| Abstract: |
Linguists have long acknowledged that language is one single trait that distinguishes humans from other species. Humans owe their social, political, economic and technological advances to language. Besides, in many multilingual nations of the world, the multiplicity of indigenous languages and cultures make translation one of the most effective means of communication in the globalised era. Translation helps in filling the gap between nations and erases language barrier. The general recognition of the translator’s responsibilities has therefore increased. The translator, as an expert communicator, is at the crucial center of a long chain of communication from the original initiator to the ultimate receiver of a message, and is thus situated within the wider social context. The ethical responsibility of the translator is seen to derive from his or her status as an expert in the field of trans-cultural message transfer, because only translators with the requisite expertise can succeed in producing functionally adequate texts. Therefore, in addition to the usual linguistic up-datedness, the translator is supposed to have enough meta-linguistic or extra-linguistic knowledge in any domain of the operation. This is to say that most of the operational techniques and processes related to each domain of human endeavor being treated by him should not sound Greek. This paper therefore brings to bare the significant contributions that translators and interpreters appear to have made and continue to make to the linguistic, social and cultural development of the world in the globalised era. |
EBONYI JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE
