While striving for excellence in an increasingly market-dominated, multicultural, multilingual,
service-oriented, and globalised society, language practitioners – translators, text editors,
interpreters, audio describers, sign language interpreters and subtitlers – in South Africa and
Flanders find themselves under increasing pressure to defend the professional status of their
work, and to justify the conception of their different occupations as a homogenous
profession. Given the cultural and mediatory role of the language practitioner in this
decentralised, dynamic, complex, and virtual market, the professionalization of language
practitioners is rapidly developing into a matter that needs urgent academic consideration.
Scientific and multidisciplinary research on the occupations collectively and colloquially
referred to as the “language professions”, or more academic, language practice, is therefore
currently of the utmost importance and relevance to ensure market-related expert language
services. Unquestionably, without such research language practice cannot become a bona
fide profession.
From the point of view of the sociology of professions, language practitioners are an extreme
example of an understudied professional occupation (Sela-Sheffy & Schlesinger, 2011). By
focusing attention on the marginal status of the language occupations (which persists despite
the ever-increasing need for professionalized expert language services in a globalised
multilingual and multicultural world), this research project aims to identify the perceived
impediments to desired professional status for language practice, thereby creating a more
systematic basis for future professionalization endeavour.
The sociological literature on the professions as manifest in the functional, interactional and
conflict approaches of Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx, as well as a critical, postmodern
approach offers a body of history and theory of the development of modern
professions and their attributes. The service ideal; a viable income congruous with expert
status; occupational autonomy and monopoly; career oriented training and continuing
education; professional training institutions; professional bodies; ethics, and jurisdiction (see
for example Abbott, 1988; Barber, 1963; Freidson, 1983, 1994; Goode, 1969; Hughes, 1963;
Larson, 1977; Macdonald, 1995; Torstendahl & Burrage, 1990; Wilensky, 1964) are
attributes unique to the “true profession”.
These characteristics served as the matrix to establish a framework for the prototypical
profession whereby the current professional status of language practitioners in South Africa
and Flanders could be ascertained, and a formal language practice “professional project”
initiated.
Using the “professional project” (Larson, 1977) as a conceptual tool advantageously
establishes the concrete, historically bounded character of the professions as empirical entities (Witz, 1992:64) within the context of three different approaches to categorisation as
described in this project: the classical model, the critical model, and the prototype model.
The identification of perceived obstacles to the professionalization of language practice as
per the literature provided the context for a comparative appraisal of the current professional
state of affairs of language practitioners in South Africa and Flanders. An objective
investigation into the character of these obstacles revealed the catalyst opportunities
inherent in the alleged barriers to professionalization. This perspective provides a rational
framework for the implementation of essential measures to augment a viable professional
project of language practitioners in general. / Thesis (PhD (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/8495 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Kotze, Alletha Dorothea |
| Publisher | North-West University |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Language | other |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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