This study examines literary translators' ontological narratives and how translatorship is embedded in their life-stories. Translatorship refers to how they portray themselves as literary translators and what translation as an activity means for them. The data constitute of four life-story narratives by contemporary Finnish literary translators collected as a part of a wider interview project in late 2018 and early 2019. Based on an earlier study (Heino, 2021) translators identify themselves either as mediator- or writer-translators. This study focuses on the narratives of two mediator- and two writer-translators who all have a Master's degree in Translation Studies and analyses how they utilize selective appropriation and causal emplotment to construct a coherent narrative that reflects their experiences of becoming and being a literary translator. The analysis demonstrated that to negotiate the challenging working conditions and low status of the profession, the mediator-translators emphasise the ethos of hard work and professional qualifications whereas the writer-translators aim to promote qualities such as innate talent, vocation, and a way of life.
Baker, M. (2005). Narratives in and of translation. SKASE Journal of Translation and Interpretation, 1, 4–10. http://www.skase.sk/Volumes/JTI01/doc_pdf/01.pdf.
Baker, M. (2006). Translation and conflict – A narrative account. Routledge.
Baker, M. (2016). Narrative analysis. In C. V. Angelelli, & B. J. Baer (Eds.), Researching translation and interpreting (pp. 247–256). Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–253). Greenwood Press.
Bruner, J. (2004). Life as narrative. Social Research, 71(3), 691–710.
DVV (2021, August 15). Suosituimmat etunimet vuosikymmenittäin [The most popular first names by decade]. Digital and Population Data Services Agency, Finnish Name Statistics. Retrieved August 15, 2021, from https://nimipalvelu.dvv.fi/suosituimmat-etunimet.
Gouanvic, J.-M. (2005). A Bourdieusian theory of translation, or the coincidence of practical instances. The Translator, 11(2), 147–166.
Harding, S.-A. (2012). How do I apply narrative theory? Socio-Narrative theory in translation studies. Target, 24(2), 286–309.
Heino, A. (2017). Contemporary Finnish literary translators and symbolic capital. Vakki Publications, 8, 52–63. http://www.vakki.net/publications/2017/VAKKI2017_Heino.pdf.
Heino, A. (2020). Finnish literary translators and the illusio of the field. New Horizons in Translation Research and Education, 5, 141–157. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-1585-6.
Heino, A. (2021). Investigating literary translators’ translatorship through narrative identity. In K. Kaindl, W. Kolb, & D. Schlagerohn (Eds.), Staging the literary translator (pp. 123–135). John Benjamins.
Hermans, T. (1996). The translator's voice in the translated narrative. Target, 8(1), 23–48.
Hunter, S. V. (2010). Analysing and representing narrative data: The long and winding road. Current Narratives, 2, 44–45. https://ro.uow.edu.au/currentnarratives/vol1/iss2/5/.
Inghilleri, M. (2003). Habitus, field and discourse: Interpreting as a socially situated activity. Target, 15(2), 243–268.
Jansen, H. (2017a). Unraveling multiple translatorship through an e-mail correspondence. Who is having a say? In C. Alvstad, A. K. Greenall, H. Jansen, & K. Taivalkoski-Shilov (Eds.), Textual and contextual voices of translation (pp. 133–157). John Benjamins.
Jansen, H. (2017b). Are literary translators (still) lone wolves? A Scandinavian survey on collaboration among fellow translators. In K. Taivalkoski-Shilov, L. Tiittula, & M. Koponen (Eds.), Vita Traductiva 9: Communities in translation and interpreting (pp. 119–157). Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre.
Jansen, H., & Wegener, A. (2013). Multiple translatorship. In H. Jansen, & A. Wegener (Eds.), Vita Traductiva 2: Authorial and editorial voices in translation Vol 1. Collaborative relationships between authors, translators, and performers (pp. 1–42). Éditions québécoises de l’œuvre. https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10315/26642/YS%20AEV1%20Jansen%20and%20Wegener.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
Meylaerts, R. (2010). Habitus and self-image of native literary author-translators in diglossic societies. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 5(1), 1–20. https://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/252574/2/01mey_tis.pdf.
