Literary translators for languages of low diffusion: market needs and training challenges in Slovenia

Abstract

The study focuses on literary translation between languages of low diffusion (LLD) from the perspective of a culture using such a language. The position of a language group in the world translation system determines the general flow of literary translation, but the specifics for the translation of an individual LLD may depend on a number of factors. In this paper, we explore the situation in the Slovene literary market as far as translators for LLD are concerned, in particular the ways LLD knowledge and literary translation training is acquired, and present possible solutions for the potential lack of translators for specific source languages. To answer the research questions, we surveyed and interviewed translators and editors, as well as looked into the existing opportunities for literary translator training in Slovenia, with a special interest in LLDs, collecting data through web pages of training and education institutions. Finally, we suggest the most viable options to improve the current situation for the most critical language combinations.

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Literary translators for languages of low diffusion:
market needs and training challenges in Slovenia
Tamara Mikolič Južnič , Marija Zlatnar Moe & Tanja Žigon
To cite this article: Tamara Mikolič Južnič , Marija Zlatnar Moe & Tanja Žigon (2021): Literary
translators for languages of low diffusion: market needs and training challenges in Slovenia, The
Interpreter and Translator Trainer
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2020.1868174
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ARTICLE
Literary translators for languages of low diusion: market
needs and training challenges in Slovenia
Tamara Mikolič Južnič , Marija Zlatnar Moe and Tanja Žigon
Department of Translation, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
ABSTRACT
The study focuses on literary translation between languages of low
diusion (LLD) from the perspective of a culture using such
a language. The position of a language group in the world transla-
tion system determines the general ow of literary translation, but
the specics for the translation of an individual LLD may depend on
a number of factors. In this paper, we explore the situation in the
Slovene literary market as far as translators for LLD are concerned,
in particular the ways LLD knowledge and literary translation train-
ing is acquired, and present possible solutions for the potential lack
of translators for specic source languages. To answer the research
questions, we surveyed and interviewed translators and editors, as
well as looked into the existing opportunities for literary translator
training in Slovenia, with a special interest in LLDs, collecting data
through web pages of training and education institutions. Finally,
we suggest the most viable options to improve the current situa-
tion for the most critical language combinations.
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 26 December 2019
Accepted 21 December 2020
KEYWORDS
Languages of low diffusion;
book market; LLD education;
literary translation; LLD
translators
1. Introduction
In the world translation system, as theorised by Heilbron (2000, 2010), languages are
positioned according to their share of translations into other languages. The hypercentral
position belongs to English, which accounts for at least 40% of the world market in
translated books (up to 70% of the European market); the central position is split between
French and German, with 10–12% each; semi-peripheral languages (e.g. Spanish, Italian,
Danish, Swedish, Polish, Czech and Russian) account for 1–3% each; and the rest of the
world languages belong to the last group, the peripheral languages, or languages of low
diffusion (LLD), with a share of less than 1% each. Among these languages is Slovene,
a language spoken by approximately 2 million speakers and by definition an LLD.
Slovene is characterised by a historically strong influence of translation on written genres,
especially (but not only) literature (cf. Ahačič 2007). In fact, even today, translation has
a strong presence in the literary market, considering that Perme (2010) showed that over
60% of the literary books published between 2000 and 2010 were translations, and Bratož
(2015) identified over 50% of the literary books published in 2014 as translations. The
most recent data, found in the brochure of the Slovenian Book Agency (JAK, Javna
agencija za knjigo Republike Slovenije, JAK), show that 33% of all the books published in
CONTACT Tamara Mikolič Južnič tamara.mikolic@guest.arnes.si
THE INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINER
https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2020.1868174
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

