Values education in Translation Studies:

The translator’s educational role in

globalization

University of Baghdad

3rd International Translation Conference of Baghdad May 7th – 9th, 2013

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Author: Grian A. Cutanda. MA and BA in Psychology by the University of Valencia. MA in

Innovation and Research in Education by the Universidad Nacional de Educación a

Distancia (UNED). Contact: grian@grian.es / grian@avalonproject.org

ABSTRACT

In an attempt to build a bridge between the disciplines of Social Education in

values and Translation Studies, within the social and historical context in

which we are living, this paper starts from a brief analysis of the globalization

modes of production in order to establish the need for a concrete and solid

frame of values, epistemologically based, in Translation Studies. From there, it

is raised the convenience of building a theory of translation based on the

systems-complex thinking and on the values of sustainability and a culture of

peace. Then it is offered a specific proposal for the inclusion of values

education in the university curriculum of Translation Studies, taking as

framework the Earth Charter. Finally, it is proposed the possibility of a mindset

change among translation professionals in order to expand their horizons and

functions and to become agents of education of these values within our global

society.

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INTRODUCTION

This paper aims to build a bridge between two disciplines, Social Education in

values and Translation and Interpretation Studies. Despite having enough

aspects in common, these fields of knowledge seem to have not received an

adequate attention regarding the potential relationships and partnerships that

could be established between them.

My capacity as a social psychologist and educator leads me to try

establishing this bridge from the edge of the field that I know best, although the

fact I have worked professionally as a translator (with more than one hundred

books translated and published) allows me to make use of the minimum

knowledge required in this discipline to know where to position the bridge and

anchor the bridge firmly on the other side.

But for this work, of course, we should take into account the context in

which we operate, that of globalization, as it would be in every way foolish to

try to build a bridge without a proper assessment of the ground on which to

base the foundations and of the environmental conditions that may affect its

subsequent usefulness.

From the edge of Social Education, I will have first to set the place on the

other side to which I intend to extend the bridge. This means that, first of all, I

will have to offer a view of the translation world to my fellow social educators,

noting the importance of this discipline within the context of globalization.

Secondly, I will try to build the interim supports or piers, offering the

arguments that can lead to a close relationship between translation and values

education.

Finally, I will have to lay the deck on the bridge, that is, the spans

between abutments and piers, offering for this my educational contribution to

the world of translation and highlighting the educational functions that

translators and interpreters provide, or could provide, in a global society.

To argue my ideas and proposals, I have based my research more in the

existing literature of the field of Translation Studies than in the literature of my

own field of study; given that, as a result of my training, I would have greater

challenges to build the anchorage in that shore. Unfortunately, I haven’t found

papers in English or in Spanish literature that connect both disciplines, except

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for some valuable comments in the doctoral dissertation of De Manuel Jerez

(2005).

At the end of this paper, I will have intended to make clear the need for

the inclusion of Social Education in values within Translation Studies, as well

as the important role that translators and interpreters can and should play in

globalization and in building a more just, caring, sustainable, and non-violent

world.

1. GLOBALIZATION OR GLOBALIZATIONS?

If we had to define the essence of globalization in one word, it’s beyond doubt

that one of the most selected words would be “interaction”. Understood as a

reciprocal action exerted between two or more elements in a system, this

interaction would adopt in the case of globalization a massive and accelerated

nature, with almost endless ramifications and interconnections, in short,

medium and long range, with synchronous and asynchronous processes. This

huge process could be likened to a giant brain neurogenesis in which neurons

and brain regions would be in effect the human beings and their organizations

and institutions, which will release dendrites in all directions and ranges and

interfacing each other to form a dense web of information exchange, so forming

a super-brain.

In the case of this “Earth’s neurogenesis” that is globalization, dendrites

would come represented by interactions of all kinds —of production systems,

financial transactions, sharing of information and images through the media,

mass movements of people as tourism, migration and refugees, etc.— and

would cover different dimensions —economic, political, social, cultural,

religious— all interrelated in a complex system (Santos, 2006: 393).

But this picture would be no more than an “aseptic” image of

globalization. A closer view of the network of these interactions would lead us

to see that there are different modes of operation in the building of this process

of “neurogenesis”, which would result in different definitions and outcomes of

globalization. Facing the prevailing definition of globalization —of neoliberal,

hegemonic cut, imposed “from above” by financial and political powers,

disregarding the social inequalities that it causes, and not sparing harm on the

environment—, we would find a definition and a model more connected with

the victims of these unequal interactions and with organizations and

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movements more concerned with social justice, survival of cultures, and

conservation of ecological systems; a model of globalization that Santos has

named insurgent cosmopolitanism (ibid.: 397).

