Translation and Interpreting in the Age of COVID-19

Abstract

There is a plethora of scholarly literature sizing the multitude of a series of far-reaching impacts brought on by the covid-19 global pandemic (Declercq and Federici 2020; Gössling, Scott, and Hall 2020; Shrestha et al. 2020; Sikali 2020;). Undoubtedly, as readers of this review article, we all have witnessed the spillover effect of the pandemic on the social, economic, political, psychological, familial, and interactive planes of our existence. The unspeakable difficulties and challenges experienced by our individual households and the implications of war and geopolitical tensions felt in our everyday life. It seems sensible for us to focus our gaze on the less bright side of the story yet not see the other side of our shared memories as the lockdown and disruptive years make it easier for us to be constantly reminded of our human-to-human connections in this increasingly globalized world we dwell in. With these being said, the interdisciplinary book under review serves to bridge the gap and compass us towards more balanced perceptions of the obvious challenges and the hidden gem opportunities to reshape our world through the empowering and uniting force of languages embedded in translation and interpreting activities on institutional and personal dimensions.

Keywords

• translation and interpreting
• COVID-19
• translation as social justice
• linguistic equity
• multilingual communication
• Kanglong Liu