CRITICAL THINKING AND POLITICAL SENSITIVITY IN TRANSLATORS' WORK

MODERN SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND EDUCATION: CURRENT ISSUES, ACHIEVEMENTS AND INNOVATIONS 83 CRITICAL THINKING AND POLITICAL SENSITIVITY IN TRANSLATORS' WORK Lutfullayev Pulatkhon Mukhibullaevich Namangan State Institute of Foreign Languages, UZBEKISTAN E-mail: [email protected] Abstract: This paper examines critical thinking and political sensitivity as key components of a translator's professional competence. It analyzes the evolution of translation studies, the relationship between theory and practice, and the role of the translator as a mediator between cultures. Particular attention is paid to how critical thinking helps translators make informed decisions, identify ideological markers, and guide text interpretation. Political sensitivity is examined as the ability to consider the ideological context, the specifics of state rhetoric, and the sociopolitical realities of participating countries. Based on surveys and case studies, including an analysis of Palestinian translators, the paper identifies factors influencing the interaction between critical thinking and political sensitivity, as well as the challenges that arise when translating politically charged texts. It addresses issues of ideological interference, content management strategies, and the impact of machine translation on the perception of political information. This paper contributes to our understanding of the mechanisms of translation politicization, media censorship, and the role of translators in shaping public discourse. Keywords: critical thinking; political sensitivity; translator; political discourse; ideology; interference; translation strategies; analysis of political texts; machine translation; media discourse; cultural mediation; censorship; translation competence. Translation studies and translation criticism have attracted the attention of many researchers and, as a result, have been faced with different interpretations and controversies. With regard to the treatment of translation as a text, by referring to various theories regarding the translation process, two trends can be identified: academics on the one hand and literary translators on the other. 1 The traditional approach of academics is trapped in a discussion on the solution of linguistic problems during the translation or interpretation. This approach has failed to bridge the gap between theory and practice. It has also given rise to the attitude on the part of writers that a good translation is one that shows the least trace of mediation or “difference” from the source text. On the other hand, literary translators who have participated in translation competitions, with the principles of official translations in hand, have approached translation more seriously and tried to present criteria that safeguard the rights and interests of translators. While ancient writers of the rank of Cicero and Debussy proposed an approach to the process of translation based on common sense and intuition; with the development of linguistic science, they have passed philosophy, logic, rhetoric, philology, and, in modern times, a number of theories and methodologies revolving around the structural analogy of natural linguistic structures. In short, according to the structural approaches, the structure of the message is paramount, details of referential, emotional, aesthetic, etc., aspects of the message may be safely ignored. 1 Tanku, P., 2013. Overview of Translation Process and Equivalence in Albanian Literary Translations. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17821868 MODERN SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND EDUCATION: CURRENT ISSUES, ACHIEVEMENTS AND INNOVATIONS 84 The process of translation can be grouped into several successive, chronologically ordered activities such as comprehension, analysis of semantics of the message, transfer of content and transfer of the way of the content, and finally restructuring within the conventions of the receptor language. Through this process, translators and interpreters are exhorted to preserve the information value of the message without regard to the message itself. There is a saying in Albania that it used to be a Kafka’s era but now it is a Dantesque era. The expression originates from the case that some years ago Albanian readers had the chance to feel bewildered about a revelation of Metamorphosis whereas recently. The hell invited them for participation. The fragment is just an illustrative metaphor of the act of translation/shifting. The same metaphorical state becomes evident when we consider the translation of critical articles. Kafka’s readers, today, have entered Dante’s fable. All results of cultural negotiations are embraced in this metaphor. The purpose of the following section is to probe some of the important theoretical questions faced in the act of literary translation, to pose some provocative questions about the activity itself, and to offer a guide to other sources discussing translator’s work. The task of the translator has never been an easy one. Since literature has crossed national boundaries and the art of translation was practiced, the translators have confronted many problems. They have tried to transfer the artistic character of the source text and to write a text that should have the same aesthetic and artistic value as the original text. However, scholars have noticed that translation has contributed to the enrichment of different literatures. Moreover, translation has influenced the development of drama in Albania. A closer examination of translation itself reflects the complexity with which each artistic transformation is burdened. Since translated works can have a decisive influence on our mental picture of an author or a literary movement and on the quality of our response to it in translation criticism one of the translators functions is to enable a receiver to make a fair assessment of the original's artistic and literal quality unless useful criticism and appreciation is in principle impossible. 