Anthony David Pym (born 1956 in

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, Australia) is a scholar best known for his work in

translation studies Translation studies is an academic interdiscipline dealing with the systematic study of the theory, description and application of translation, interpreting, and localization. As an interdiscipline, translation studies borrows much from the vari ...

. Pym is Distinguished Professor of Translation and Intercultural Studies at

Rovira i Virgili University University of Rovira i Virgili (; ) is located in the Catalan cities of Tarragona, Reus, Tortosa Vila-seca, el Vendrell and Vilafranca del Penedès (Spain). Its name is in honor of Antoni Rovira i Virgili. The Universitat Rovira i Virgili i ...

in Spain, Professor Extraordinary at

Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch University (SU) (, ) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant university in Sub-Sahara ...

in South Africa, and Honorary Research Fellow at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

in Australia. He was a fellow of the

Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies ICREA, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, is a foundation jointly promoted by the Catalan Government through its Department of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise, and the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI ...

Three URV lecturers recognized by the ICREA Academia program for outstanding careers in research

/ref> from 2010 to 2015, Visiting Researcher at the

Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey Established in 1955, the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), formerly the Monterey Institute of International Studies, located in Monterey, California, is a Postgraduate education, graduate institute and satellite ...

from 2008 to 2016, Walter Benjamin Visiting Professor at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

in 2015, and President of the European Society for Translation Studies from 2010 to 2016.

Biography

Pym attended Wesley College (Perth, Australia) and the

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

, completing his BA (Hons) at

Murdoch University Murdoch University is a public university in Perth, Western Australia, with campuses also in Singapore and Dubai. It began operations as the state's second university on 25 July 1973, and accepted its first undergraduate students in 1975. Its ...

in 1981. He held a French government grant for doctoral studies at the

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (, EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and '' grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The school awards Master and PhD degrees alone and conj ...

, where he completed his PhD in sociology in 1985. In 1983–84 he was a Frank Knox Fellow in the Department of Comparative Literature at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. In 1992–94 he held a post-doctoral grant from the

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation () is a foundation that promotes international academic cooperation between scientists and scholars from Germany and abroad. Established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, it is funded by t ...

for research on translation history at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

, Germany. In 1994 he gave seminars on the ethics of translation at the

Collège International de Philosophie The Collège international de philosophie (; CIPh), located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on asso ...

, Paris. After years as a professional translator, journal editor and organizer of cultural events in France and Spain, he taught in the translation departments of the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona (; Spanish: ; ; UAB) is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. , the university consists of 57 departments in the experimental, lif ...

and the

University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria The University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, also known as the ULPGC (''Spanish'' Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) is a Spanish public university located in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, the capital city of Gran Canaria island. It is t ...

. In 1994 he joined the

Tarragona Tarragona (, ; ) is a coastal city and municipality in Catalonia (Spain). It is the capital and largest town of Tarragonès county, the Camp de Tarragona region and the province of Tarragona. Geographically, it is located on the Costa Daurada ar ...

, Spain, where he set up the Intercultural Studies Group in 2000, postgraduate programs in translation in 2000, and a doctoral program in 2003. He has been a Visiting Researcher at the

Monterey Institute of International Studies Established in 1955, the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), formerly the Monterey Institute of International Studies, located in Monterey, California, is a graduate institute and satellite campus of Middlebury C ...

since 2006. His permanent residence is in the village of

Calaceite Calaceite () or ''Calaceit'' () is a municipality located in the Matarraña comarca, in the province of Teruel, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census ( INE), the municipality has a population of 1,145 inhabitants. There are many ancient bui ...

, Spain. Pym is Distinguished Professor of Translation and Intercultural Studies and coordinator of the Intercultural Studies Group at the

in Tarragona, Spain where he also ran a doctoral program. In addition, Pym is Professor Extraordinary at

and an international advisory board member for the Translation and Inter-Cultural Research Cluster at the

. Pym was a visiting professor at the

from 2008 to 2016, where he conducted research and lectures. From 2010 to 2015, he was a fellow of the

. He was also President of the European Society for Translation Studies from 2010 to 2016 and Walter Benjamin Visiting Professor at the

in 2015. In 2017, he joined the

's School of Languages and Linguistics.

