Exploring the Agency of English-to-Japanese Translators of Non-Fiction Books Through an Analysis of Their Translators' Notes

Abstract

The recent surge in AI translation technologies has heightened the need to elucidate the roles of human translators in society, which must necessarily differ from those of AI. Paloposki (2010) introduced to Translation Studies the concept of translators’ “paratextual agency” (their agency to add translators’ notes and other paratexts), but the functions of such agency remain understudied and methods for analyzing such functions have been underdeveloped. Furthermore, existing research on the paratexts of translated non-fiction literature is quite limited in scope. This article provides an overview of studies on agency and paratexts within Translation Studies and proposes a method for qualitative analysis of the functions of translators’ notes, focusing on non-fiction books translated from English to Japanese. By conducting a preliminary analysis of two books using this method, this article discusses the potential for advancing this research.