Anthony David Pym (born 1956 in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Australia) is a scholar best known for his work in

translation studies Translation studies is an academic interdiscipline dealing with the systematic study of the theory, description and application of translation, interpreting, and Language localisation, localization. As an interdiscipline, translation studies borr ...

. Pym is Distinguished Professor of Translation and Intercultural Studies at

Rovira i Virgili University University of Rovira i Virgili ( ca, Universitat Rovira i Virgili; , es, Universidad Rovira y Virgili; URV) is located in the Catalan cities of Tarragona and Reus, Spain. Its name is in honour of Antoni Rovira i Virgili. The University of Ro ...

in Spain and Professor Extraordinary at

Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch University ( af, Universiteit Stellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant ...

in South Africa. He was a fellow of the

Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies ICREA, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, is a foundation jointly promoted by the Catalan Government through its Department of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise, and the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI) ...

Three URV lecturers recognized by the ICREA Academia program for outstanding careers in research

/ref> from 2010 to 2015, Visiting Researcher at the

Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), formerly known as the Monterey Institute of International Studies, is an American graduate school of Middlebury College, a private college in Middlebury, Vermont. Established ...

from 2008 to 2016, Walter Benjamin Visiting Professor at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

in 2015, and President of the

European Society for Translation Studies The European Society for Translation Studies (EST) is an international non-profit organization that promotes research on translation, interpreting, and localization. Name and abbreviation The Society was registered on May 28, 1993 with the Bu ...

from 2010 to 2016.

Biography

Pym attended Wesley College (Perth, Australia) and the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

, completing his BA (Hons) at

Murdoch University Murdoch University is a public university in Perth, Western Australia, with campuses also in Singapore and Dubai. It began operations as the state's second university on 25 July 1973, and accepted its first undergraduate students in 1975. Its n ...

in 1981. He held a French government grant for doctoral studies at the

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and ''grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The ...

, where he completed his PhD in Sociology in 1985. In 1983–84 he was a Frank Knox Fellow in the Department of Comparative Literature at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. In 1992–94 he held a post-doctoral grant from the

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Resear ...

for research on translation history at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

, Germany. In 1994 he gave seminars on the ethics of translation at the

Collège International de Philosophie The Collège international de philosophie (Ciph), located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on associ ...

, Paris. After years as a professional translator, journal editor and organiser of cultural events in France and Spain, he taught in the translation departments of the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; , es, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; UAB), is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. ...

and the

University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria The University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, also known as the ULPGC (''Spanish'' Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) is a Spanish university located in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the capital city of Gran Canaria island. It is the unive ...

. In 1994 he joined the

Tarragona Tarragona (, ; Phoenician: ''Tarqon''; la, Tarraco) is a port city located in northeast Spain on the Costa Daurada by the Mediterranean Sea. Founded before the fifth century BC, it is the capital of the Province of Tarragona, and part of Tar ...

, Spain, where he set up the Intercultural Studies Group in 2000, postgraduate programs in translation in 2000, and a doctoral program in 2003. He has been a Visiting Researcher at the

Monterey Institute of International Studies The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), formerly known as the Monterey Institute of International Studies, is an American graduate school of Middlebury College, a private college in Middlebury, Vermont. Established ...

since 2006. His permanent residence is in the village of Calaceite, Spain. Pym is Distinguished Professor of Translation and Intercultural Studies and coordinator of the Intercultural Studies Group at the

in Tarragona, Spain where he also ran a doctoral program. In addition, Pym is Professor Extraordinary at

and an international advisory board member for the Translation and Inter-Cultural Research Cluster at the

. Pym was a Visiting Professor at the

from 2008 to 2016, where he conducted research and lectures. From 2010 to 2015, he was a fellow of the

. He was also President of the

from 2010 to 2016 and Walter Benjamin Visiting Professor at the

in 2015. In 2017, he joined the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

's School of Languages and Linguistics.

Thought and influence

Pym was one of the first to move the study of translation away from texts and towards translators as people.Michaela Wolf, "The emergence of a sociology of translation", in Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, eds Constructing a sociology of translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins, p. 14 ff.Riitta Jääskeläinen, “The Changing Position of ‘the Translator’ in Research and in Practice”, Journal of Translation Studies 10(1) (2007), 1–15Andrew Chesterman, “The Name and Nature of Translator Studies”, Hermes 42 (2009), 13–22. He argued that translators are “authors” who can select the thoughts and emotions to express rather than “animators,” who merely present other's words. He views the translator as working with the author to create meaning, therefore, they both contribute to the meaning of the translation According to him, the development of the translation field in the West has been essentially a "history of translation theory", a limitation that he proposed to address by focusing on the translators themselves and the contexts in which they operate. Pym also conceptualized translating as a form of risk management, rather than a striving for

equivalence Equivalence or Equivalent may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Album-equivalent unit, a measurement unit in the music industry *Equivalence class (music) *''Equivalent VIII'', or ''The Bricks'', a minimalist sculpture by Carl Andre *'' Equival ...

. According to Pym there are three types and levels of risks: credibility risk, uncertainty risk, and communicative risk. The credibility risk concerns the specificity of translation and relations between people, where the risk is the probability of the translator losing credibility. The second, uncertainty risk, involves a translator's

cognitive processes Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

when they are uncertain about how to present something. The final risk that Pym identified, the communicative risk, involves the interpretation of texts and contextualizing them, while creating a balance between both the high-risks and low-risks and the interpretatio He has hypothesized that translators can be members of professional intercultures, operating in the overlaps of cultures, and that their highest ethical goal is the promotion of long-term cross-cultural

co-operation Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English) is the process of groups of organisms working or acting together for common, mutual, or some underlying benefit, as opposed to working in competition for selfish benefit. Many animal a ...

