Context Counts : Rethinking the Ethics of Translation and its Implications for Translator Education

In the past two decades, there has been considerable reflection on translation ethics and the translator’s responsibility. This paper reviews some of the prominent arguments on this topic and points out that while most studies of translation ethics have mainly focused on identifying various values of translation without rendering a systematic framework in dealing with potential value conflicts embedded in the translator’s work in reality. To address this problem, this paper borrows insights from recent developments in medical ethics to promote a contextual perspective in examining ethically related issues in translation practice. In putting forward the idea that ethical decision making in translation is based on context rather than fixed dogma, we also explore how this idea may apply in the educational setting. This paper argues for a departure from the traditional teacher-centered and text-driven teaching, to a learner-centered and competence-oriented teaching in translator education. To facilitate this shift, a task-based method of teaching is proposed, which, as compared with traditional exercise-based pedagogy, may be more effective in fostering ethical competence of future professional translators.