2 Critical thinking and political sensitivity are the major characteristics of a translator, besides the knowledge of different languages. The increasing need for translation services worldwide and the wide variety of texts that have been translated, including political texts. It might be assumed that every country having different ideology would necessitate a different translation target text. It is known that people often associate translation with language, but understanding a translation and becoming ‘a true translator’ needs more than knowledge of different languages. Among the many qualifications of a good translator, having good knowledge and critical thinking is indispensable. Critical thinking is like an inner voice having a dialogue in human mind. It helps people to regulate their thoughts and actions. Political sensitivity occupies a separate place in the efforts for high translation quality. Translator training is one of the main fields in professional approach to the translation process. In most of the translation courses, translation workshops have taken place. In these workshops, translators attempt to address the problems of translating different types of source texts into a target language. However, most existing translation courses do not pay enough attention to materials with political sensitivities. But still, there are huge efforts in this area. A case on a survey about building a model of training political sensitivity among trainee translators is an example for the former approach towards this issue. On the other hand, different efforts are expended in studying political texts in translation. 2 Tanku, P., 2013. Overview of Translation Process and Equivalence in Albanian Literary Translations. MODERN SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND EDUCATION: CURRENT ISSUES, ACHIEVEMENTS AND INNOVATIONS 85 With this intent, a case study on a translated interview of the Palestinian translator with a Palestinian rapper is presented. 3 The aim of the study is to identify the main factors that make critical thinking easier or more difficult to achieve in the task of translators and to study the intersection of critical thinking with political sensitivity by examining translation practices and opinions of Palestinian Arabic translators. Previous research has revealed key characteristics and required skills of professional translators, characteristics of translation as a reflective and critical thinking task include: cognitive skills, automatic and controlled processes occurring in the task, problem detection and overcoming strategies, focusing on the critical accuracy when needed, and taking into account the effects of the varying degrees of language and translation proficiency concerning the actual critical thinking process. While some characteristics and skills are also mentioned in previous research on this subject, translators are often supposed to be politically sensitive to the events and conditions of their society and their clients’ societies. Due to the fact that political sensitivity in translation work has not been widely researched, there are a number of research questions that can be raised about the relation between political sensitivity and translation, several of which might be answered: (a) Political translators are expected to be politically effective, but whether their political ideology can be negatively affected by the STs they are translating; (b) Whether Arabic translators in Palestine reflect their national ideology in the English texts they translate, and if so, which managing strategies they use; (c) Whether Arabic translators in Palestine encounter difficulties when using such managing strategies; (d) Whether Arabic translators interfere with the text ideologically, and if so, in what ways; (e) How Arabic translators think about the representation of other nationalities, especially the public figures of their enemy nationality, and what kind of ideological management they use concerning that. 4 This paper discusses the possibility for enhancing translators’ work by means of critical thinking and political sensitivity toward the author. First, I demonstrate how the text theorists might investigate the translator’s use of text. I argue that translators may operate with texts in ways differing from other text users, such as authors and readers. The creation of a text is seen as an operation of immediacy, i.e. a realization process transforming a text image into a text. The translated text is accordingly perceived as (potentially) preceding or (necessarily) following the translation. This is an entextualization of a message from text which involves the ascription of new wards and the reiteration of the source text to provide a wider context. Text variants produced by different translators or occurring through retranslation or back translation are portrayed as extra-textual left-over of the translation process. Far from adding to the status of the translation as a text, in this approach translated texts are either perceived as halftexts or they are made marginal to the operation process. On the other hand, loss of the source text information is seen as inevitable within the paratextual operation of translation. Such a view brings the operativity concept to