Going Localised - Getting Recognised. The Interplay of the Institutional and the Experienced Status of Translators in the European Commission

Abstract

This paper explores how and whether the different institutional and organisational contexts affect translators’ professional activities and professional identities. The site researched is the European Commission, where the changing political impetus has recently instigated a new role for some of the translators. For them, the institutional framework has thus changed substantially. This presents an opportunity to research how institutionally expressed status affects the status as experienced by the translators themselves. The data consists of institutional documents as well as interview and observation data from two different settings, a traditional translation unit in Luxembourg (2004) and the local representation of the European Commission in Helsinki (2008). The results indicate that the institutional and physical space occupied by the translators can drastically change their experienced status and motivation even within a single organisational setting.