Kostikova Olga I.

The 1st International Forum “The Russian Language in the World Context and at International Organizations” took place from 28th of September to 3rd of October 2016 in Rome.

Any translation, regardless of its form, the circumstances under which it is carried out or the information contained in original texts, is a cognitive activity of an individual that has relevant competencies. A translator generates information and introduces it into a new communicative space. S/he is a communicative mediator able to settle conflicts of mutual misunderstanding arising in the course of interlingual communication.

Throughout centuries, society has used the results of translators’ work for many various purposes. It evaluates translators’ successes and failures, praises them for what it is inclined to see as fine achievements and executes them for what it finds to be unacceptable.

To what extent does modern science take into account the threefold essence of translation? What models are acceptable in a scientific description of translation activities? How do translatology methods correlate with those of other scientific disciplines in today’s transdisciplinary knowledge about translation?

In the present article, the authors provide answers to these and some other questions posed in modern translatology.

Translation is an art based on science that makes technology develop. The modern age is marked by the transition of mankind to a new stage of development and new challenges that make us reflect on the future of a whole range of different professional activities. Translation is no exception. Translation activity in the digital age is a complex system of heterogeneous interactions within the “man — smart machine (AI)” tandem. This work system can be defined as digital translation. The digital translation that uses digital technology as part of the creative process aims to improve the efficiency of translation art and the quality of translation products. On the one hand, it links up the translator’s art with AI performances and creates a win­win situation; on the other hand, it provokes wariness and suspicion. The emergence of digital translation affects three main areas: 1) cognitive and technological, i.e. all the issues related to possible correlations between translation technologies and digital information and communication technologies in the modern world; 2) social and economic, i.e. all the issues of potential social transformations that may have an impact on translation as a profession in the subsequent 20 years; 3) pedagogical, i.e. all the issues concerning translators’ training for an efficient and smooth operation of today’s digital society.

“The Power of Languages in Times of Crisis” Conference of the MoU network took place from May, 17 to May, 19 2021.

This article presents a historiographical essay on the life and work of La Malinche or Doña Marina, translator of Hernán Cortés during the time of the conquest of Mexico. The following aspects that are significant for the history of translation are studied: the prerequisites for the formation of a representative of the Indian ethnic group as a translator for the Spanish conquerors, an expanded range of her intermediary functions during the colonial campaigns, her alleged participation in the massacre in Cholula as an informer of Cortés and, as a result, her condemnation by her compatriots and the formation in the future, the negative image of the translator among the indigenous people, from which she herself was. Thus, the genesis of the translator’s personality is traced, the value aspects of translation are revealed, and the axiological ambivalence of translation activity is demonstrated.