Introduction

Voices – marks of the tangle of subjectivities involved in textual processes – constitute the very fabric of texts in general and translations in particular. The title of this book, Textual and Contextual Voices of Translation, refers both to textual voices, that is, the voices found within the translated texts, and to contextual voices, that is, the voices of those involved in shaping, commenting on, or otherwise influencing the textual voices. The latter appear in prefaces, reviews, and other texts that surround the translated texts and provide them with a context. Our main claim is that studying both the textual and contextual voices helps us better understand and explain the complexity of both the translation process and the translation product. The dovetailed approach to translation research that is advocated in this book aims at highlighting the diversity of participants, power positions, tensions, conflicts, and debates and how they both textually and contextually materialize as voices before, during, and after the translation process.