Dancing with technology:: translators’ narratives on the dance of human and machinic agency in translation work

• Minna Ruokonen ^[1] ; Kaisa Koskinen ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Eastern Finland

     University of Eastern Finland

     Kuopio, Finlandia

     
• Localización: The Translator: studies in intercultural communication, ISSN 1355-6509, Vol. 23, Nº. 3, 2017, págs. 310-323
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article examines translators’ emotional narratives of their interaction with technology, focusing on how translators describe the machine’s actions and agency as either diverging from or converging with their own, and whether this is experienced as positive or negative. The material comes from an exploratory project where the respondents were asked to write a short ‘love letter/break-up letter’ to a tool, application or aspect of work. Of the collected 106 letters dealing with technology, 61 assigned agency to technology; the relatively low number suggests that humans may be reluctant to consider the machine an agent. Expectedly, machinic agency is mostly viewed in a positive light in the letters reporting a convergence with that of the human user and, conversely, diverging agency is typically considered negative. However, letters deviating from this pattern suggest that the dance of agency between the human and the machine can be viewed in more complex terms. For example, a tool can do something unexpected but rewarding or change the human user in a positive way – or be too accommodating or passive when the user would wish for a more active partner. Further research from a non-anthropocentric perspective should provide relevant insights into translator–computer interaction.