Translating Interviews, interpreting lives: bi-lingual research analysis informing less westernised views of international student mobility

Abstract

There are increasing instances in which researchers study their migrant co-nationals in one language but report their research findings in another language. This raises significant issues regarding the mediating role played by bilingual researcher-translators when translating research data: the decisions they make when bringing the Other’s world to their readers, and the strategies they adopt when making such decisions. These issues of data translation, as well as the unique experiences of the researcher-translators and the valuable knowledge that they generate from this process, have not yet been given adequate attention in the academic literature. In response, this article explores a translation analysis which allows the researcher-translator to reflect in detail on the methodological challenges that researcher-translators are likely to encounter. Introducing Poblete’s five operations of translation, we highlight the processes that the researcher-translator adopts in recognising, reflecting and negotiating with the (un)translatability of culturally embedded linguistic expression. Focusing on International Student Mobility (ISM) as a particular instance of research translation/analysis as cultural mediation, we demonstrate how our intention to attune to students’ own ISM journey in their own language reverberates in the mediation and interventions the researcher-translator conducted through the translation analysis. The article thus emphasises how translating interview scripts as part of the research is more than seeking linguistic correspondence, it is also about understanding non-western lives and life-words through a second-language.