2018 are translations (JAK, Javna agencija za knjigo 2019).
1
Considering the vast number
of other LLDs in the world, the aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between
the presence of translators of LLDs in the market and the opportunities for learning LLDs
in a formal setting in the Slovene context, and to present possible solutions for the
potential lack of specific source-language translators in the field of literary translation.
We focus on the backgrounds of literary translators working with LLDs, in terms of
language education and translation training. We also look into the needs of the market
for LLD translators and the LLD education and LLD translation training on offer. Due to
space constraints, we only explore translation into Slovene, leaving a detailed account of
the opposite direction for future research.
The paper is divided into six sections. After the introduction, a brief background on
the history of literary translation in Slovenia is given, followed by an overview of present-
day trends. Section 3 is devoted to the education and training for LLD available in
Slovenia. Section 4 presents the research questions, the methodology and the population
surveyed. The results and discussion are presented in section 5, and conclusions are
drawn in section 6.
2. Literary translation in Slovenia
2.1. A brief historical overview of literary translation in Slovenia
The written Slovene language was forged in translation. The present-day literary market
and the significant presence of translated literature today is the result of historical
developments and changes in society’s view of translation over time; within these, the
reasons for the growth in the number of translators (see section 2.2.2) can be found.
From the first written text in Slovene, the Freising Manuscripts (972–1039 CE), to the
production of texts in Slovene starting in the 16
th
century and continuing until
the second half of the 19
th
century, translation was the main source of text production
(see Stanovnik 2005). Original Slovene literature was slow to emerge and translation
remained fundamental in the period of Romanticism, when it was mostly undertaken
with the aim of elevating the cultural capital of the young national literature through
transfer (see Juvan 2012, 277–278). Towards the end of the 19
th
century, the national
emancipatory role of original literature pushed translation into a subordinate position
(Stritar 1956, VII/203; Prunč 2005, 12). This situation lasted until the beginning of the
20
th
century, when a group of intellectuals led by literary historian Ivan Prijatelj re-
evaluated literary translation as adding to, rather than detracting from, original produc-
tion (Stanovnik 2005, 67–89). This positive view persisted until immediately after World
War II, when a selective, ideologically oriented translation of Russian/Soviet literature
almost entirely replaced translation from other languages (Stanovnik 2005, 91–92; cf. also
Kocijančič Pokorn 2012). Since the 1950s, however, the production of literary transla-
tions into Slovene has experienced steady growth until the present day.
2.2. The present day
In this section, we survey the most important characteristics of the present-day Slovene
literary market which provide context for the selection of data for the present study,
2T. MIKOLIČ JUŽNIČ ET AL.

i.e.: 1) the share of translations from individual foreign languages into Slovene and the
positioning of those languages in the world translation system; and 2) the presence of
literary translators in the market.
2.2.1. The book translation market
The production of books in Slovenia is quite lively and has been growing since the
country gained independence in 1991. Considering the number of published books per
capita, Slovenia is among the top countries in the world (JAK, Javna agencija za knjigo
2019). Based on the statistics published by the Slovenian Book Agency (JAK, Javna
agencija za knjigo 2019),
2
each year, around 700 original literary works are published,
while literary translations into Slovene amount to around 660 books. Among the
translated works, approximately 58% are translations from English, 12% from German,
6% from French, 5% from South Slavic languages, 4% altogether from Spanish and
Portuguese, 1% each from ancient literatures, Polish, Russian, Czech and Hungarian,
and 5% from other languages (see Figure 1).
If we divide the source languages according to Heilbron’s (2000) world translation
system theory, the languages that fall into the peripheral group are the South Slavic
languages (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Macedonian), Hungarian, the
languages of the ancient literatures and the group collectively called other languages. Yet
Heilbron himself notes that the distinction between semi-peripheral and peripheral
languages is a fuzzy one (Heilbron 2000, 14); the role of a particular language in
a specific local system, and from a specific point of view, can differ from its overall
positioning. In this way, Italian and the South Slavic languages seem to assume the same
relation to Slovene, although the former is normally not counted as a peripheral language
Figure 1. Share of translations into Slovene by source language (adapted from JAK, Javna agencija za
knjigo 2019, 24]).
THE INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINER 3

or an LLD, while the latter are, both as single languages and as a group. The reasons for
the relatively high presence of translations from the South Slavic languages are historical
and geographical as well as personal (e.g., poet friends translating one another). In spite
of their special position, the present study will consider South Slavic languages as LLDs
due to their overall positioning in the world translation system and in view of the fact that
the mechanisms that trigger translations into or from those languages seem to be the
same as for the other LLDs, as discussed below. An additional reason for retaining South
Slavic languages in the peripheral group is linked to the translation strategies employed in
translation from these languages on the macro and micro level, which are comparable to
those used for other peripheral languages (see Zlatnar Moe, Žigon, and Mikolič Južnič
2019; Zlatnar Moe, Strsoglavec, and Žigon 2017). The languages that will be excluded
from our account, therefore, are the hypercentral language (English), the central lan-
guages (German and French) and the languages functioning as semi-peripheral from the
point of view of Slovenia, i.e. those which have a share of more than 1% each (Spanish,
Italian and Czech).
2.2.2. A growing community of translators
The increasing production of literary translations began after World War II, which is
reflected also in the number of members of the most important professional association
in the field, the Association of Literary Translators (Društvo slovenskih književnih
prevajalcev, DSKP). Founded in 1953, DSKP initially had 59 members; in 1961, there
were 85 members, in 1971 there were 93, in 1990 150, in 1998 174, in 2010 233 and in
2018 there were 232 (cf. Mikolič Južnič 2018).
3
Considering that not all the literary
translators in Slovenia are members of the DSKP, the true figures are even higher
(Mikolič Južnič 2018, 124).
4
These figures, nonetheless, are aggregated and do not shed
light on the languages the translators work with or the direction of translation.
Comparing the numbers of translators to the shares of source languages cannot give
a definitive answer. Therefore, it is one of the aims of this paper to verify the availability
of translators for selected LLDs, as well as the market needs for LLD translation as
resulting from the calls for funding proposals issued by JAK and other relevant funding
bodies. Prior to that, an overview of the training possibilities for LLD and translation will
be briefly described in the next section.
3. LLDs and translation in formal education
A very important factor that influences the presence of translators in the market is the
availability of language education and any language support system that the (potential)
literary translators have access to. Languages can be learned in formal (e.g. in the
education system) and informal ways (e.g. by living in a linguaculture). Formal ways
are discussed in this section, while information about possible informal ways was sought
out in the interviews (sections 5 and 6).
Leaving aside the pre-university educational system, which with few exceptions offers
only the more central languages, in the four main universities in Slovenia – University of
Ljubljana, University of Maribor, University of Nova Gorica and University of
Primorska – a total of 31 languages can be studied (including English, German,
4T. MIKOLIČ JUŽNIČ ET AL.

