Translating Documentaries

Documentary translation does not have a scholarly field of its own, but occupies an in-between space. Inter-disciplinary, it is placed with the challenge and privilege of drawing from both Translation Studies and Documentary Studies. But documentary translation is first of all a practice, and this study came out of certain experiences and experimentations with translating documentary films. To translate is also to be in-between - to carefully correspond between languages and the realities of these languages. When confronted with concerns about representation and reality that arise from documentaries, the translator's task becomes a complex of two modes of representation. This study is not an invention of a new academic field, but rather a theoretical reflection on a practice and on certain instances of this practice. Incidentally, it is also an embarkment on a new theoretical territory.