Abstract

Researchers in a variety of social sciences are calling for an increased awareness of the decisions made in the interpretation and representation of social action (Hymes 1981, Tedlock 1990, Sherzer 1994, Bucholz 2000). Translation, probably more than any other discipline, is intimately involved with interpretive choices (what is translated?) as well as representational ones (how is it translated?). A critical reflection on the social and ideological implications of the translation process is therefore of utmost importance (Toury 1995, Inghilleri 2003, Pym 2006, Mason 2006, Wolf 2007). Translations testify to the conditions under which they are produced and the translator is fully implicated in this process. But still, no matter how salient these arguments are in translation studies, issues of social agency and variability tend to be obscured in settings of institutional practice.

The Belgian asylum procedure involves an extreme case of translation as an act of befogged re-presentation: deeply contextualised asylum accounts undergo all sorts of linguistic and narrative filtering as they are assessed against institutionally set criteria for refugee determination. The staunchly monolingual and textualist accounts surviving this entextualization process –the bureaucratic ‘residue’ imbued with institutional authority— conceal highly complex and often very messy multilingual processes.

This paper aims at revealing some meaningful contexts that have been erased in the course of the translation process. On the basis of first-hand ethnographic data collected in the Belgian asylum procedure, I will attempt to peel away several layers of filtering in the translation process as it unfolds in the situated details of communicative practice. In the analysis, I will also explore the impact of institutionalised ideologies of textuality on the actual performance of the translator. I will close by considering the real-world consequences of decisions made during the translation process for the constitution of evidence and the assessment of asylum cases.

Biography

Maryns’ research investigates language in legal settings. From 2000-2004 she did ethnographic work on communicative practices in the Belgian asylum procedure. In 2004 she received a PhD on this topic from the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at Ghent University.

She is currently combining teaching jobs at the University of Gent and Lessius Antwerp with a research project at the University of Antwerp. With a particular focus on the Belgian Assize Court (Jury Court) she examines issues of diversity and performance,  using predominantly ethnographic and sociolinguistic techniques.

Her publications include English in Sierra Leone: A sociolinguistic study (2000), Pretextuality and pretextual gaps: On de/refining linguistic inequality (co-author, Pragmatics 2002), Displacement in asylum seekers' narratives (in M. Baynham & A. de Fina (eds.) Dislocations/ relocations: Narratives of displacement, 2004), Identifying the asylum speaker: reflections on the pitfalls of language analysis in the determination of national origin (Speech, Language and the Law 2005) and The asylum speaker: language in the Belgian asylum procedure (2006).