Paloposki, O. (2016). Translating and translators before the professional project. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 25, 15–32. https://www.utupub.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/165622/art_paloposki-2.pdf?sequence=1.
Rautaoja, T. (2023). Exploring agency in the construction of a translated character narrative – A multiple-case study on early Sibelius-related translations into Finnish. [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Turku]. UTUPub https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-9320-8.
Richardson, B. (2008). Causality. In D. Herman, M. Jahn, & M.-L. Ryan (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory (pp. 48–52). Routledge.
Ricoeur, P. (1991). Narrative identity. Philosophy Today, 35(1), 73–81. https://www.pdcnet.org/philtoday/content/philtoday_1991_0035_0001_0073_0081.
Ritivoi, A. D. (2008). Identity and narrative. In D. Herman, M. Jahn, & M.-L. Ryan (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory (pp. 231–235). Routledge.
Ruffo, P. (2022). Collecting literary translators’ narratives. Towards a new paradigm for technological innovation in literary translation. In J. L. Hadley, K. Taivalkoski-Shilov, C. S. C. Teixeira, & A. Toral (Eds.), Using technologies for creative-text translation (pp. 18–39). Routledge.
Ryan, M. (2008). Panfictionality. In Herman, D., Jahn, M., & Ryan, M.-L. (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory (pp. 417–418). Routledge.
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2005). How to be a (recognized) translator: Rethinking habitus, norms, and the field of translation. Target, 17(1), 1–26. http://www.tau.ac.il/∼rakefet/papers/RS-Target-habitus.pdf.
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2006). The pursuit of symbolic capital by a semi-professional group: The case of literary translators in Israel. In M. Wolf (Ed.), Übersetzen – Translating – Traduire. Towards a “social turn”? (pp. 243–251). LIT Verlag.
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2008). The translators’ personae: Marketing translatorial images as pursuit of capital. Meta, 53(3), 609–622.
Sela-Sheffy, R. (2014). Translators’ identity work: Introducing micro-sociological theory of identity to the discussion of translators’ habitus. In G. M. Vorderobermeier (Ed.), Remapping habitus in translation studies (pp. 43–58). Editions Rodopi.
Simeoni, D. (1998). The pivotal status of the translator’s habitus. Target, 10(1), 1–39. https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/target.10.1.02sim/details.
Solum, K. (2015). Multiple translatorship: Identifying the ghost translator. Publications of the University of Eastern Finland. Reports and Studies in Education, Humanities and Theology, 24–40. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290441850_Multiple_Translatorship_Identifying_the_Ghost_Translator.
Solum, K. (2017). Translators, editors, publishers, and critics. Multiple translatorship in the public sphere. In C. Alvstad, A. K. Greenall, H. Jansen, & K. Taivalkoski-Shilov (Eds.), Textual and contextual voices of translation (pp. 39–60). Routledge.
Summers, C. (2022). Narrative theory. In F. Zanettin, & C. Rundle (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of translation and methodology (pp. 254–269). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315158945.
Svahn, E. (2016). Feeling like a translator: Exploring translator students’ self-concepts through focus groups. New Horizons in Translation Research and Education, 4, 27–45. http://epublications.uef.fi/pub/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2356-1/urn_isbn_978-952-61-2356-1.pdf.
Svahn, E. (2020). The dynamics of extratextual translatorship in contemporary Sweden. A mixed methods approach. [Doctoral dissertation, Stockholm University]. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1383444/FULLTEXT01.pdf.
Vorderobermeier, G. (2014). Remapping habitus in translation studies. Editions Rodopi.
White, H. (1987 [1980]). The value of narrativity in representation of reality. Critical Inquiry, 7(1) Reproduced in White, H. (1987). The content of the form: Narrative discourse and historical representation (pp. 1–25). The John Hopkins University Press.
White, H. (2008). Emplotment. In D. Herman, M. Jahn, & M.-L. Ryan (Eds.), Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory (p. 137). Routledge.