by Maria Piotrowska, 23rd November, 2004

Once viewed as something anyone who was bilingual could tackle, translation has gained recognition over the past decade and is now firmly established as a credible profession. Maria Piotrowksa charts its progress.

This is by no means a systematic report on the development of TS in a particular spatio-temporal context. On the contrary, as an EST member for eight years now, I would like to present an individual point of view on Poland’s participation in the translation scene, which being an advocate of ‘thinking translation’ I have observed with vivid interest for over a decade now. This vital decade, in an undisputable way, has been ‘the success story’ to prove Susan Bassnett’s point. From my local university (where Translation Specialisation is just coming into being and Translation Studies has finally gained recognition) to the global scene of the whole country (where translator training institutions are formed, translator training programmes are prepared and numerous translation events are organized) it can be said that translation is an autonomous and very dynamic discipline. Translation publications, although scattered around various publishing houses, appear regularly on the market and a few institutions have already managed to form a continuous series of relevant books or journals in the field. Translation has been receiving more recognition in Poland recently. Some of the reasons for this expanding interest reflect the dramatic changes in the international arena of politics and sociology. Poland opened up its political, economic and cultural doors to the Western market, mindset and thought. Better and easier access to Western goods and ideas, economic exchange based on the principles of the free market and free enterprise, also in the field of publishing, are all landmarks of the new Polish reality. The newly-formed or revived economic, political, social and cultural ties with the rest of Europe give incentive and motivation for the development of the discipline as an academic field of study. Like other European countries, Poland has a long history of translations produced in the course of centuries, but a short tradition of TS as an independent discipline. The need for translation is great also due to the fact that Poland functions as a monolingual and mono-cultural state, so any (and nowadays very frequent) contacts with other cultures need to result in translation activity. One of the most conspicuous characteristics of the Polish translation thought is its literary orientation. There exist extensive opportunities for literary translation as Poland is now being flooded by translated literature, especially from English. The country has a traditional respect for foreign literature in translation. The philological orientation, very strong in the teaching environment of language institutes, promotes literary interests which are perceived as academically more prestigious than non-literary translation. Being a pragmatic and applied science, TS is supported by the work of translators and interpreters, who enjoy a considerably high social esteem in Poland. By European standards Poland is quite advanced in her legal preparations for the definition of the translator’s status. A draft bill for a new Act on Public Translators was put forward in 1998 by the Ministry of Justice and is currently undergoing the process of revision. The regulations concerning qualifications, rights and obligations of the translator will be codified. Several important translation bodies are active in Poland today, namely the Translators’ Commission of the Union of Polish Writers formed in 1976, and the Association of Polish Translators and Interpreters (Stowarzyszenie Tlumaczy Polskich) founded in 1981 (both organisations affiliated with FIT), the Polish Society of Economic, Legal and Court Translators TEPIS (Polskie Towarzystwo Tlumaczy Ekonomicznych, Prawniczych i Sadowych), which came into being in 1990, and the most recent body co-ordinating the work of translator associations and university schools for Ts and Is, i.e. the Council of Polish Translators and Interpreters (Rada Tlumaczy Polskich). Although the profession enjoys a high social esteem, generally translators are simply people who do the work, self-educated newcomers to the job, not having been professionally trained for it. Another substantial group of practising translators consists of philology graduates who have a good language competence, but whose exclusive source of vocational preparation are one- or two-semester courses of practical Polish-into-foreign and foreign-into-Polish translation. The fact that graduates of Language Institutes become sworn translators, authorised to deal with (translate and certify) official documents to be acknowledged by public and state institutions, has clearly evidenced the lack of recognition of the need to train translators in a professional way, and a general belief, also frequently shared by government bodies and even academics, that it is enough to have bilingual competence to translate. Fortunately, this state of affairs has been undergoing considerable change recently. In Poland, translators are socially identified with and taken for interpreters (the same term ‘tlumacz' is used to cover the two concepts), so the two skills are not broadly differentiated among prospective employers and customers, as far as the profile of training, the range and type of qualifications and abilities are concerned. The absolute majority of Polish translators are conversant in one foreign language, which again is not a European standard. English has clearly dominated the Polish translation scene recently. The other two major foreign languages are German and French. International initiatives through TEMPUS programmes, which proliferated during the 1994-1998 period, involve participants from Polish universities and their European partners, whose interests in translation are directed towards comparable goals. The programmes focused on TS, conference interpreting, T/I training, MA studies in translation and translation for special purposes - business and commerce. Establishing or expanding the existing T/I centres comprises the most tangible merit of the projects. Exchange of staff and students within each project, enlarging libraries and equipping the centres with modern technological tools were other substantial advantages that helped in the development of the discipline of TS in Poland. Polish universities need new T/I specialisations to be able to meet the growing demand for translation activity on the market. The process of modification will have to reach both the teaching programmes and the staff and their methods and curricula. Some of the newly founded T/I training institutions (such as the UNESCO Chair for TS at the Jagiellonian University) are already implementing modern theoretical assumptions and using current and innovative methods and teaching materials. Poland as a country has not been too visible in the area of TS, in spite of the fact that some valuable ideas and schools of thought originated here. The blame may be partly put on a failure to present current trends and innovative ideas about translation to the outside world in a sufficiently clear, coherent and communicative manner. There is still a lot of room for improvement in the communication aspect, the exchange of ideas, co-operation, and professional guidance and information flow between particular institutions in the country. The prospects are definitely optimistic, largely thanks to modern internet technology, which facilitates the process of communication in the most fundamental way.

© European Society for Translation Studies Newsletter - June 2003

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