The structure of translation activity as a social phenomenon

Abstract

Since its emergence in human society, translation activity has always been closely linked to social development as its integral part. Political, economic and social conditions have obvious limitations that influence the concept and practice of translation; therefore, translation activities have a strong social dimension. In many translations, the translator not only plays the role of a medium, but may also carry out related editing and proof-reading work. The complexity of translation activities and the interactive nature of linguistic communication make the translator’s role in society as a social individual inevitably multifaceted. In commercial oral negotiations, for example, interpreters often play the following roles: messenger of information, mediator and facilitator of commercial matters, negotiation assistant and informant. An interpreter can be transformed into a reader, author, creator and researcher as required. Because language is a multidimensional collection of information, traditional translation is essentially equivalent to reproducing cognitive, communicative and artistic information. Language, culture and literature, which are closely related to translation, have social properties and therefore the study of the social nature of translation is very promising. The paper also considers machine translation as one of the technologies that take the place of auxiliary actors in the structure of translation activities, the further role of artificial intelligence and humans in translation, their interaction, and the changing social function of translation in this context.

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