Poetry Translating as Expert Action
2.7.1 Interest networks
An interest network involves people linked in some way to the translation act. It
derives from what Venuti calls a translation’s receptor-language “community of
interest” – linking, in our case, the essay collection team with English-language
readers, critics, etc. (2000: 477). There may also be source-language interest net-
works, however: those in Bosnia who wished to see the collection published, for
instance. Alternatively, an interest network might link users of both languages –
those within and outside Bosnia advocating support for the Bosnian government
against ethnonationalist rebels, for example. Interest networks interact with other
networks. Thus this last interest network opposed Croatian or Serbian ethnona-
tionalist groupings, or networks outside Bosnia discouraging Western support for
the Bosnian government on ‘anti-Western-imperialist’ grounds (Campbell 2002a,
2002b). Translators may see themselves as not just linked to an interest network,
but as members of an interest network, and therefore participating in its alliances
and struggles with other networks. Hence I saw my translating and editing as ally-
ing myself with others promoting an cosmopolitanist, anti-ethnonationalist solu-
tion to the Bosnian conflict, for instance.2.7.2 Fields and habitus
Fields are defined by Bourdieu as “historically constituted areas of activity with
their specific institutions and laws of functioning” (cited in Inghilleri 2005: 135)- to which one might add “with their specific network-patterns and discourses”.
Some fields, such as ‘UK-based poetry translators/translating’ or ‘translators/
translating of Bosnian literature’, may be relevant to poetry translating because
translators regard themselves as belonging to them. Other fields, such as the dy-
namics of printing and publishing in the post-Yugoslav region, may be relevant
because they are linked to the wider translation project.
According to Bourdieu, human agents acting within a field follow a ‘habitus’
typical of that field. Based on consensus between the field’s members, this is a set
of “principles which generate and organise practices and representations” – in
other words, which influence people’s normal behaviours and accepted knowl-
edge-structures (Hipsky 2000: 203; Inghilleri 2005: 134–135). Within human sub-
jectivity, this is “a practical sense for what is to be done in a given situation”, involv-
ing a “system of preferences”, “principles of vision and division”, “durable cognitive
structures” plus “schemes of action which orient the perception of situation and
the appropriate response” (Bourdieu 1998: 5) – in other words, linked schemata of
attitudes and behaviour internalized by discourse and interaction with fellow
members of the field.