The profession and Status of Translators and Interpreters

Over the past two decades, translation scholars have been showing considerable interest in the profession and its status, elaborating on the qualities (training, certification, monitoring, rates, work conditions, role definitions, code of ethics, professional unionization) through which it becomes a profession. There has also been research of translation and interpretation as non-established professions, in which monetary gains are relatively low, and investment is mainly focused on other forms of capital—namely symbolic—acquired in part through discourse conducted by and among the agents about themselves, their work, and their profession. How translators position themselves, what capital they have at their disposal, how they act to attain it, what are their cultural resources—all of these questions are at the core of contemporary study of translation as a profession and the social status of translators.