French, Italian, Spanish and Czech, which will not be considered here), albeit not all at
the same levels.
5
The University of Primorska and the University of Nova Gorica only offer (hyper)
central languages, while Maribor also offers Hungarian and Croatian, and Ljubljana
offers ten LLDs as study programmes (BA and/or MA level), which can also be taken
as elective language courses, and 15 more LLDs as 60-hour language courses available
both to students and to the general public for a tuition fee. Table 1 summarises the
information about all the formal ways of acquiring the available languages. Since we are
focusing here on literary translation, Table 1 also offers information on the availability of
specific course content related to literary translation within the study programmes.
6
It should be noted that there are several private language schools in Slovenia that offer
a number of LLD courses,
7
but since the availability, quality and duration of such courses may
vary substantially and there are no aggregated data available, they were not further analysed.
Comparing Table 1 with Figure 1, we see that all of the most translated languages can
be formally studied at university level (and all are offered as complete study programmes,
except Portuguese, which is only taught as an elective course). Yet Figure 1 also shows 5%
‘other LLDs’, which might shed some additional light on the market needs in Slovenia,
and will therefore be analysed more thoroughly below.
Table 1. Formal training in LLDs in Slovenia and availability of course content on literary translation.
University Language BA level MA level Language course Courses on literary translation
Maribor Croatian 1 1 2 courses
Hungarian 1 1 1 partial course
Ljubljana Chinese 1 1 1 1 course
Classical Greek 1 1 1 1 course
Croatian 1 1 1 2 courses
Japanese 1 1 1 1 course
Korean 1 1 1 course
Latin 1 1 1 1 course
Polish 1 1 1 1 partial course BA, 2 courses MA
Russian 1 1 1 4 courses MA
Serbian 1 1 1 2 courses
Slovak 1 1 1 1 course BA, 4 courses MA
Arabic 1 no
Bulgarian 1 no
Dutch 1 no
Hittite 1 no
Hungarian 1 no
Macedonian 1 no
Modern Greek 1 no
Norwegian 1 no
Old Church Slavonic 1 no
Persian 1 no
Portuguese 1 no
Romanian 1 no
Sanskrit 1 no
Swedish 1 no
Turkish 1 no
THE INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINER 5

4. The study
4.1. Research questions
The main aim of this paper is to investigate the overlap between the available translators
and the languages literary works are translated from, and the training opportunities in
Slovenia.
Specifically, the research questions we aim to answer are the following:
(1) Literary works in which LLDs are translated into Slovene?
(2) For which LLDs are there translators available and how do these translators
acquire their competences?
(3) What is the relationship between the number of translators and translations from
an LLD, the market specifics, and the opportunities for learning the language in
a formal setting?
Our hypothesis is that works in languages that can be studied at university level are
translated more frequently and by a larger number of translators. Such languages will also
have other forms of support available that make the job easier for the translator, for
example editors and reviewers who can understand the source language, (bilingual)
dictionaries and other reference materials, grants and other forms of funding for stays
in the source country, other speakers of both the source and target language who might
help the translators resolve ambiguous parts of the text etc. On the other hand, we
hypothesise that languages that can only be acquired informally and for which translators
have (almost) no support, will be translated much more rarely, regardless of the market
needs.
4.2. Population
Based on the mixed-methods approach, as defined by Creswell, Vicki, and Clark (2018),
different population groups were surveyed and mixed methods were used to obtain
answers to the research questions, as a single data set was not sufficient to explain the
dynamics.
The research design included three different sets of respondents: the general Slovene
translation community, the community of Slovene literary translators as represented by
DSKP, and Slovene literary editors working at Slovene publishing houses.
A broad survey of Slovene translators and interpreters was conducted to collect
a varied set of data, part of which was focused on literary translation. The translators
were contacted through the most prominent professional associations (DZTPS, DSKP,
ZKTS),
8
personal contacts, and internet platforms, including the biggest online commu-
nity of translators working in Slovenia, the group Prevajalci, na pomoč!
9
The aim was to
reach all the translators working in Slovenia.
Separately, Slovene literary translators were also contacted through the DSKP associa-
tion, which currently has around 230 members. While presently there are over 400
translators in the market translating literary works (cf. Mikolič Južnič 2018), some of
them only ever translate a single book (often a best-selling book translated from English)
and never really become part of the literary translators’ community. DSKP was chosen as
a reliable source of information on literary translators, being the only association of its
kind in Slovenia and uniting those translators who identify themselves as (primarily)
6T. MIKOLIČ JUŽNIČ ET AL.