.Helen Baumer, Johann Jacob Bodmer, Interculturalist. Cultural realignment in the 18th century and the role of a Zurich translator. University of Auckland, 2004 Pym has stressed that the translators' loyalty should be in their profession and that the value of translation efforts lies in its contribution to intercultural relations and

cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Intercultural communic ...

. He has been attracted to the concept of

inculturation In Christianity, inculturation is the adaptation of Christian teachings and practices to cultures. This is a term that is generally used by Catholics, whereas Protestantism, Protestants, especially associated with the World Council of Churches, p ...

, through which he sees translation as one of the ways in which minority cultures are absorbed into wider

cultural systems A cultural system is the interaction of different elements in culture. While a cultural system is very different from a social system, sometimes both systems together are referred to as the sociocultural system. Social theory A major concern in ...

and can then modify those wider systems. Pym has also cited the role of technology, particularly the Internet in the translation of materials tailored to a specific local market. According to him, the proliferation of information does not necessarily mean that these will be received, hence, care should be taken so that the translated texts appeal to its target culture. Pym's ideas have been contrasted with those of the American translation theorist Lawrence Venuti by the Finnish translation scholar Kaisa Koskinen, and Pym's critique of

Lawrence Venuti Lawrence Venuti (born 1953) is an American translation theorist, translation historian, and a translator from Italian language, Italian, French language, French, and Catalan language, Catalan. Career Born in Philadelphia, Venuti graduated from Te ...

has been commented on by Jeremy Munday, and

Mary Snell-Hornby Mary Snell-Hornby (born 2 April 1940),translation Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

and

intercultural relations Intercultural relations, sometimes called intercultural studies, is a relatively new formal field of social science studies. It is a practical, multi-field discipline designed to train its students to understand, communicate, and accomplish specif ...

: *''Translation and Text Transfer. An Essay on the Principles of

Intercultural Communication Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear w ...

, Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1992. Revised edition: Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2010.'' *''

Epistemological Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

Problems in Translation and its Teaching, Calaceite: Caminade, 1993.'' *''Pour une éthique du traducteur, Arras: Artois Presses Université / Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1997.'' *''Method in Translation History, Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 1998. Reprint with Chinese introduction: 北京 : 外语敎学与硏究出版社, Beijing, 2006.'' *''Negotiating the Frontier: Translators and Intercultures in Hispanic History, Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 2000.'' *''The Moving Text:

Localization Localization or localisation may refer to: Biology * Localization of function, locating psychological functions in the brain or nervous system; see Linguistic intelligence * Localization of sensation, ability to tell what part of the body is a ...

, Translation and Distribution, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2004.'' *''Exploring Translation Theories, London and New York: Routledge, 2010. Japanese translation, 翻訳理論の探求, trans. Kayoko Takeda, Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 2010. Translation rights sold for Portuguese and Korean.'' *''The status of the translation profession in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

, with François Grin, Claudio Sfreddo, Andy L. J. Chan. Luxembourg: European Commission, 2012.'' *''On Translator Ethics. Principles for

Cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Intercultural communic ...

. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2012 (reworked version of Pour une éthique du traducteur).'' *''Translation and Language Learning, with Kirsten Malmkjaer and Mar Gutiérrez. Luxembourg: European Commission, 2013.'' *''Translation Solutions for Many Languages. Histories of a Flawed Dream. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.'' *''What is Translation History? A Trust-Based Approach, with Andrea Rizzi and Birgit Lang. London: Palgrave, 2019.''

Translations of Anthony Pym's Works

*''Exploring Translation Theories'' (London and New York; Routledge, 2010). Revised edition: Routledge, 2014. Japanese translation, Kayoko Takeda, trans. Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 2010. Spanish translation, Teorías contemporáneas de la traducción. Materiales para un curso universitario, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2012; unauthorized publication: Havanna: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 2016; second edition 2016. Portuguese translation, Teorias Contemporâneas da Tradução, Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2013. Traditional Chinese translation 探索翻譯理論第二版, Taipei: Bookman, 2016. Brazilian Portuguese, trans. Rodrigo Borges de Faveri, Explorando as teorias da tradução, Sao Paulo: Perspectiva, 2017. Russian trans. Теоретические парадигмы в переводоведении. Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg University Press, 2018. Translation rights sold for Korean, Turkish, and Arabic. *''Method in Translation History'' (London and New York: Routledge, 2014). Reprint with Chinese introduction: 北京 : 外语敎学与硏究出版社, Beijing, 2006. Arabic translation by Ali Kalfat: المنهج في تاريخ الترجمة, Cairo: National Center for Translation, 2010. *''On translator ethics. Principles for mediation between cultures''. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2012. Translation and rewrite of Pour une éthique du traducteur. Korean translation as 번역가 윤리: 문화 간의 중재 원칙 by Hyo-Eun Choi and Hye-Kyung Park, Seoul: Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Press, 2016; Persian translation اصول اخلاقی مترجم by Zahra Fallah Shahroudi and Farzaneh Me'mar, Teheran: Nashr-e Markaz, 2017.

References

External links

Anthony Pym website

Lectures on translation theories (Monterey Institute of International Studies)Lectures on translation research (Monterey Institute of International Studies)Amazon.com Anthony Pym page
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Facebook academic page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pym, Anthony Australian translators Living people Translation historians Australian translation scholars 1956 births Translation theorists