Volume 2, No. 3.
INContext: Studies in Translation and Interculturalism
The latest development of the Russian invasion of Ukraine remains quite challenging for people all around the world to clearly predict its courses or ultimate outcomes in many aspects. Few can tell for sure what the war’s ramifications might be for Russia, let alone how Russia’s relations will unfold with Ukraine, Europe, and the US. The Special Article of our Journal’s fourth issue, and the third volume this year, helps us look at the war from a unique perspective that has not been offered in other academic analyses.
The authors of “Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Russia: Linguistic aspects of the current regional war and implications for translators” lead us to take note of the dual motivations of the Kazakhstani leaders, i.e., to maintain a balance vis-à-vis Russia and to appear credible and responsible in the eyes of European and Western powers, and their language use along these lines. Quoting Maerz (2019), the authors argue that the world audience should be able to understand the nature of this “balancing” and see through what has been under the democratic terms being employed, camouflaging their actual intents. Highlighting the delicacy of this “balancing act” to be played by translators involved, they emphasize the need for international communication mediators to be aware of the historical precedents as well as the current ideologies and contemporary status of relations between the parties involved.
The Special Article, as summarized above, shows the genuine possibility of academically converging approaches between interculturalism and translation studies. While taking a unique approach to war from a linguistic perspective and combining its insights into the vast understanding based on historical and anthropologic perspectives, it opens a new window of convergence studies between the two pillars of the Journal. In terms of the collaboration between the authors, a career diplomat-turned-researcher offered the general framework of comprehension to the phenomenon of his own nation while a foreigner linguistics professor currently based in Kazakhstan made the insights richer by offering her first-hand observation.
Along the Translation Studies axis, “Gender, Power, and Identity in the Interpreting Classroom” (Nancy Tsai) attempted to incorporate cultural studies elements into the industry-oriented pedagogical practices. “Comparing Student Self-assessment and Teacher Assessment in Korean-English Consecutive Interpreting” (Juyeon Lee) endeavored to identify areas of differences between two types of assessment of the quality of interpreting, and ways to make the quality feedback more productive in helping students improve their interpreting quality. “Profiling of (Ir)reversible Binominals in Translated Arabic Texts (Abdelhamid Elewa & Mohamed Elaskary) introduces a corpus-based research result that can be practically used in broadening the scope of binominals at disposal.
The first manuscript in the interculturalism research, “Code Mixing Used by Returned Migrant Workers in Their Social Media Posts” (Suray Agung Nugroho) delves into the phenomenon of code mixing between the Indonesian and Korean languages focusing on the motivation behind this tendency among migrant Indonesian workers who came back from Korea. “Sketching Nationalism in Indonesia” (Ria Hikmatul Hayati & Tommy Christomy), deals with t the role of teachers and their use of the ideology of nationalism through ethnographic approaches rooted in observation and in-depth interviews. In “Language Policy in Uzbekistan” (Shaira Narmatova & Mekhribon Abdurakhmanova), the authors discuss the peculiarities of the Uzbek formal style, explain the origins of frequently observed errors, and propose the adoption of the Uzbek language and the Latin alphabet system to solve the wide range of language problems facing current Uzbekistan.
We at the Board proudly report to you that we have published a total of four issues in the matter of twelve months’ time, including one special issue on “Teaching and Practice of Distant Interpreting in the Pandemic Era”. The accomplishments were not limited to the number of issues we came up with. All the names of the contributing authors did mean things on their own, and carried merits of their own. This would not have been possible without the time, attention, and heart of those involved. I humbly bow to the Members of the Board, Assistant Editors, and, most importantly, to the authors and the readers.
Cheong Ho-Jeong
Editor-in-Chief