literary translators. The questionnaire was ultimately sent to 235 translators, as some
members of DSKP are not active anymore and other literary translators are currently not
members of the association.
Along with literary translators, Slovene editors working for publishers of literary
works were also contacted. Taking into account the small size of the Slovene book market
and the relatively small number of people involved in the production of literary works, we
did not attempt to randomly contact the publishing houses in Slovenia. Instead, we opted
for an informed choice of editors who (almost) exclusively edit literary works. Based on
information gathered through the DSKP association, we contacted 26 active literary
editors.
Moreover, a selection of literary translators that work with various combinations of
LLDs was further interviewed in order to gain data on their formal education and other
training in languages and translation. As far as the subsidising of LLD translations is
concerned, most data were available in brochures and other online publications; how-
ever, we also asked individual literary translators and editors as well as representatives of
the Slovene Book Agency for additional data.
4.3. Methodology
Several methods of data collection were used. Apart from online searches for background
data on the language courses available in Slovenia at university level and the literary
translation courses summarised in section 3, questionnaires and interviews were used to
gather quantitative and qualitative data.
The questionnaires used in this paper were designed for a larger study on translation
in Slovenia; only those questions used to answer the research questions outlined above
will be presented in detail here. Three questionnaires were used: a) the questionnaire sent
to the general community of translators working in Slovenia, b) the one for the literary
translators, and c) the one for the literary editors. The relevant questions for each group
are outlined below. All questionnaires were prepared online using Google Forms
10
and
remained open for one month each in the spring of 2018.
The general questionnaire surveyed the current Slovene translation market. It con-
sisted of 35 questions divided into seven sections. For the purposes of this paper, we used
Section 1 – Demographic data, with eight questions, Section 3 – Working languages,
where we used two of the four questions, and Section 4 – Type of translation work, where
we focused on literary translation, using one of the four questions. The questions in this
questionnaire were mainly multiple choice with the option to provide additional infor-
mation, and questions which required short answers.
The other two questionnaires were used where the answers provided additional
insight into a particular research question. The questionnaire for literary translators
consisted of 5 sections and 29 questions. In this paper, we focus on questions regarding
the translators’ demographic data, their background, their working languages, their
interaction with editors, the translation process, and their cooperation with other agents
in the process. Questions varied from those requiring short answers to multiple choice
and longer answers (e.g. a paragraph or more).
Some of the questions from the questionnaire for literary editors were similar to those
sent to literary translators (demographic data, background, languages known), while
THE INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINER 7

others focused on the decision-making process of the editors regarding the choice of
literary works to be translated and the choice of the translator. As in the translators’
questionnaire, most questions required either a short or a longer written answer, while
some offered multiple choice answers.
Within the larger study, of which the results presented in this paper are a small part,
interviews were conducted with selected translators and editors to gain additional insight
into topics such as the decision-making process in situations of conflict between editors,
translators and text editors. The participants were selected among editors and translators
who were willing to devote time to the project: nine semi-structured interviews were
conducted with editors and eight with literary translators. While most of the interviews
revolved around topics loosely related to this paper, some of the answers were used to
better understand the picture offered by the questionnaires.
Two funding bodies were also included in the research, JAK and TRADUKI.
11
The
internet pages of both institutions offered a large amount of data on the works funded,
which exceeded the scope of this research. Therefore, we focused on the data for the years
2015–2019. Additionally, we conducted interviews with a representative of JAK and
a representative of TRADUKI about the selection of languages and translators for the
translation of literary books. Additional data for the same period were also extracted
from the Slovene online bibliographic system COBISS,
12
using the ‘expert search’ option
and limiting the results by source language (see section 6), target language (Slovene), type
of authorship (translator), year of publication (2015–2019) and type of publication
(book).
The selected answers to the questionnaires and relevant parts of the interviews, along
with the data gathered on the web pages of JAK and TRADUKI, were analysed and cross-
compared in order to answer the research questions outlined above. The results are
presented in the next section.
5. Results and discussion
The results are divided into subsections according to the research questions of this study
and the different data sets compared. The general questionnaire was filled out by 139
respondents, 56 of whom also translate literature; the questionnaire for literary transla-
tors by 30; and the one for literary editors by 12.
5.1. LLDs and the literary market
The first research question focuses on what LLDs are present in the literary book market
in Slovenia. In other words, we were interested in the literary works originally written in
peripheral languages that have been translated into Slovene. For the purposes of this
paper, we limited the search to the period 2015–2019 and examined three sets of data: the
source languages of the literary translations into Slovene funded by JAK, those funded by
TRADUKI, and the literary books registered in COBISS.
13
These are presented in Tables
2, 3 and 4 respectively.
Table 2 presents figures for translations from LLDs and all other source languages
funded by JAK, showing how JAK displays a strong preference (59%) for funding the
8T. MIKOLIČ JUŽNIČ ET AL.