This should lead us to the conclusion that we can’t assume in any way of

a single globalization but, at least, two globalizations. As Santos says, “…what

we call global and globalization cannot but be conceived of as the provisory,

partial and reversible result of a permanent struggle between two modes of

production of globalization, indeed, between two globalizations” (ibid.: 398).

Ultimately, we are talking about two globalizations based on different

ideological and political moves (ibid.: 395).

All this implies that, within this dual process, any social actor

(educators, translators, and interpreters included) will end up standing on the

side of the board where he/she feels more identified with, either by adopting

the neoliberal ideology —and values— (with their concomitant effects of

inequalities, injustices, and social exclusion, and hegemonic, monocultural

thinking), or adopting the approach —and values— of the insurgent

cosmopolitanism, with its efforts for a greater equality and social justice,

multiculturalism, environmental conservation, etc.

From this point of view, we can pose several questions: Which of these

two social views could Translation Studies better identify with? And how can

we position the field in this world stage? Or as a layman may ask: Really, have

Translation Studies a say in this dual process of globalization, understanding

translation as is commonly understood among the uninitiated, as a mere copy

in another language of an original text?

2. GLOBALIZATION AS TRANSLATION

In his book Globalization and Translation, Michael Cronin largely connects with

the idea of more than one globalization (facing by the way the hegemonic,

monocultural globalization) by exposing the concept of Eisendstadt (2000) of

multiple modernities (Cronin, 2003: 32-34). Using the example of the

uniformity of U.S. immigrants, who left their native languages to adopt English,

Cronin says this does not have to be this way in globalization. In fact, he

argues that, although modernity has spread throughout the world, it has not

led to a single civilization or a single institutional pattern, but to the

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development of several modern civilizations, the development of multiple

modernities. And writing about Translation Studies, Cronin says:

“Accepting the thesis of multiple modernities has obvious implications for

translation activity if only as a means of countering a monoglot diffusionism

(English is the Language of the Future) which masquerades as an absolute

truth.” (Cronin, 2003: 34)

In this sense —and even understanding the economic side of

globalization as an informational process, as long as productivity and

competitiveness depend on the ability to create, process and apply knowledge

based information (ibid.: 10-11)—, translation would have a decisive role as a

vehicle for the transmission of this information, which is the core of interactions;

something that, oddly enough, the globalization theorists do not seem to

consider.

But, why globalization theorists ignore something so obvious? Because

their approach, based on mobility and flows, based on the sphere of circulation,

prevents them from addressing the processes and social relations that shape

globalization today. As says Bielsa:

“Globalization juxtaposes elements from distant cultures abstracted from the

social contexts in which they have emerged, creating a fragmented and

discontinuous experience. In this experience of simultaneity of the world’s

geography a key social relation that is obscured is translation, which

necessarily mediates between different linguistic communities.” (Bielsa, 2005:

7)

That is, the globalization theorists do not take into account the cultural

contexts and do not address the social processes which, as we shall see, form

the essence of the scientific and social paradigm underlying the social values of

insurgent cosmopolitanism.

In conclusion —and bearing in mind contexts and processes—,

translation is a key infrastructure for global communication, “an analytic

borderland where the global and the local are articulated” (ibid.: 8). Translation

has no choice but “making connections, linking one culture and language to

another, setting up the conditions for an open-ended exchange of goods,

technologies and ideas.” (Cronin, 2003: 41). That is, translation as a decisive

foundation for all global interaction.

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But we could still go further in determining the value of translation —and

interpretation— within globalization. As Cronin holds, the worldwide spread of

globalization and the penetration of the neoliberal version of it may be

exaggerated, and he thinks that not all regions of our planet will live

globalization simultaneously and in the same way:

“…so that within a context of multiple modernities it is more proper to talk not

so much about translation and globalization as about globalization as

translation. This is to suggest that there is no single model of globalization

which is adopted willy-nilly by different nation-states but that each country or

community translates elements of the global and informational economy into

local circumstances. (…) Translation is not simply a by-product of globalization

but is a constituent, integral part of how the phenomenon both operates and

makes sense of itself.” (ibid.: 34)

Along the same lines, and talking about the lingua franca that hegemonic

globalization seeks to impose in its process, the international English —

McLanguage—, Bielsa refers to two possible consequences of this neo-

Babelianism by default, as Cronin (2003: 60) calls it. First, that English would

become a deterritorialized language, disconnected from its cultural context.

And, secondly, the cultural imperialism that it would bring, by imposing on the

rest of the world categories of perception homologous to its social structures

(mainly from USA), reshaping the world in its image and likeness (Bielsa, 2005:

10). But here we have a paradoxical aspect because, as Bielsa says, “…the very

fact that categories and concepts cannot be imposed directly but need to be

translated or adapted to new cultural contexts identifies this view as onesided

and translation as a key process for the mediation between cultures.”

