Rogers, Margaret (2015). Specialised Translation: Shedding the ‘Non-Literary’ Tag. Houndmills (UK)/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 175, £58/€83.19. ISBN 978 1137478405.

Translation Studies has long prioritised the study of literary translation over other types of translation, viewing the ‘non-literary’ as less challenging and therefore less interesting as a focus of scholarship. Or such is the assumption that Margaret Rogers calls into question in her book Specialised Translation: Shedding the ‘Non-Literary’ Tag (2015). Presented in a refreshingly beautiful prose, Rogers’ volume “aims to recast the concept of ‘non-literary’ translation in a more positive way – befitting the importance of its communicative role in our modern world as well as its complexity – as ‘specialised’ translation” (2). She does so not by placing specialised translation in opposition to literary translation, but rather by drawing parallels between the two and showing them to be far more similar than they are different.

Rogers uses terminology as a central theme that links several different discussions to problematise the conventional binary between ‘literary’ and ‘non-literary’ translation. After defining the problem at hand in chapters one and two, she embarks on a thoughtful reflection on the ‘borders and borderlands’ (Chapter three) between these two types of translation. In an argument reminiscent of Gloria Anzaldúa’s assertion that national borders are artificial lines that rarely correspond to the cultural and linguistic shifts that they are meant to mimic, Rogers argues that “any border between literary and specialised translation is […] fuzzier than is often assumed” (48). In the pages that follow she similarly calls into question the traditional boundaries of the respective definitions of ‘term,’ ‘text,’ and even translation itself. This reflection is timely as the limits of Translation Studies are themselves expanding in perhaps previously unexpected ways. Nevertheless, whereas Rogers is quite successful at presenting an overview of traditional and conflicting understandings of these ideas, she still leaves the reader wondering if she is proposing any new definitions; it would seem she does not. After all, her goal is not to redefine, but disrupt longstanding beliefs in the field and her discussion contributes to that goal.

Chapter four is dedicated to a historical overview of specialised translation. Here Rogers aims to demonstrate that whereas many assume the fundamental difference between specialised translation and literary translation to be the former’s use of specialised vocabulary (terminology) and the latter’s emphasis on stylistics, in fact this is overly simplistic. Instead she provides several situations in which literary translation may require the translator to have substantial specialised knowledge on a variety of topics and their corresponding terminologies and juxtaposes this with situations in which specialised translation requires an understanding of the stylistics that may be required to render the meaning of the source text into a culturally-appropriate target text.

Finally, Rogers addresses the question of lexical gaps in Chapter five. Here she debunks the myth that scientific or specialist translations take place in culture-free zones. Instead she provides a history of the creation of new terms through borrowing, neologisms, and circumlocution that demonstrates exactly the contrary. She considers how cultural reference points are essential in the creation of specialised terminology if it is to be understood and adopted by the reader.

In Rogers’ conclusion she states: “In this volume I have followed in Newmark’s footsteps by setting out to show that the negative label of ‘non-literary’ translation, used to refer to LSP [Languages for Special Purposes], or specialised translation, masks not only its long history of development but also the complexity of the decision-making space which the LSP translator as agent can inhabit” (136). Indeed, Rogers very successfully makes this case. Still, I am curious to know who the intended reader of the volume is. On the one hand, the chapter dedicated to informing the reader of what specialised translation is would lead me to believe that the target reader may not be a scholar of Translation Studies, but rather a working translator or a student of translation. Such readers would benefit greatly from Rogers’ reflections. On the other hand, Rogers references a number of other studies without expounding on them as one might expect if this had been her target audience. Still, this volume can speak to a broad readership and give them reason to reconsider the binary of literary versus ‘non-literary’ translation that is so often imbedded, intentionally or not, into our modern understandings of translation.

Remy Attig
University of Ottawa
E-mail: ratti036@uottawa.ca