Charting Translation Reception: Methods and Challenges

This Element conceptualises translation reception as a form of cultural negotiation in which cognitive processes and sociocultural factors converge to form understanding. Drawing on empirical examples from a variety of translational phenomena, it maps a range of methodologies, including surveys, interviews, eye-tracking experiments, and big data analytics, to examine how heterogeneous reader expectations are either reconciled or divided. This Element argues that the ambiguities surrounding readers’ identities and behaviours exemplify how reception thrives on paradoxes, uncertainties, and fluid boundaries. It proposes a nonlinear trade-off model to emphasise that mutual benefits in high-stakes communication can only be achieved when a requisite degree of trust is maintained among all stakeholders. This trust-based approach to translation reception provides us with the epistemological and methodological tools to navigate our post-truth multilingual world, where a new technocratic order looms. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.