Thus, translation “implies a necessary degree of hybridization, through

which a dominant discourse is effectively altered and rewritten in new terms”

(ibid.: 11). And this message hybridization cannot stop being a crossbreeding of

ideas, concepts and visions of reality from different cultures that ultimately

would constitute the essence of globalization as insurgent

cosmopolitanism. And hence, and also from the viewpoint of Bielsa, we can

understand globalization as translation.

In view of all this, the transcendental importance of translation and

interpretation within the globalization processes should not go unnoticed for

any other social field of knowledge, much less for Social Education. But, at the

same time, it would be wise that Translation Studies interact in turn with other

social and human sciences, especially in relation to the construction of a theory

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of translation that encourages the responsibility of translators in the

establishment of all kinds of relations between cultures. Cronin referred to this

by saying,

“When Rosemary Arrojo argues that ‘a theory of translation should attempt to

empower translators-to-be and raise their conscience as writers concerning the

responsibility they will face in the seminal role they will play in the

establishment of all sorts of relationships between cultures’ (…), the injunction

does not just apply to student translators. Rather, a theory of translation is too

important to be left to translators alone.” (Cronin, 2003: 35)

The assumption of such social responsibility among translators would

lead us to the inclusion of a sound ethical commitment in Translation Studies.

As Cronin says few lines later, “a view of translation as naïve, unmediated,

transparent, instrumentalist communication is no longer tenable” (ibid.: 35-

36).

The authors in the field have already spoken of this ethical commitment,

and even serious proposals have been made, as The Translator’s Charter (FIT-

IFT, 1994). But what is being proposed here is the inclusion, in the actual

construction of a theory of translation, of a framework of values

appropriate to the social and historical context in which we live, a

framework of values consistent with the epistemological approaches

derived from the new scientific and social paradigm that is emerging in

this context, particularly with the systems-complex paradigm.

Anthony Pym indicates that globalization requires translators to make

changes in order to be able to understand and respond to that process (Pym,

2003: 4). What better way to make those changes than within a solid

epistemological and ethical framework that allows us to understand not only

globalization and its interactions, but what kind of globalization and what kind

of interactions we will help to build?

3. TRANSLATION AND VALUES

There have been many authors in the field of Translation Studies who have

addressed the issue of values and ethics in their discipline (Hermans, 2009;

Jiménez Liébana, 2009; McAlester, 2003; Pym, 2012; Venuti, 1998; y Weston,

2003, among others), and even some of them have dealt with the subject of

activism and voluntary work in translation against that hegemonic, imperialist

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globalization imposed “from above” (Baker, 2006; Danyté, 2012; De Manuel

Jerez et al., 2004; Tymoczko, 2000; Zanier Visintin, 2005).

Indeed, the issues of ethics and values began to be treated in Translation

Studies in the 1970s and 1980s, within the functionalism and descriptivism

schools of thought, whose authors attempted to establish social and

psychological rules for translation, taking into account the values of society of

the target language (Hermans, 2009: 95-96).

For his part, Lawrence Venuti pointed out in 1995 the crucial importance

of values in translation works, stating:

“Every step in the translation process—from the selection of foreign texts to the

implementation of translation strategies to the editing, reviewing, and reading

of translations—is mediated by the diverse cultural values that circulate in the

target language, always in some hierarchical order. The translator (…) may

submit to or resist dominant values in the target language…” (Venuti, 1995:

308)

Tymoczko (2000: 1-2), on the other hand, also noting the idea that

translation is not a simple job of copying an original text in another language,

insists that the translation work necessarily reflects the values of the

translator. And Hermans (2009: 95) states that “…translation, enmeshed as it

is in social and ideological structures, cannot be thought of as a transparent,

neutral or innocent philological activity”; all this after giving several examples

of social changes brought about by the work of translators, among which

should be highlighted that of their powerful contribution to the definition of the

modern concept of democracy.

In a final analysis, the impact of values in the work of translation and

interpretation would also be decisive from the point of view of the Sapir-Whorf

hypothesis, according to which each language defines and delimits the

particular worldview of those who use it, in the sense that those communities

are unable to precisely conceive those concepts for which they have no specific

words. Thus, the specificity of a culture would be in direct and close

relationship with the specificity of its language, which would be a direct

product of a world view and, by extension, of some specific values. This would

lead us to the conclusion that the field of Translation Studies reached in the

1990s with the so-called Cultural Turn:

“…the translation of a literary text became a transaction not between two

languages, or a somewhat mechanical sounding act of linguistic ‘substitution’

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(…), but rather a more complex negotiation between two cultures. The unit of

translation was no longer a word or a sentence or a paragraph or a page or

even a text, but indeed the whole language and culture in which that text was

constituted.” (Trivedi, 2007: 280)

Therefore, if translation is not an ideologically neutral activity, and if the

translator’s values and the values of cultures and languages that interact with

each other are instrumental in translation, how should we approach the study

of translation? And, what might be more important is to ask the question: how

should we address the training of translators and interpreters in this regard?

