| Translation is often viewed as a (re)presentational activity in which translators interpret meaning in a source text, then (re)present it through translation. Yet, translators not only allow meaning to be perceived, they create meaning by reformulating those elements that they perceive to be meaningful. When translators make meaning across cultures in collaboration with others (writers and readers, speakers and hearers, commissioners and editors) they move within and across fluid constellations of time-spaces that are marked by shifting asymmetrical relations of power, including linguistic, cultural, political and economic ones. It is in these shifting constellations of non-homogenous centers and peripheries that translators practice their profession.;This research examines translation and its practitioners in two countries -- Canada and Cuba. My hypothesis is that translators in both countries might share "forms of linguistic and cultural capital [that] are uniquely acquired and differently enacted" (Inghilleri 2003, p. 245), and that this capital might form a coherent value system.;Following a discussion of the social, political and economic processes that have accompanied the evolution of translation practice in Cuba and Canada, I draw on Althusser's notion of State ideological apparatuses and on Bourdieu's concept of habitus to interrogate the ways in which some mechanisms condition the practice of translation today, specifically translator training, professional associations, accreditation mechanisms, and codes of ethics.;The field component of this study is based on the principle of empowering research. My analysis of interviews conducted with a small sample of professional translators in both countries reveals the existence of clusters of both context-specific and cross-contextual values that point to consistent expressions of a shared culture. The interview data is analyzed from three perspectives: translation as an individual, context-bound, social activity; translation as a cluster concept or a category; and translators' beliefs regarding the existence or absence of shared values.;The emergence in recent decades of a reflection on the spatial and temporal contexts in which translation is and has been practiced has been accompanied by a growing interest in the human beings involved in this activity. Some theorists have drawn on a recognition of the "asymmetries, inequities, relations of domination and dependence [that] exist in every act of translating" (Venuti 1998, p. 4) to interrogate the social roles played by translators. Others have focused on the cultural embededness of translators and called for reflection on their "plural and dynamic (intercultural) habitus" (Meylaerts 2008: 94).;I conclude that the data provides indicators of the existence of a heterogeneous and coherent translational culture. Following Tymoczko, I draw on the concept of clusters to propose a definition of translational culture. I conclude that, in this study, professional translators' perceptions of their position(s) and role(s) provide some evidence of the existence of a translational culture. Among the salient characteristics of this culture are sensitivity to asymmetries and inequities in the moment of translation as well as in the social positioning of translators, allegiance to values of loyalty, cooperation and transparency, and internalized adherence to State-specific ideological practices. |
