The politics of machine translation. Reprogramming translation studies

This paper develops a conceptual framework for analyzing the politics of machine translation. It contributes to 'reprogramming' Translation Studies as a discipline capable of dealing with the challenges posed by the socio-technological transformation often referred to as 'digitization.' It starts from the premise that the distinction between human and machine translation cannot be taken for granted and presupposed as unproblematic. Rather, it needs to be made an object of empirical investigation. The distinction between human and machine translation is not only part of the analytical vocabulary of Translation Studies. It is also part of the practical vocabulary of the social world: It is made by all kinds of social agents in all kinds of social situations and with all kinds of social meanings. These meanings, this paper suggests, can be considered political when the human/machine distinction becomes entangled with (antagonistic) us/them-distinctions – when the fact that a machine is doing the translating instead of a human becomes politically meaningful. By drawing on a series of examples, this paper demonstrates the analytical fruitfulness of such an approach and the multidimensionality of the politics of machine translation. It closes with a number of remarks on the 'anthropolitics' of Translation Studies.