4. VALUES EDUCATION IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

In view of the foregoing, it should be evident that ethical and values education

could play a major role at both Translation Studies itself and in the training of

translators and interpreters. And this as long as the mere awareness of the

translator’s own values and the contrasting with other views of reality and

values other than those of the official discourse of hegemonic globalization

would lead to very different results in the process of globalization.

In De Manuel Jerez et al. (2004: 70-71), the authors tell a story about

their students which could illustrate well the need for an epistemological and

values training in Translation Studies. One of these authors notes that, during

some consecutive interpretation exercises, two students who interpreted the

same speech omitted the same data. The speech was about Nazi war crimes

during World War II, and detailed the murder of six million Jews, a fifth of the

Polish population, and 25 million Soviets. However, both students omitted this

latter figure thinking that what they had heard was nonsense, although it is a

historical reality. The authors concluded their story with these comments:

“One such example shows how speakers may not be on an equal footing before

an interpreter depending on if they adhere or not to the dominant streams of

thought, and their version of history. (…) The question is whether when the

unitary thinking is unabashedly expressed in all areas (usually in the media,

but also in university classrooms or in supposedly scientific books on

economics, but actually ideology-laden books…) it is time that critical thinking

has a space as well (…) on how to address the translation and interpretation of

any text in universities.” (ibid.)

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The need highlighted by these authors to introduce a space for critical

thinking in Translation Studies and in the training of translators and

interpreters would link, in the context of globalization, with its equivalent

approaches, views of reality and values in insurgent cosmopolitanism, which

represents the critical thinking in front of the dominant, unitary thinking of

hegemonic globalization.

In this same line of thought, McAlester (2003: 226-227) stresses the need

for a more prominent position of the moral dimension in the translator training:

“One environment where the moral dimension of translation can, and must, be

accorded a more prominent position is in educational institutions that provide

translator training. (…) This means that we must aim to educate translators

who are not mere automata reproducing the idea of others, but who are

thinking individuals whose ultimate responsibility for what they do is to their

own conscience.”

It is true that, among translation professionals, we can see a concern for

the inclusion of values in their profession, even in the form of activism,

volunteering and social commitment, as we have seen above. But it is also true

that this concern fails to take the shape of a solid and conclusive proposal for

the inclusion of a stable and, most importantly, contextualized code of

values in Translation Studies.

Moreover, the urgent need for an education in ethics and values in the

training of translators and interpreters should not be limited to sporadic

inclusions on the subject or to special and occasional conferences. Rather, it

should be an intrinsic part of the educational curriculum of translators.

Following the words of Cronin (2003: 20) in his differentiation between

communication and transmission —which states that the transmission horizon

is historical and needs a social vector for the transfer of ideas, beliefs and

values across time—, social transfer would be, through the social vector of

university, what would turn the communication of ethical values into

transmission of ethical values, thus allowing the durability of their effects. Or,

in other words: for there to be a real transmission of values in the training of

translators, so that its effects last over time, values education will have to be

a part of the university social vector of Translation Studies; that is, it

will have to be an integral part of the educational curriculum of

Translation Studies.

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But, of course, that transmission effort must be contextualized within the

framework of globalization, pointing directly to a mode of production of

globalization related to the multicultural nature of Translation Studies, and not

related to the hegemonic and monocultural approach of the unitary thinking.

As De Manuel Jerez and his colleagues rightly point, putting these ideas into

the current social reality,

“In that sense, we believe that the concept ‘to train translators and interpreters

for the market’ must give way ‘to train professionals for community’. (…) On the

other hand, it is not about stopping training students for that of which they will

live, but to expand their range and prepare them as well for activities less

‘nourishing’ at an economical level, but perhaps more nourishing at a personal

level. In summary, what is this about? Should we train professionals, or should

we educate citizens as well?” (De Manuel Jerez et al., 2004: 70)

5. THE SYSTEMS-COMPLEX PARADIGM AND THE VALUES OF

SUSTAINABILITY: THE EARTH CHARTER

As mentioned above, despite that many authors point out the need for the

inclusion of ethics and values in Translation Studies, it seems that there is not

a solid and conclusive proposal for the inclusion of a sound and contextualized

code of values in this discipline. Moreover, there is also the need to build a

theory of translation in which ethical and moral aspects be expressed in a

clearly defined and specific way. As Maria Timoczko says, “As with any

intellectual theory, translation theory has the potential to be used for good or

ill, for oppression or liberation. Like translation itself, translation theory can be

a two-edged sword” (Timoczko 2006: 25).