translation of LLDs. TRADUKI (Table 3) focuses on the languages of its network, which
are all LLDs.
Based on the data in Table 4, literary works translated from LLDs amount to around
20% of all translated literary works in Slovenia. Tables 2 and 3 show that translations
Table 2. Source languages of translations funded by JAK in the period
2015–2019.
Language position Language Number
Peripheral languages (LLD) Serbian 18
Croatian 16
Macedonian 15
Polish 11
Bulgarian 8
Ukrainian 7
Russian 5
Romanian 3
Lithuanian 3
Slovak 3
Dutch 3
Arabic 3*
Indonesian 3*
Chinese 3*
Albanian 2
Latvian 2
Modern Greek 2
Turkish 2*
Catalan 2
Nepali 2
Bengali 2*
Mongolian 2*
Swedish 2
Bosnian 1
Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian
14
1
Hungarian 1
Odia 1
Tamil 1
Malay 1
Semi-peripheral languages Czech 10
Spanish 15
Italian 12
Central languages German 18
French 12
Hypercentral language English 21
* Some of the translations were indirect and used English as the vehicular language (one
respectively for Indonesian, Turkish and Bengali; all for Chinese and Mongolian; one
book in Arabic was translated using English and French translations).
Table 3. Source languages of
translations funded by
TRADUKI in the period
2015–2019.
Language Number
Serbian 7
Bosnian 4
Croatian 4
Montenegrin 1
Romanian 1
THE INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINER 9

from 29 LLDs altogether have been funded by JAK and TRADUKI. With the exception of
Malay, Mongolian, Nepali and Odia, books translated from all these languages have been
found in COBISS. Furthermore, COBISS records additional translations from LLDs not
funded by JAK or TRADUKI, which have not been analysed separately. Of the 29
languages, 23 are taught at university level (see Table 1). Among these, according to
the data from COBISS, the most translated languages by far are the South Slavic
languages Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian, taken as a group (15% in total). This may be
mostly due to the influence of a common history in the former Yugoslavia, but also to the
funding translations from these languages receive both from JAK and TRADUKI (see
Tables 2 and 3). Other well-represented languages are Dutch, Russian, Swedish,
Table 4. Source languages of translations registered in COBISS
for the period 2015–2019.
15.
Language position Language Number
Peripheral languages (LLD) Croatian 152
Dutch 123
Russian 121
Swedish 121
Norwegian 109
Polish 84
Serbian 84
Portuguese 43
Finnish 41
Hungarian 35
Catalan 32
Bosnian 31
Japanese 27
Slovak 23
Danish 22
Macedonian 18
Latin 17
Turkish 16
Lithuanian 14
Arabic 13
Classical Greek 13
Ukrainian 12
Chinese 11
Modern Greek 9
Bulgarian 7
Korean 6
Latvian 5
Romanian 5
Estonian 4
Sanskrit 4
Albanian 3
Indonesian 2
Bengali 1
Tamil 1
Malay 0
Mongolian 0
Nepali 0
Odia 0
Other 589
16
Semi-peripheral languages Czech 69
Spanish 268
Italian 378
Central languages German 505
French 673
Hypercentral language English 4118
10 T. MIKOLIČ JUŽNIČ ET AL.

