively. And those who have no idea that the profession exists don’t think anything at all. I don’t think translators are perceived negatively – it’s more that many people don’t even imagine that a book has been translated. (H)

Several interviewees noted that invisibility also produces distorted understandings of the profession. As one put it:

In general, they (the translators) are invisible. […] The readers have distorted representations of the translator’s job and of translators’ presence. (D)

Similar statements appeared frequently among Hungarian interviewees, who likewise stressed the lack of awareness among the broader reading public. One respondent noted:

Most readers don’t even know who translated the book they’re reading. Translators usually work in the background, and very few ever come into the spotlight. (a)

Others observed that translators are treated as vaguely “literary” figures without any concrete understanding of their specific work:

For laypeople we’re ‘literary people,’ but most have no idea what that actually involves. (C)

Some French respondents added that, even though public awareness of the profession is limited, people are often eager to understand how translation works. More explicitly, they described encounters in which interlocutors expressed curiosity about the practical and cognitive processes involved in translating a book.

There are people I meet who, when I say what I do, are immediately interested: ‘I’ve always wanted to know how you translate a book.’ (G)

Whenever I talk about translation to people I meet, the reactions are rather positive. […] People are often sensitive to the complexity of the work, and to the fact that it is close to the work of the writer. (K)

Hungarian interviewees echoed this dynamic:

When I do public talks, it’s very pleasant, because there is real curiosity: when you start talking about it, people are extremely interested. (l)

However, both groups also noted that translators become publicly visible more readily in negative circumstances—particularly errors or controversies:

If the translator makes a mistake, it’s immediately noticed; if they work well, they become invisible. (l)

In Hungary, one respondent summarized this by distinguishing between translation as a cultural phenomenon and the actual agents involved:

As an activity, translation has high prestige, but the work of individual translators is rarely discussed, except when some special event—such as a retranslation or a controversy—places it under a spotlight. (e)

Another recurring theme among respondents concerned the perception of literary translation as an “easy” or straightforward task. Several interviewees suggested that laypeople tend to assume that the act of translating merely involves transferring words from one language into another. As one respondent explained,

I think it must be perceived as an easy job. People must imagine that, because you speak a language and you know it and you like reading, well there you go: you just put a text in and it comes out in the other language. And I think there is, still, a lack of understanding of our work. (C)

This perception has arguably been reinforced in recent years by the increasing visibility of AI-based language technologies, which present translation as a largely automated process, thereby obscuring the intellectual, stylistic and cultural labour involved.

While the core theme of invisibility was shared, the two national groups displayed notable differences in how they evaluated the trajectory of recognition. French interviewees more frequently reported recent improvements in visibility, particularly within the literary field itself. Several participants attributed these developments to the actions of professional organisations, collective advocacy, and efforts to circulate translators’ names in commercial metadata and public discourse:

I think there is still a lack of recognition, but that there has been a lot of progress since I started my career twenty years ago. We have more visibility than before. (O)

Others attributed this shift to sustained collective efforts:

I think there are still quite a few readers, even avid readers, who don’t really care much—but I think that among certain readers, booksellers, etc., there is now greater attentiveness to and visibility of translators. I also feel that in France there has long been an effort to foreground translators as cultural figures. (N)

Such developments can be interpreted in light of Sapiro’s work on the professionalization and institutionalization of literary intermediaries, in which the accumulation of symbolic capital within cultural fields gradually enables the emergence of collective strategies for recognition and representation (Sapiro 2008, Sapiro 2013). The French case appears to reflect this process: translators have not only secured a degree of professional legitimacy within the field but have also gained partial visibility in the broader commercial and cultural apparatus surrounding literary production.

By contrast, Hungarian interviewees rarely described equivalent improvements. Instead, they emphasized enduring structural obstacles, including weak representation of interests, the absence (or the non-adequate presence) of translation criticism and sustained public platforms for discussing translation:

Translators don’t have real representation of interests, and this makes the profession very vulnerable. There are excellent colleagues from whom we could learn a lot, but there are no shared forums where we could exchange experiences. (a)

Translation work today is less visible, and translation criticism practically does not exist. (e)

Without critical mediation, translations circulate in the literary field without the mechanisms of symbolic consecration that would allow individual translators to accumulate symbolic capital or establish reputations within the public sphere (cf. Bourdieu 1993).

From a Bourdieusian perspective, criticism functions not merely as evaluation, but as a mechanism that attributes authorship, agency, and value to cultural products. Translation criticism can therefore play a crucial role in rendering translators visible as cultural agents, situating their work within aesthetic debates, and enabling the formation of reputational hierarchies. In the absence of such mediating structures, translations tend to be subsumed under the names of authors and publishers, reinforcing the invisibility of translators and limiting opportunities for field-specific consecration.

Some described the situation as ambivalent—noting small cultural improvements, but little material or public change:

Financial recognition is, unfortunately, still tragically low—but professional and cultural recognition may be slowly improving. (g)

Others have largely accepted invisibility as a condition of the profession:

I’ve accepted that this is a profession performed in the background. But it feels really good when someone notices the work. (h)

The Hungarian case more closely aligns with Sapiro’s discussion of structurally weaker literary fields, where intermediaries operate under economic precarity and limited institutional scaffolding, conditions that inhibit the accumulation of collective symbolic capital (Sapiro 2016). This invisibility has consequences for recognition, prestige, and remuneration. Another Hungarian translator linked social perception directly to economic valuation:

If a society doesn’t pay for something, it won’t consider it valuable. (a)

1	French respondents were identified using capital letters of the English alphabet (A, B, C, etc.), while Hungarian respondents were indicated using lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
2	All interview excerpts cited in this chapter were translated by the author from the original French and Hungarian.

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2026

ISBN: 978 963 664 228 0

Irodalom Nyelvészet

A kötet tizennégy fordítástudományi tanulmányt vonultat föl, négy részben. Az első rész a fordítás és egyetem alcímet viseli, három tanulmánya a fordítás és oktatás témakörét járja körbe két kísérlet és egy utánkövetés formájában. A második rész három fordítástudományi elemzést tartalmaz, melyek közül kettő a műfordítók helyzetét vizsgálja, a harmadik pedig magát a fordítástudomány tárgyát osztályozza. A harmadik rész konkrét műfordításokra összpontosít és három esettanulmányt sorakoztat föl: a példák egy olasz történelmi regény angol, német és magyar fordításai, illetve a kanadai-magyar műfordítási áramlatból, valamint egy hazai irodalmi együttműködésből származnak. A negyedik rész öt, kiemelkedő jelentőségű, eredetileg angolul írt fordítástudományi munka magyar fordítását tartalmazza, amelyeket a Pázmány Péter Katolikus Egyetem fordító és tolmács mesterszakos hallgatói, illetve fordítástudományi kutatásokat végző doktoranduszai készítettek.

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/sohar-tripliciter-dicere//

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