The introduction of ethical and moral aspects within a theory of

translation should lead us, first, to contemplate the epistemological framework

on which to build such theory, an epistemological support that should be

contextualized within globalization. As Moacir Gadotti states, from the

educational field, “Any pedagogy, conceived outside globalization or the

ecological movement, would have serious out-of-context difficulties nowadays”

(Gadotti, 2000: 12). This quote could be paraphrased in the field of Translation

Studies as, “Every theory of translation, founded out of globalization and

ecological movement, has today serious problems for its contextualization.”

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So, what epistemological frame could give us the necessary substrate for

a contextualized theory of translation in our current historical moment?

Undoubtedly, the scientific and social epistemological view prevailing

nowadays, the classic paradigm (basically Newtonian-Cartesian) —with its

analytical, mechanistic, rationalistic, and fragmenting of reality approach—,

has been showing its deficiencies and fostering social, cultural and ecological

problems for quite a long time (Morin, 1982).

However, there is an emerging scientific and social paradigm, integrative

and contextualizing in nature, which enhances interactions, interrelationships

and interdependencies over interacting elements, which focuses more on

processes than results. It is a paradigm that promotes multiculturalism,

diversity and crossbreeding, not the Western hegemonic monoculturalism; a

paradigm that even underpins social justice, sustainability and non-violence.

We are talking about the systems-complex paradigm (Luhmann, 2013;

Laszlo, 1996; Morin, 1982; Von Bertalanffy, 2003), an approach, a view and

interpretation of reality that deeply tunes to Translation Studies. First, due to

the relational nature of this discipline (Cronin, 2003: 111) and to the transfer of

ideas and culture that characterize it (Timoczko, 2006: 22-23), thus linking

with the emphasis on processes, interrelationships and interdependencies of

this paradigm. As Cronin holds, “…at the level of translation studies itself

where (…) translation scholars have begun to look at translation process rather

than translation product” (Cronin, 2003: 106). But, above all, due to the

evidence and reflections that some authors, as Hermans (2002: 2-3) and

Tyulenev (2009: 4), provide in their attempt to establish a direct relationship

between Translation Studies and Systems Theory as expressed by Luhmann in

the field of social sciences:

“Translation should be considered to be a boundary phenomenon of the social

system. As such, translation has two functions: it opens system for

environment and it closes system from environment. Not infrequently,

translation is a means of filtering (partly opening, partly closing) the incoming

information. As a boundary phenomenon, translation influences the inner

structure of the system.” (Tyulenev, 2009: 4)

And translation does all this by reducing the complexity of the

environment, providing a horizon of options which will be evaluated by the

system before selecting some of them to assimilate. Thus, translation provides

meanings and, thereby, it becomes a form of adaptation to complexity (ibid.: 5-

6).

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Assuming, therefore, that systems-complex paradigm would in all

probability be the epistemological framework best suited for the construction of

a theory of translation contextualized in globalization, what role would ethics

and values play? And, more importantly, what kind of system of values would

converge in a theory of translation framed by the systems-complex

epistemology?

To get started, ethics and values occupy a central place in this paradigm,

precisely because the most important thing in this frame of mind is not the

results, but the processes, thus highlighting the transcendence of how the

results are achieved.

As for the second question, about what values would be fostered through

this paradigm, it is clear that they would be values that promote integration,

and not fragmentation; that promote contexts, interrelationships and

interdependencies, not giving priority to an element of the system over others;

paying more attention to how we obtain the results than to the results

themselves; taking into account both the local and the global (as the saying

goes, “think globally, act locally”). Therefore, we would be talking about values

that promote social justice and solidarity, multiculturalism and

interculturalism, respect for nature and life as a whole, non-violence, empathy

and affection.

In conclusion, we would be talking about the values of sustainability and

Culture of Peace, as defined by United Nations (United Nations, 1999). And we

would be talking, in short, about an ethics of care (Gilligan, 1982) and, beyond

it, about an anthropology and a pedagogy of care (Fernández Herrería y López,

2010: 12-16).

How can we specify that system of values in the Translation Studies

curriculum? Is there a frame of reference that we can use, a framework that

integrates all of these values in a concise and effective way?

