Risk Management in Translation: How Much Does It Really Explain?
Daniel Gile
Abstract
While risk has always been part of translation, it was taken up as a distinct topic recently, with some confusion as to what the term actually covers and some problematic claims about its central role as a determinant of translation behavior and the links between risk and translation effort. It is argued that risk is more often a constraint than a driver of decisions, that the correlation between the magnitude of risk-associated loss and the number of problem-solving efforts can be weak, and that achievement-oriented decision making explains translatorial behavior better than risk management and is more compatible with professional ethics. However, there are interesting nontrivial cases where risk is salient, and the topic deserves more conceptual and empirical exploration.