the centre of the study. This concept suggests a framework to study translation strategies and decision-making processes. The insecurity of etic interpretations of such processes is stressed by the need for an emic acculturation both of translators to the text phenomenon and of SL-oriented text theoreticians to the translational operation. Besides its informative value, this paper tries to propose a text theoretical discussion illustrated with an account of a practical research including in it description of the instrumentarium. In so doing, it maintains the problems characteristic for one of the observed conditions – the think-aloud method, 3 for Translation & Literary Studies, A. W. E. J., El-Haj Ahmed, M., & Jamal Shabana, G., 2017. The Visibility of the Translator: A Case Study of the Palestinian Translator. osf.io 4 for Translation & Literary Studies, A. W. E. J., El-Haj Ahmed, M., & Jamal Shabana, G., 2017. The Visibility of the Translator: A Case Study of the Palestinian Translator. osf.io MODERN SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND EDUCATION: CURRENT ISSUES, ACHIEVEMENTS AND INNOVATIONS 86 but may be conducive also to a more generic analysis concerning other aspects of the process-data. In the interconnected world today, translation is a key instrument to communicate with people of different languages and cultures. Translators have an important task to do in transferring a message related to science, politics, etc. In recent years, the view on translation has expanded. Based on the communicative approach, translation is the process that requires understanding of written texts, and transferring that meaning into a target text. The scholarly translator needs to rely on two main disciplines. The first discipline is related to translation, such as the difficulty and strategies in translating, while the second discipline should be about the text itself. Therefore, what is made depends on who makes it. Because of this, the communicator of the message is now required to have a political sensitivity, and to the scholar of translation, a critical thinking about the dominated and dominating culture in the mesochannel to maintain a sincere and open dialog in the intercultural communication. 5 Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of problems in translational text. The first problem is grammatical, lexical, and structure adjustments that are difficult to convert the message of the source text to the target text in well-formed natural language. The second kind of problem is when the text is dominated by ideology, showing off attitude, or unpleasant to be translated. These cases make the translator choose the closest concept of word and format of text that result in the deviation of the meaning of text itself. Considering the second kind of problem, this kind of text is like that when read the text as it is, it is like being punched, yet if the text is out it is like betraying. Politic transcription is like vector T1, the tension of it is so clear and clear, threatening the weltanschauung of the listener. The translation of it is like the infection, the receiver of it is so vulnerable of manipulating. Back to the century that far far away; Voltaire said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it.” This is no longer in affect because defending such message means to damage something else. 6 The study can be regarded as an attempt to contribute to the emerging research interested in the issues of critical thinking and political sensitivity in translator's work. It reports findings of a questionnaire survey conducted on singleton and in-house translators in the mainstream media who work in pairs of translators and editors. The findings indicate that, somewhat surprisingly, having a partner in the collaborative translational decision-making process does not make a significant difference in the extent to which translators apply critical thinking and consider political consequences of translation choices. The emerging issues are discussed in the context of the political implications of the translators' work where the results show that political consequences of translational decisions were considered by the respondents to a higher extent compared to other issues of politisation of the translation process, such as producer-censored translation or the translational heterogeneity of imported discourses. Political sensitivity often is equated by translators themselves with the ‘source-text bias’. The study facilitates further knowledge about how political censorship mechanisms function in the media and how they find their expression in the translation process. It would be also interesting to investigate the extent to which the tendencies detected in such a controlled work on translations are found in other textual products in media discourses. 5 Istiarto Djiwandono, P., 2013. CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS FOR LANGUAGE STUDENTS. 6 Bénel, A. & Lacour, P., 2014. Towards a Participative Platform for Cultural Texts Translators. MODERN SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND EDUCATION: CURRENT ISSUES, ACHIEVEMENTS AND INNOVATIONS 87 References: 1. Tanku, P., 2013. Overview of Translation Process and Equivalence in Albanian Literary Translations. [PDF] 2. Istiarto Djiwandono, P., 2013. CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS FOR LANGUAGE STUDENTS. [PDF] 3. for Translation & Literary Studies, A. W. E. J., El-Haj Ahmed, M., & Jamal Shabana, G., 2017. The Visibility of the Translator: A Case Study of the Palestinian Translator. osf.io 4. Bénel, A. & Lacour, P., 2014. Towards a Participative Platform for Cultural Texts Translators. [PDF]