No doubt it exists. It is a document that has abundantly proved its

pedagogical validity in every field of knowledge in offering a cluster of solid and

interrelated values consistent with the systems-complex paradigm (Fernández

Herrería y López, 2010: 6-7; Murga-Menoyo, 2009: 242). That document is the

Earth Charter (2001).

The Earth Charter is a declaration of values and ethical principles that

aims at building a planetary society more just, sustainable and non-violent,

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intended to convey a systemic view of the interdependency of all living beings

and the planet, and that calls for a shared responsibility for the good of all

humankind, the community of life, and future generations.

This document arose in 1987 at the request of the United Nations World

Commission on Environment and Development, upon appeal by the Brundtland

Report (1987); but its real development starts at the Rio Summit (1992) and,

specifically, from a further initiative of civil society (1993) —not from

international agencies— led by Maurice Strong, Mijail Gorbachev and Ruud

Lubbers.

The Earth Charter is the result of a global consultation and an

intercultural process of conversations involving tens of thousands of people

from 46 countries. This was one of the processes more open, participatory, and

inclusive ever undertaken to create an international document. Hundreds of

NGOs, communities, groups, associations, and international experts from

various fields contributed in its preparation, being reviewed and contrasted by

tens of thousands of people and hundreds of organizations from all around the

world. Its principles are based on contemporary science, international law, and

the ancient wisdom of all the great spiritual and philosophical traditions in our

planet, and on the statements of all the UN conferences of the 90s, the world

ethical movement and a large number of national declarations and treaties over

the last 30 years of the twentieth century.

Finally, the Earth Charter was promulgated on June 29th, 2000 at the

Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, with the explicit mission “to promote

the transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a

shared ethical framework that includes respect and care for the community of

life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic

justice, democracy, and a culture of peace” (The Earth Charter Initiative, 2010:

9).

The Earth Charter is intended to lay the foundation for building a more

just, caring, sustainable and non-violent society in the 21st century. Its

aspirations are not just confined to the pursuit of social justice, a sustainable

economic development and the eradication of poverty and violence in the world,

goals which belong to the human field; but also directs its efforts to the care of

all the community of life on our planet, and is setting its sights not only on

current humanity, but also on future generations.

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Being a statement of values and principles developed and agreed upon by

thousands of people from all cultures and traditions of our planet, the Earth

Charter thus becomes a perfect reference framework for values education in

Translation Studies. But, in addition, its validity as an educational tool was

endorsed in 2003 when the UNESCO General Conference decided to “recognize

the Earth Charter as an important ethical framework for sustainable

development, and acknowledge its ethical principles, its objectives and its

contents, as an expression that coincides with UNESCO’s vision set forth in its

Medium-Term Strategy”, declaring, on the other hand, to “affirm the Member

States’ intention to utilize the Earth Charter as an educational tool, particularly

in the framework of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable

Development” (UNESCO, 2003: 35).

Thus, we could summarize this proposal for the inclusion of social

education in values within Translation Studies —and within a theory of

translation— in three levels of realization:

1. At the epistemological level, with the assumption of the systems-complex

paradigm in Translation Studies.

2. At the level of attitudes and values, including the values of sustainability

and a culture of peace.

3. In the curricular level, with the addition of the Earth Charter as a

reference frame for the transmission of values and principles of

sustainability and a culture of peace.

With respect to the point 3 about, and in order to facilitate the drawing

up of competencies to be developed by students and indicators of achievement

of these competencies, it is suggested the use of the tables of categories,

competencies and indicators for systems-complex thinking and for the values

and attitudes of sustainability (from the Earth Charter) offered in the work of

Cutanda and Murga-Menoyo (2013).

6. THE TRANSLATOR’S EDUCATIONAL ROLE

But we could still go a step further in the involvement of Translation Studies in

the values system of sustainability and a culture of peace. In fact, it could be

raised the possibility that translators and interpreters assume an even more

active role in globalization, in the construction of a more just, caring,

sustainable and peaceful society; as argued by Zanier Visintin, for whom

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“The expansion of the activities of translation and interpretation (…) is a central

objective in the field of the promotion of a culture of peace because multilingual

intercultural communication is an important pillar in the construction of a new

international system of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and acceptance of

values of other cultures. Learning a language, translating it, interpreting it,

teaching it, and living it means expanding communication among peoples,

thereby reducing the possibility of conflicts at all levels of human cohabitation.”

(Zanier Visintin, 2005: 339)

But not only this. Following up the reflections of Cronin (2003: 41) about

the law of John Kao (whereby the creative power increases exponentially with

the people diversity and differences —and not consensus!— in a network),

translation could play a decisive role in human survival by keeping alive and

available all our creative options of cultural diversity and divergence. “Any

reduction of language diversity diminishes the adaptational strength of our

species because it lowers the pool of knowledge from which we can draw”

(Bernard, 1992: 82, quoted by Cronin, 2003: 74).

