Recalibrating Research on Translation and Interpreting to Explore Communicative Ecologies in Organizations

Abstract Global health and environmental crises have thrown into sharp relief the interrelatedness of human agency with the ecological systems in which it is embedded. Translation studies has seen a recent interest in connections between ecology and translation and interpreting (T&I). These developments parallel those in other disciplines that can deepen our understanding of situated T&I, principally communicative ecology. The communicative ecology model can help improve our interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge of the interactive dynamics between T&I and the predominantly organizational settings in which they take place. Organization studies provides a powerful framework in the form of “Communication Constitutes Organization” (CCO), where recent research indicates that translators’ agency can be a valuable organizational asset, but one whose impact is restricted by self-concept issues and overly linear, top-down processes that prevent translators’ and other agents’ interactive involvement in both conveying and shaping organizational identities and strategic messages. The time is ripe to recalibrate research to address the ecological dimensions of organizational T&I. By applying the methods of translatorial linguistic ethnography and ethnographic action research in networks, we can come to understand the rich layers of the communicative ecologies where translators and interpreters work, and act purposefully on the findings.