Poetry Translating as Expert Action
translating and revising, a key predictor of target-text quality (Jääskeläinen 1996:
69; Hubscher-Davidson 2007). Though some interviewees appeared more affec-
tively driven than others, they highlighted how emotion can be a key motivator in
a usually voluntary but often long-term, demanding and lonely activity. Important
for motivation were: only translating source poems which one empathizes with;
enjoying the poetry translating process; and support from other translating agents
and source-culture interest networks. As mentioned earlier, translation can en-
hance a source poet’s symbolic capital, and the translator may share some of this
added capital in terms of prestige or visibility. This study adds that source-culture
players may ‘advance’ some of this capital to translators before publication, thus – to
continue the financial analogy – emotionally subsidizing them to keep working.
Support from interest networks in the receptor culture, however, tended only
to come after publication – perhaps because most UK poetry translation is of po-
ets hitherto unknown to target readers (Sampson 2001: 82). And though praise by
receptor readers emotionally rewards the translator’s long efforts, negative reviews
can be emotionally hard to bear.4.4.4 Metacognition and identity
4.4.4.1 Self-evaluation and expertise
The metacognitive strategy of evaluating one’s own expertise appears important
when translators decide whether to accept a commission. This may be a general
self-evaluation: am I up to this task? Alternatively, specific sub-expertises may be
rated: source-language knowledge, or skill in writing certain receptor-genre styles.
Such self-assessments reflect the general translator ethic that translators “shall
refuse work which they know to be beyond their competence, either linguistically
or because of lack of specialised knowledge” (Code of Professional Conduct,
ITI 2004) – another area where poetry translators follow the wider professional-
translating habitus.
The interviews reveal a key proviso, however: competence applies not to the
translator, but to the translation team. Thus co-translators and informants can
supply missing source-language and subject-specialist knowledge. This proviso
appears especially important for poetry. Here, input from others is particularly
common, perhaps because poetry translating demands such high source-text in-
terpretation and target-text production skills. Forming teams of translating agents
is often the translator’s responsibility: hence a metacognitive and interpersonal
skill linked to self-evaluation could be the ability to complement one’s expertise by
recruiting text helpers.