Cronin believes, moreover, that globalization raises the need to train

groups of translators to mediate the flow of information between languages and

cultures (ibid.: 66-67). If historians, sociologists or economists mediate,

influence and advise on other fields that are not their own, why not

translators? Thus, translators and interpreters can make a legitimate

commitment to intervene in a more decisive way in culture, society and politics.

But this, Cronin says later, implies a change in the mind-set of

translators and educators of translators about their own role, because it

implies:

“…changing purely restrictive and instrumental views of translation practice

and educating wider society as to what translators both know and can do.

There is little chance of this happening, however, if translators and theirs

educators do not also embrace a broader conception of the task of the

translator.” (ibid.: 67)

And this is what we propose here, that, beyond the current concept

about the work of translators and interpreters, they could become agents

of education in a global society, given the strong intercultural aspect of

the exercise of their profession. As Cronin says to end, “Translators like any

other group of professionals in the social and human sciences are distinguished

among each other not by what they must do but by what they can do.” (ibid.: 67)

17

And translators and interpreters can do certainly a lot more to educate

society in a globalized world. If we take into account the words of the Earth

Charter in its preamble, “Everyone shares responsibility for the present and

future well-being of the human family and the larger living world”; and we must

exercise this responsibility —we can add here— in our everyday environment,

in those activities to which we devote, with our qualities and skills, and in the

domain fields in which we act; to the point of, if necessary, transforming this

educational role in a kind of social activism:

“There must be an activist dimension to translation which involves an

engagement with the cultural politics of society at national and international

levels. (…) The pedagogical implication is that we need to teach a more

engaged, activist notion of what constitutes a translator’s responsibility…”

(ibid.: 134-135)

But, apart from the direct activism of those translators and interpreters

who offer their services as volunteers in social forums and NGOs, can it be

exerted an “educational activism” from the translation world that reaches the

vast majority, if not all, of the works in translation?

This question has been answered already by Mona Baker in her work on

translation and activism when she highlights the importance of narrative. From

the point of view of social theory and communication theory, narrative becomes

“the principal and inescapable mode by which we experience the world”. Baker,

drawing on the work of Margaret Somers and Walter Fisher, argues that

“Narratives in this view are public and personal stories that we subscribe to and

that guide our behavior. They are the stories we tell ourselves, not just those we

explicitly tell other people, about the world(s) in which we live. Jerome Bruner

further argues that narrative is ‘a form not only of representing but of constituting

reality’.” (Baker, 2006: 464)

According to Baker and her references, narratives can be: 1) ontological

—personal stories we tell ourselves about our place in the world and our

personal history—; 2) public —stories developed by social and institutional

groups that run among their members—; 3) conceptual —stories and

explanations that scholars elaborate on their research field, and can have a

remarkable impact on the world—; and 4) meta narratives —with which our

sociological concepts and theories are codified. Baker highlights the importance

of these meta narratives with the example of the public narrative of the “War on

Terror”, spread worldwide by USA government offices and media, noting the

cunning of the message creators in choosing the term “terror” instead of the

18

term “terrorism” (ibid.: 466). Obviously, these meta narratives don’t become

global without the translators mediation; but, as Baker says, “What is

significant at present is that growing numbers of professional and non-

professional translators and interpreters are actively setting out to elaborate

alternative narratives that can challenge the oppressive public and meta

narratives of our time” (ibid.: 467).

But, in addition, narratives are linked with inherent values that

ultimately shape our social reality. Thus, narratives —and those values that

they prescribe— form the basis of all societies, thereby defining who we are.

We, humans, are storytellers. We read and evaluate the texts of life and

literature (and we should add also the texts of cinema). But we do this

passively, almost unconsciously, to finally internalize some narratives and not

others. And that evaluation of narratives is largely determined by values (ibid.:

468).

Baker ends by saying that, in order to confront the existing patterns of

domination, we must directly confront the narrative behind these patterns. And

that’s where translators and interpreters have an important job to do:

“…narrative theorists acknowledge that undermining existing patterns of

domination cannot be achieved with concrete forms of activism alone (such as

demonstrations, sit-ins, and civil disobedience) but must involve a direct

challenge to the stories that sustain these patterns. As language mediators,

translators and interpreters are uniquely placed to initiate this type of

discursive intervention at a global level.” (ibid.: 471)

But we should add here that, to deal with these narratives —remember:

value-laden narratives!—, that sustain patterns of domination and oppression,

we should be well supplied with a solid based code of values, an alternative

system of values which allow us to contrast and refute the rhetoric of the

unitary thinking.

