Ithaca College

 Marella Feltrin-Morris (Modern Languages and Literatures) gave a presentation at the Virtual Conference of the Oregon Society of Translators and Interpreters on September 18, 2020. The title of her presentation was "Off into the Great Unknown: Translation for Research."

 One of the many challenges of navigating the field of translation is accounting for the types of practices one might encounter within the profession. The categories under which such practices are clustered—subject area, use of the end product, translation method—naturally overlap, and the resultant maze inadvertently causes certain kinds of translation to fall by the wayside. Such is the case with translation for research, i.e., the translation of specialized texts or, more often, portions of texts, typically commissioned by researchers and scientists with little or no knowledge of the source language, who may quote parts of the translation or integrate it into their own scholarship. Ranging from mildly to highly technical, requiring hefty linguistic dexterity, and often destined to be ripped apart for mysterious goals, translation for research is the Wild West of translation.

From the starting point of a particular project (the translation of a 17th-century letter detailing the life and journeys of Italian linguist and diplomat Giovanni Battista Vecchietti, a translation commissioned by a historian researching the perception and representation of Persia in the Italian Renaissance), this presentation explores the tricky territory of translation to be used for research—specifically the translation of ancient historical documents. Among the aspects to be examined are how to handle text fragments, poor transcriptions, inconsistent punctuation or spelling, and negotiating the delicate relationship between translator and researcher.