Norwegian and, to a slightly lesser extent, Polish. Translations from all of these languages
except Norwegian were recurrently financed by JAK; they have literatures of high
symbolic value, and there are usually a number of available translators (see also section
5.2). Norwegian is a special case where the high number of translations is partly due to
the global popularity of a single author (Jo Nesbø), partly to the strong support of the
Norwegian agency NORLA (https://norla.no) and partly to the advocacy of individual
translators. All other languages are translated much less frequently, and some are
represented by only a handful of books in the five-year period examined.
The LLDs which cannot be formally studied in Slovenia are seldom translated. When
they are, it is due to special circumstances, according to interviews with relevant
translators and previous research (Zlatnar Moe, Žigon, and Mikolič Južnič 2019,
57–69). Albanian, for instance, is the language of an immigrant community present in
Slovenia for several decades, with a number of bilingual speakers, some of whom work as
translators; Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Ukrainian and Danish are usually learned in
informal ways (e.g. by living in the countries for various reasons) and translations are
often proposed by the translators themselves; other, more ‘exotic’ languages are often
translated using a vehicular language (mainly English), and translations are fostered by
international book prizes or personal interests.
5.2. Literary translators and LLDs
The second research question concerns the literary translators of LLDs and the ways in
which they acquire translation competence. The combined results of the two question-
naires for (literary) translators revealed that, excluding non-peripheral languages, the
respondents work with 20 LLDs (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Russian,
Dutch, Macedonian, Polish, Swedish, Slovak, Classical Greek, Latin, Turkish, Catalan,
Finnish, Estonian, Danish, Norwegian, Bulgarian and Chinese). Consequently, the
responses cover almost 70% of all the languages JAK and TRADUKI supported transla-
tions from.
The respondents’ ages range from 26 to 75. The majority of them have a university
education, with only 5% not having a BA or BSc degree or higher (the data are
summarised in Figure 2). 87.5% of the respondents indicated Slovene as their mother
tongue, 5.5% are bilingual (with Slovene as one of their two mother tongues) and 7% have
another language as mother tongue (English, Croatian, Italian, Hungarian). 23% have
one working language, 45% have two, while 32% report having more than two working
languages (usually three or four, very often related languages). Only 34% of the transla-
tors work with LLDs, and the rest mainly combine non-peripheral languages (46%) or
only work with one non-peripheral language (20%). Among those who work with LLDs,
only 7% work exclusively with LLDs. The responses in interviews suggest that it is
virtually impossible to survive only by translating LLDs; therefore, almost all translators
have at least one non-peripheral language beside one or more LLDs.
45% of the respondents had studied in a translation programme, 44% had studied
languages and literatures and 11% had come from other study programmes. It should be
noted that the Translation Department of the Faculty of Arts (University of Ljubljana)
only offers English, German, French and Italian, and that it was founded only in 1997
(https://prevajalstvo.ff.uni-lj.si/); prior to that, only English and German departments
THE INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINER 11

offered translation programmes. Presently, as shown in Table 1, not all the language
courses that can be studied at Slovene universities offer content related to literary
translation. Apart from the four languages taught at the Translation Department, none
of which is an LLD, at least some literary translation is taught in connection with the
following LLDs: Croatian, Hungarian, Chinese, Classical Greek, Japanese, Korean, Latin,
Polish, Russian, Serbian and Slovak. In fact, respondents revealed that even in the case of
languages that can be learned at university level, they have sometimes learned them in
informal ways, through stays in the countries of the languages, personal relations etc.
17
Nevertheless, the data mainly confirm our hypothesis that the languages studied at
university level overlap with the most translated languages and that there seems to be
more translators available for these languages compared to those that can only be learned
informally: the latter usually have only one or two translators.
On the other hand, since our respondents tended to have a non-peripheral language
(e.g. English) among their working languages, it is reasonable to assume that, of the
translators working with LLDs for which no literary translation courses are available, at
least some have learned the basics of literary translation in connection with their other
working language(s). Many, however, especially among those working with languages
that cannot be formally learned in Slovenia, have had no training in translation and have
had to learn the ropes along the way.
Unlike countries with non-peripheral languages, countries with peripheral languages
(and cultures) tend to offer various forms of support for the translation of their
literature. Zlatnar Moe, Žigon, and Mikolič Južnič (2019) list information on national
agencies and other supporting bodies for a variety of European LLDs, such as the
Creative Europe – Culture programme (https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-
Figure 2. Education level of translator respondents.
12 T. MIKOLIČ JUŽNIČ ET AL.

