Mapping network in legal translation market in Turkey: Analysis of actors from sociological perspective

This study aims to explore the roles of the actors taking part in the legal translation network and to problematize the influence of their roles and relationship on the translation process. To this end, I conducted qualitative in-depth interviews with six translators, four translation agencies and eight clients in İzmir, Ankara and İstanbul. This study has unveiled that the studies on legal translation market are quite limited in the world, and no research has been conducted in this field in Turkey. Following the identification of the actors with the help of Bruno Latour's actor-network theory, I constructed the network of legal translation market in Turkey. According to my findings, the network of the legal translation market emerged as a dynamic and unstable area with introduction or elimination of the actors with changing roles. The positions and roles of the actors and their relations within the network are analysed through Pierre Bourdieu's concept of "capital". This analysis has revealed that the actors play different roles (expert, slave, mediator, and interventionist) within the network and they are influential in the different stages of the legal translation process, namely ethics, quality and workflow. The findings obtained proved the argument that translation process is an expression of the relations between the actors in the network which are shaped by their positions based on the type and extent of the capital they accumulate. Keywords: Legal Translation, Translation Sociology, Network, Translation Market, Actor-Network Theory, Capital