Translation and negotiation of linguistic varieties amongst translators of the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages

This paper examines the situation of 28 translators for the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages and elicits responses on the number of accreditations they hold and how they negotiate requests for assignments in languages other than their ‘own’. Specifically, data is gathered on the following: accepting or declining assignments for languages in which a translator does not have accreditation; responses to requests where the nominated language has an unofficial designation; increased income as an incentive for work in more than one language and use of resources across languages. Two dominant outlooks on working in other languages emerge: the first outlook views the languages as distinct and separate and encompasses those informants who hold one accreditation and who work almost exclusively in one language only; the other dominant outlook recognises the separateness of the languages and advocates multiple accreditation as a means to perform translation across two or more languages.