europe/node_en), the above-mentioned TRADUKI network, or national agencies such
as the Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces, the Norwegian NORLA, the Dutch
Foundation for Literature, the Hungarian Books and Translations Oce at the Petöfi
Literary Museum, and the Finnish Literary Exchange. Apart from subsidising transla-
tions from the respective languages/literatures, these agencies often promote their own
culture and literature by organising events, workshops, and trainings, as well as by
funding stays in the respective countries for translators and/or editors (Zlatnar Moe,
Žigon, and Mikolič Južnič 2019, 57–63).
5.3. Interaction between the market and translators of LLDs
Lastly, with regard to the third research question, the influence of the market on
translators (and translations) is explored in relation to the (lack of) training in transla-
tion. Several subsidising programmes and agencies (such as the ones mentioned above)
not only help pay translation fees and publish books, but also offer grants for literary
editors to stay in the countries of origin of the LLD in order to learn about the language
and culture. This is of paramount importance for two different reasons. First, editors are
usually the most relevant decision-makers when a book is to be selected for translation.
Although both the surveyed editors and literary translators report that, especially for
LLD, it is often the translators who promote the translation of a book and bring the
project to editors, the latter still make the final decision. Being able to propose translation
projects gives great liberty to the translators, but it also results in a situation where the
translator is the only agent in the translation process who can understand the original
work, with no opportunity to ask for a second opinion about difficult passages and no real
revision of the translation against the original (but only language editing of the Slovene
target text). Inexperienced, untrained (aspiring) translators can hardly take on such
demanding projects; furthermore, editors report that they resort to indirect translation
rather than deal with unqualified translators. Training in the basics of literary translation
might increase the chances of translations from LLDs being published.
Second, editors usually do not speak the LLD to be translated. The responses to our
questionnaire show that most editors speak the (hyper)central languages: 92% can read
English, 58% German, 42% French. The only two LLDs known by the editors are Russian,
mentioned by only 17% of the respondents, and Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and/or
Montenegrin, not surprisingly known by 75% of the respondents. They tend to resolve
the problem of not having access to the work in an unknown LLD by reading it in
translations into English (36%), German or Croatian (9% each), or by reading several
versions (27%).
According to our survey, when the editor choses the work to be translated, the most
relevant criteria for selection are the quality and the marketability of the work. In
practice, both factors are evaluated according to the reception of the book in foreign
markets: literary prizes, good reviews, famous authors. As far as LLDs are concerned,
even when translators propose a book for translation, hardly ever is a publication
produced unless a subsidy is obtained. Therefore, the demand for translators is closely
linked to the success of translation projects at national or international calls for funding
proposals. An additional criterion is the feasibility of the project, i.e. the availability of
a (qualified) translator. As mentioned above, direct translations are preferred over
THE INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINER 13

indirect ones, although JAK has financed indirect translation projects from ‘exotic’
languages in nine cases over the last five years (see Table 2). Based on the interviews
and personal conversations with active translators, it appears that, even when there are
translators for a particular LLD, they are often so few that it is sometimes impossible to
get a translator for a project. Sometimes translators are already busy with other transla-
tion projects (perhaps in their other working languages); sometimes translations are not
feasible because of personal disagreements with editors. The situation becomes particu-
larly difficult when there are just one or two literary translators for an LLD in the whole
country. Since unqualified, inexperienced translators are avoided, a vicious circle is
established where there is a lack of translators for LLDs in literary publishing, but it is
almost impossible for new translators to enter the market due to a lack of training
opportunities.
6. Conclusions
In this paper, we attempted to shed some light on the literary translation market in
Slovenia and on the dynamics around the translation of literary works originally written
in an LLD into Slovene, itself an LLD. We believe the findings to be relevant to other
similarly small markets, which might face some of the same challenges. We explored the
relation between the number of translators, the number of translations published, and the
availability of formal training. We showed how the publication of translations from
various LLDs is indeed highly dependent on the availability of translators, which in turn
depends on training in LLDs and literary translation. More specifically, we have con-
firmed that there seems to be a link between the availability of university courses on an
LLD and the number of translations as well as translators for that language. Languages
that can be studied at university level tend to have various forms of support available to
translators and editors, which facilitates the publication of translations.
From the perspective of literary editors, the market needs a sufficient number of highly
trained translators. Formal training in translation, and literary translation in particular, is
currently available only for a small number of LLDs. Apart from university-level training,
translators (and editors) can apply to national agencies for funding for stays in relevant
countries, but such grants are usually linked to existing translation projects. Aspiring
translators can also participate in workshops and other events to enhance their knowl-
edge about literary translation, but this is usually not enough to hone their skills to the
point where editors would feel confident about entrusting them with translation projects.
Due to the small number of interested students (and objectively low market demand),
it is not likely that many study programmes for LLDs will be created in the foreseeable
future. Other factors influencing the shape of the translation market and translator
education could be at play as well, such as the general language policy of a community
or other political factors, which should be explored in further research. Nevertheless, an
alternative to formal study programmes could be offered by the existing translation
programmes in the form of elective courses on literary translation which are partly non-
language-specific and partly rely on cooperation between literary translation teachers and
experts on specific LLDs. This would of course be possible only for the languages that are
already taught in university programmes. A future study would be needed to identify the
most urgent needs and prepare a curriculum for such courses.
14 T. MIKOLIČ JUŽNIČ ET AL.