Thought and influence

Pym was one of the first to move the study of translation away from texts and toward translators as people.Michaela Wolf, "The emergence of a sociology of translation", in Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, eds Constructing a sociology of translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: Benjamins, p. 14 ff.Riitta Jääskeläinen, “The Changing Position of ‘the Translator’ in Research and in Practice”, Journal of Translation Studies 10(1) (2007), 1–15Andrew Chesterman, “The Name and Nature of Translator Studies”, Hermes 42 (2009), 13–22. He argued that translators are “authors” who can select the thoughts and emotions to express rather than “animators,” who merely present other's words. He views the translator as working with the author to create meaning, therefore, they both contribute to the meaning of the translation According to him, the development of the translation field in the West has been essentially a "history of translation theory", a limitation that he proposed to address by focusing on the translators themselves and the contexts in which they operate. Pym also conceptualized translating as a form of

risk management Risk management is the identification, evaluation, and prioritization of risks, followed by the minimization, monitoring, and control of the impact or probability of those risks occurring. Risks can come from various sources (i.e, Threat (sec ...

, rather than a striving for equivalence. According to Pym there are three types and levels of risks: credibility risk, uncertainty risk, and communicative risk. Credibility risk concerns the specificity of translation and relations between people, where the risk is the probability of the translator losing credibility. Uncertainty risk involves a translator's

cognitive processes Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ima ...

when they are uncertain about how to present something. Communicative risk involves the possible loss of cooperation between the participants in the communication act. Pym has hypothesized that translators can be members of professional intercultures, operating in the overlaps of cultures, and that their highest ethical goal is the promotion of long-term cross-cultural

co-operation Cooperation (written as co-operation in British English and, with a varied usage along time, coöperation) takes place when a group of organisms works or acts together for a collective benefit to the group as opposed to working in competition ...

.Helen Baumer, Johann Jacob Bodmer, Interculturalist. Cultural realignment in the 18th century and the role of a Zurich translator. University of Auckland, 2004 Pym has stressed that the translators' loyalty should also be in their profession and that the value of translation efforts lies in its contribution to intercultural relations and

cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural communication is a field of study investigating how people from differing culture, cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communication, communicate across cultures ...

. Pym has been attracted to the concept of

inculturation In Christianity, inculturation is the adaptation of Christian teachings and practices to cultures. This is a term that is generally used by Catholics and the Orthodox, whereas Protestants (such as Anglicans and Lutherans), especially associated ...

, through which he sees translation as one of the ways minority cultures are absorbed into wider cultural systems and can then modify those wider systems. Pym has also cited the role of technology, particularly the Internet in the translation of materials tailored to a specific local market. According to him, the proliferation of information does not necessarily mean that these will be received, hence, care should be taken so that the translated texts appeal to its target culture. Pym's ideas have been contrasted with those of the American translation theorist Lawrence Venuti by the Finnish translation scholar Kaisa Koskinen, and Pym's critique of

Lawrence Venuti Lawrence Venuti (born 1953) is an American translation theorist, translation historian, and a translator from Italian, French, and Catalan. Career Born in Philadelphia, Venuti graduated from Temple University. In 1980 he completed a Ph.D. ...

has been commented on by

Jeremy Munday Jeremy Munday (18 May 1960) is a British linguist and translation scholar. He is a lecturer in translation studies at the University of Leeds and he also works as a French–English and French–English translator.

, and Mary Snell-Hornby

Works

Pym has authored, co-authored, and edited over 30 books and 270 articles about

translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...

and

intercultural relations Cross-cultural communication is a field of study investigating how people from differing culture, cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communication, communicate across cultures ...

: *''Translation and Text Transfer. An Essay on the Principles of

Intercultural Communication Intercultural communication is a discipline that studies communication across different cultures and social groups, or how culture affects communication. It describes the wide range of communication processes and problems that naturally appear w ...

, Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1992. Revised edition: Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2010.'' *''

Epistemological Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowled ...

