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Chapter 2 of this thesis discusses the main sociological frameworks that have been applied by adopting a Bourdieusian or Goffmanian approach in Interpreting Studies. To my knowledge, no studies in IS have used ANT as a sociological framework and/or a methodology. However, although carried out more

sporadically, some studies in TS have been conducted through the prism of ANT. The aim of this section is to describe and assess how the main cited studies have applied ANT as a framework in TS and to draw a hypothesis regarding its

application in IS.

Buzelin (2005) argues that ANT has been applied to many research fields, which correlates with the various examples provided in the introduction to this chapter. However, she claims that at the time of writing, ANT had not previously been used in TS. Her study in 2005 is, in that regard, a seminal piece of work in which she adopts an ANT approach to study the work of literary translators in Canada. She argues that ANT “generates data that should enable us to get a better idea of who participates in the translation process, how they negotiate their position, and of how much and where translators, in practice, comply with or contest norms”

84 (Buzelin, 2005, p. 205). In her study, ANT, as a theoretical framework, sheds light onto how translators associate with other actors in order to form a network.

Since then, a limited number of TS scholars have used ANT to conduct research in TS. Abdallah (2012) examines the translators as forming part of production networks. She takes an ANT approach to scrutinise the role and the definition of agency, quality, and ethics in those networks. Similarly, Córdoba Serrano (2007) and Tahir-Gürçağlar (2007) map the various actors that take part in literary translation networks in Spain and Turkey respectively, which include translators, authors, publishers, editors, readers, governments, and institutions. Building on the notion of network, McDonough (2007)’s study demonstrates that translation networks can be divided into the following four categories: professional-, practice-, education-, and research-oriented networks.

Further to mapping actors, Kung (2009) also calls upon ANT to examine the

tensions in translator-led vs. subvention networks38 _{when translating and exporting} Taiwanese literature. She argues that “ANT provides a useful framework for

examination of production as a process of negotiation and tension between actors. (...). Most importantly, it asks how various agents with different social power

interact with each other and develop the networks” (Kung, 2009, p. 126). In this study, the focus is on the translation process; more specifically on the

actors’ interrelations within a network, and how positions in the network are negotiated. Similarly, Hekkanen (2009) applies ANT in literary translation by examining how networks between authors, publishing houses and translators are created. She argues that “ANT would probably be particularly well-suited to research in areas where technological aspects, such as tools, materials or

software, play a significant role” (Hekkanen, 2009, p. 19). Interestingly, Hekkanen specifically highlights the benefits of ANT when examining the use of technologies within the translation industry, but the extent to which these benefits feed into her research is unclear.

38 _{Kung here makes the distinction between translator-led networks, in which translators decide}

to translate pro bono a particular piece of literature, and subvention networks, in which public organisations or companies remunerate a translator for translating a piece of literary work.

85 The ANT studies mentioned above in TS tend to examine actors, either institutions or humans, in networks formed within the field of literary translation. To a certain extent, technologies do not seem to play a predominant role in their studies. Based on Hekkanen’s work, it appears that conducting research in TS through the prism of ANT, with a particular focus on technologies, is a rather new avenue for research in TS. As technologies form an integral part of this thesis, and an ANT approach enables the researcher to consider VC equipment as an actor, it is hypothesised that ANT is the most appropriate framework for this study.

Complementing ANT with another sociological approach in TS has been

discussed by Buzelin (2005), and it is interesting to note that all the studies using ANT in TS mentioned above rely on additional theoretical frameworks, based mainly on Bourdieu’s work. For instance, Hekkanen (2009, p. 1) couples ANT with the concept of habitus as she claims that this“model provides better opportunities for analysing individual translators’ practices.” Kung (2009, p. 123) also relies on Bourdieu, and more particularly on the notion of capital in order to explore what influences the actors in her network. Therefore, taking into account the benefits of role-space discussed in Chapter 2, this study will combine ANT and role-space as its theoretical framework in order to analyse the court interpreter’s perception of her role in VCI.

Overall, then, studies using an ANT approach in TS establish a map of the various actors in their network, and the negotiations and tensions that the interactions between the various actors create. When examining such negotiations and tensions in translation networks, Hekkanen states that the ANT concept of Translation39_{is of particular use, and she argues that:}

the ANT conceptual framework makes significant use of the interestingly- named concept of ‘translation’, a process through which an actor

transforms its own interests into ideas relevant to other actors with the aim of furthering its own interests in the network. (Hekkanen, 2009, pp. 8-9) Building on the association created by the actors in a network, the concept of Translation sheds more light on translators’ influence in a network by examining

39 _{As already mentioned, in this thesis, translation will refer to the act of translating from one}

language into another, whereas Translation will be understood as the act of interessement that is anchored in ANT and defined in more depth in Section 3 below.

86 how they transform their ideas, opinions, beliefs, etc. to interest the other actors and rally them on the translators’ side. As discussed in Chapter 2, studies in TS have explored the interpreter’s role, mainly through a Bourdieusian prism.

However, Hekkanen suggests that Translation could be another construct to use in order to explore the interpreter’s position in a network that involves

technologies.

To conclude, this section has highlighted that ANT has been used only sporadically but to an extent, successfully in TS. However, studies focus on literary translators, and the use of ANT in IS remains unexplored. Furthermore, ANT is often used in TS as a complementary framework that has been coupled with other sociological paradigms. It is worth noting that this combined approach is often a means to overcome ANT’s shortcomings and criticisms discussed in

Section 1 above. Therefore, this section has posited that combining ANT and role-space was a fit-for-purpose theoretical approach to examine the court interpreter’s perception of her role in VCI. Finally, it appears that the concept of Translation enables the researcher to examine the tensions and negotiations between actors in a network. However, this concept remains rather unknown in TS, as studies focus mainly on identifying the actors in a translation network. For this reason, the next section will examine Translation in more depth.