Notes
1. On the other hand, translation from Slovene into other languages cannot be but limited: the
rather low production of original Slovene literary books compared to that of more central
languages, together with the relatively small cultural capital, in the Bourdieusian sense
(Bourdieu 1986), of the Slovene language, and its peripheral position in the world transla-
tion system (i.e. its status as an LLD), yield a small number of translations into foreign
languages per year, even fewer of which are translated into other LLDs.
2. Apart from the books subsidised by JAK, there is also additional production of translations,
mainly of so-called best sellers.
3. The data has also been retrieved from the archival material of the DSKP. The number of
members has remained more or less the same for the last decade.
4. It should be noted that there are also a small minority of DSKP members who are not active
translators.
5. Information on the study programmes offered can be found on the websites of the univer-
sities: University of Ljubljana (BA programmes: https://www.ff.uni-lj.si/en/study/undergradu
ate-programmes-first-cycle/presentation-study-programmes-first-cycle; MA programmes:
http://www.ff.uni-lj.si/studij/Magistrski_studij_2_stopnja/Predstavitveni_zborniki_brosura_
studijskih_programov_1; Language courses: http://www.ff.uni-lj.si/dejavnosti/Jezikovni_tecaji
and http://www.ff.uni-lj.si/studij/dodiplomski_studij_1_stopnja/obvestila_navodila/obves
tilo_glede_izbirnih_predmetov), University of Maribor (https://moja.um.si/bodoci-stu
dentje/Strani/Informacije.aspx), University of Nova Gorica (http://www.ung.si/sl/studij/stu
dijski-programi/), University of Primorska (https://www.upr.si/si/studij/studijski-programi/).
All web pages were accessed on 12 December 2019.
6. Naturally, the language courses do not offer such content, as they are aimed at teaching
a specific language from scratch.
7. For instance the Šoltes Institute (https://www.zavod-solt.si/jezikovni-tecaji/), in addition to
Slovene, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish, offers courses in sign language,
Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian,
Japanese, Korean, Latin, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian,
Swedish, and Turkish.
8. DZTPS – Društvo znanstvenih in tehniških prevajalcev (Association of Scientific and
Technical Translators of Slovenia), http://dztps.si/en/home (accessed 16 December 2019).
ZKTS – Združenje konferenčnih tolmačev Slovenije (Slovene Association of Conference
Interpreters), https://www.zkts.si/en/(accessed 16 December 2019).
9. Prevajalci, na pomoč! (i.e. Translators, help!, https://www.facebook.com/groups/
361852387186466) is a public Facebook group with over 8,400 members where translators
discuss a wide array of issues connected with translation, interpreting and all other related
activities.
10. Google Forms: https://www.google.com/forms/about/, accessed 12 December 2019.
11. The TRADUKI network’s internet page says: ‘TRADUKI is a European network for
literature and books, which involves Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Germany, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia,
Slovenia and Switzerland. The exchange between the participants is to be advanced through
a translation program for fiction, the humanities as well as books for children and young
people. The program gives a special focus to the translators, whose work as important
cultural mediators has given the project its name. Meetings of authors, translators, publish-
ers, librarians, critics and scientists strengthen the exchange of information and foster the
cooperation.’ (TRADUKI, accessed 19 December 2019)
12. COBISS: https://www.cobiss.si/, accessed 19 December 2019.
13. It should be noted that the COBISS system does not have a search option distinguishing
between first publications and reprints (this information can only be found by checking each
publication). Due to the rather large number of publications and limited time, the results in
Table 3 present data for both kinds of publications. Furthermore, although it happens quite
THE INTERPRETER AND TRANSLATOR TRAINER 15

rarely, publications are sometimes miscategorised due to human error; therefore, there is
a margin of error in the figures in Table 2.
14. Informal ways of learning languages are particularly relevant for neighbouring languages
and need to be taken into account in translation training, since classes are likely to have
both students with rather basic knowledge of the language and native speakers, as noted
above.
15. JAK usually categorised the languages of the southern former Yugoslav republics Croatia,
Serbia and Bosnia separately, except in one case; in the table, their categorisation has been
preserved.
16. The Malay, Mongolian, Nepali and Odia languages are included despite the lack of pub-
lications registered in COBISS because JAK financed translation projects for these languages
(but it seems they had not been completed yet by the end of 2019).
17. The number of translations from other LLDs given here is a rough estimate and the books
have not been verified manually. It has been calculated by subtracting the total number of
translations from the languages listed in Table 4 from the total of all translations registered
in the analysed period.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
The authors acknowledge financial support from the Slovenian Research Agency [research core
funding No. P6-0265 and P6-0218].
ORCID
Tamara Mikolič Južnič http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2731-8660
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