Problems in Translation and its Teaching, Calaceite: Caminade, 1993.'' *''Pour une éthique du traducteur, Arras: Artois Presses Université / Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa, 1997.'' *''Method in Translation History, Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 1998. Reprint with Chinese introduction: 北京 : 外语敎学与硏究出版社, Beijing, 2006.'' *''Negotiating the Frontier: Translators and Intercultures in Hispanic History, Manchester: St Jerome Publishing, 2000.'' *''The Moving Text: Localization, Translation and Distribution, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2004.'' *''Exploring Translation Theories, London and New York: Routledge, 2010. Japanese translation, 翻訳理論の探求, trans. Kayoko Takeda, Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 2010. Translation rights sold for Portuguese and Korean.'' *''The status of the translation profession in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, with François Grin, Claudio Sfreddo, Andy L. J. Chan. Luxembourg: European Commission, 2012.'' *''On Translator Ethics. Principles for

Cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural communication is a field of study investigating how people from differing culture, cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communication, communicate across cultures ...

. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2012 (reworked version of Pour une éthique du traducteur).'' *''Translation and Language Learning, with Kirsten Malmkjaer and Mar Gutiérrez. Luxembourg: European Commission, 2013.'' *''Translation Solutions for Many Languages. Histories of a Flawed Dream. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.'' *''What is Translation History? A Trust-Based Approach, with Andrea Rizzi and Birgit Lang. London: Palgrave, 2019.'' *''How to Augment Language Skills. Generative AI and Machine Translation in Language Learning and Translator Training, with Yu Hao. London and New York: Routledge, 2025.'' *''Risk Management in Translation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025.''

Translations of Anthony Pym's Works

*''Exploring Translation Theories'' (London and New York; Routledge, 2010). Revised edition: Routledge, 2014. Japanese translation, Kayoko Takeda, trans. Tokyo: Misuzu Shobo, 2010. Spanish translation, Teorías contemporáneas de la traducción. Materiales para un curso universitario, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2012; unauthorized publication: Havanna: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 2016; second edition 2016. Portuguese translation, Teorias Contemporâneas da Tradução, Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2013. Traditional Chinese translation 探索翻譯理論第二版, Taipei: Bookman, 2016. Brazilian Portuguese, trans. Rodrigo Borges de Faveri, Explorando as teorias da tradução, Sao Paulo: Perspectiva, 2017. Russian trans. Теоретические парадигмы в переводоведении. Saint Petersburg: Saint Petersburg University Press, 2018. Collective Turkish translation as ''Çeviri Kuramlarını Keşfetmek'', Istanbul: Everest, 2023. French translation by Hélène Jaccomard, ''Explorations des théories de la traduction'', Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group. 2024, https://doi.org/10.17613/5e5b-kd90. Translation rights sold for Korean and Arabic. *''Method in Translation History'' (London and New York: Routledge, 2014). Reprint with Chinese introduction: 北京 : 外语敎学与硏究出版社, Beijing, 2006. Arabic translation by Ali Kalfat: المنهج في تاريخ الترجمة, Cairo: National Center for Translation, 2010. *''On translator ethics. Principles for mediation between cultures''. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2012. Translation and rewrite of Pour une éthique du traducteur. Korean translation as 번역가 윤리: 문화 간의 중재 원칙 by Hyo-Eun Choi and Hye-Kyung Park, Seoul: Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Press, 2016; Persian translation اصول اخلاقی مترجم by Zahra Fallah Shahroudi and Farzaneh Me'mar, Teheran: Nashr-e Markaz, 2017. *''Text Transfer, Translation History and Translator Ethics — Anthony Pym’s Translation Studies（安东尼•皮姆的翻译研究之迁移•译史•伦理'' by Wang Jun, Social Science in China Press, 2023.

References

External links

Anthony Pym website

Lectures on translation theories (Monterey Institute of International Studies)Lectures on translation research (Monterey Institute of International Studies)Amazon.com Anthony Pym page
*
Facebook academic pageInterview with Anthony Pym
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pym, Anthony 1956 births Living people University of Western Australia alumni Murdoch University alumni School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences alumni Australian translators Translation historians Australian translation scholars Translation theorists Academic staff of the University of Rovira i Virgili