From this position, the translator becomes not only an activist, but also a

social educator, either in a direct way —with explanatory footnotes, for

example—, either indirectly or, even, covertly —in the selection of terms used

for translating the original text or in the use of genders in a non discriminative

way.

19

7. CONCLUSION AND BEYOND

As a researcher of mythical narratives in the field of Social Education and

mindset change (Cutanda and Murga-Menoyo, 2013), I don’t see in any way

strange, but fully significant, the countless direct or indirect references to the

story of the Tower of Babel that we can find in Translation Studies books and

papers. Mythical narratives explain very well the human unconscious

processes and anticipate us challenging situations that may arise in certain

circumstances.

From this point of view, the story of the Tower of Babel may well be

anticipating the situation that would happen if the hegemonic globalizing

current of Western neoliberalism would impose its unitary rhetoric and its

neoBabelianism of unitary language. And, from this point of view, the ending of

the story of the Tower of Babel, with God confusing the languages of humans,

perhaps it should not be seen as a curse, but as a blessing.

As we have seen before, with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and with the

Law of Kao, diversity and divergence —in this case, linguistic and cultural

diversity— are key elements for the survival of our species; just as genetic

diversity promotes the survival and improvement of species, and just as

biological diversity contributes to survival of ecosystems. The richness of our

linguistic diversity allows us a wide range of views of reality as to creatively

solve any problem that we may face.

And here, the work of translators and interpreters is absolutely crucial

for the survival of both languages and cultures, as well as in the educational

role that has been exposed above. Although, to this end, it could be a good idea

to provide translation professionals with a sound epistemological framework —

based on the systems-complex paradigm— and with an alternative system of

values upheld in sustainability and a culture of peace as specified in the Earth

Charter. All this in the curricular level of Translation Studies educational

programs.

But beyond that, it would be convenient to adopt a new narrative within

the Translation Studies, a “story” that translators and interpreters can make

their own and can use to give new meanings to their work and reality.

Everything changed for our world, as many authors have pointed out

already, with the publishing of the first pictures of Earth from space and, above

all, from the Moon. Those pictures represented a direct and forceful message to

20

the collective unconscious of humanity; a message that came to tell us that it

was time for unity in diversity, for collective consciousness and

brother/sisterhood on our blue and beautiful Mother planet. From the point of

view of an expert in Analytical Psychology and the collective unconscious,

globalization actually began in that moment. A portion of humankind

understood this message in a biased way, considering their egoic interests —

hegemonic globalization—, and another portion of humanity got the message in

an open, inclusive and respectful way —insurgent cosmopolitanism.

In any case, as we read in Cronin, “Globalization refers both to the

compression of the world and to the intensification of consciousness of the world

as a whole” (Cronin, 2003: 77, quoting Roland Robertson, 1992: 8). From the

key term “interaction”, that we gave at the beginning of this paper as a word

that could well describe the essence of globalization, we now arrive to the words

“consciousness” and “as a whole”.

And here is precisely where we should mark the horizon of Translation

Studies. To paraphrase the title of one of the works of the complex thinking

philosopher Edgar Morin, Science avec conscience, perhaps we should consider

the ultimate goal of getting a Translation with consciousness.

Cronin sees in globalization, in the technology of knowledge and in

information (informationalism) a close link between culture and productive

forces; and, ultimately, between spirit and matter (ibid.: 12). In the long run,

this points to a “consciousness of the world as a whole”.

At this critical moment in the history of humankind, it is necessary that

each culture and every human being, according to its/his/her abilities, skills

and virtues, collaborate in the creation of that consciousness of the world as a

whole, collaborate in building a more just, caring, sustainable and peaceful

world. And, in this task, as has been sufficiently demonstrated, translators and

interpreters have a decisive role.

As Alessio Zanier Visintin says in his article El traductor por la paz (The

translator for peace):

“In this ultraindividualistic framework, wrapped with contempt for the most

basic human rights, where they invent enemies and create wars to continue

selling super-sophisticated systems of weapons, the actors who presumably

would have the social and moral task to analyze, criticize, propose, suggest —

that is, scientists, intellectuals, lawyers, teachers— often do nothing in

particular to promote a drastic decrease in expenditures for armaments and

21

armies, and in order to allocate more resources in culture, education, and

protection of nature. (…)

“It is time to stop giving our energies to tyrants who make images and create

theories to convince us that there is no other possible worlds: it is time to

spread the wings of our inner eagles and fight, from the trenches of education,

for all of us, for our beloved planet and for the future of our children.” (Zanier

Visintin, 2005: 340-341)

It is time for everyone, in their daily task, to transform their work in

consciousness of the world as a whole.

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