Digitalizing translation

Throughout its disciplinary history, Translation Studies has critically engaged with issues intimately linked to language, culture, and society. It has problematized social categories, concepts, and historical time periods, attempting to place translation practice and theory in ever more meaningful contexts. The disciplinary reading of translation and localization technologies can be enhanced by moving beyond the observation and description of specific tools, procedures, and applications to inquire into the multiple, complex dynamics currently shaping practices of communication globally. At a time when many disciplines are in dialogue with others in order to share expertise and better understand the quickly evolving times we live in, Internet, Web, and Digital Culture Studies can serve as a complementary and useful approach for examining the roles of translation and translators in a technologically configured digital world of 24/7 communication. This article seeks to bring to Translation Studies a view from the digital world and the technologies that sustain it.