María Ferrer, University Jaume I
Within a professional context, when the idiosyncrasy of the source culture produces best sellers which could be discriminatory and misogynous in the target culture, both translators and editors need to reconsider their roles. The editor, who is a vehicle of knowledge and culture, wants to sell the book. However, the message may be controversial in its original form. Therefore, the translation approach will be key. “Being Hungry Makes You Healthy” (Yoshinori Nagumo, 2012) is a diet that claims that starving oneself makes you beautiful. Thus, despite being socially unacceptable due to its being an apology of anorexia, the commercial approach takes precedent over the intellectual and mediation approaches (the latter being understanding how the Japanese society and the author think). The translator, by following the editor, uses editing in order to make conflicting parts go unnoticed and to dilute the presence of those ideologies which are too different from what our culture accepts. This process ends with the elimination of specific passages, hiding those aspects that may be offensive for the occidental culture. On the one hand, this shows how the editor does not privilege communicating the message as a goal but enhancing the commercial potential of his own brand and the product. On the other hand, it also shows how the social efforts to fight against the discrimination against the most vulnerable groups leads to the rejection of certain ideological components, which disappear through translation. In this process, the translator, who is an expert in the source culture, works as a cultural and ideological mediator.