Translator Networks of Networks in Digital Space

Translation of contemporary literature is a fertile ground for exploring the role of translators as agents of literary change in a transnational context that is rendered ever more complex by their access to computing technology and new media of communication. After a preamble on existing research in translation studies on the topic of networks and on redefining the role of translators as agents of change, this chapter examines the applicability of complex networks, specifically networks of networks and their non-trivial topological features, their behavior at percolation, and their connectivity and expansion, in studying multilingual literary translator networks in digital space. While analyzing the case in point, Asymptote Journal, the authors critically and comparatively consider several possible mathematical models for describing such a system and settle on multiplex networks. In examining the relevant issues of connectivity and expansion for such networks, a potentially seminal conclusion arises for the fields of translation studies and digital humanities: Networks of translators in digital space are the more successful the more multilingual and transnational is their mode of collaboration and aggregation.