From interdisciplinarity to transdisciplinarity in translation studies in the context of technological tools & localization industry

Abstract

Having long been accepted by many translation scholars as an interdisciplinary field, Translation Studies is now thought to be a maturated discipline with the advent of new technological tools or the integration of computerized devices into the translation practice. The interdisciplinary aspect of Translation Studies generally stems from linguistics, philology, philosophy, sociology and cultural studies. Additionally, most translation scholars explain the interdisciplinarity of Translation Studies according to these fields of study. However, as explained above, there are also technological tools or computerized devices that contribute to the maturation of Translation Studies and are supported by the integrated computer technologies associated with computational linguistics, computer engineering, software engineering and so forth. This fact brings to the mind a new concept, i.e trans-disciplinarity, which is seldomly mentioned in Translation Studies. This study therefore investigates " trans-disciplinarity" within Translation Studies by connecting it with technology integrated tools commonly used in the translation practice. From this point of view, the study questions whether these tools or computerized devices contribute to the transition process from inter-disciplinarity to trans-disciplinarity in Translation Studies.