Translation and the internationalization of higher education in the anglophone West: the case of New Zealand compared to the United Kingdom

This chapter examines the role and aims of translation in education against the renewed interest in the internationalization of higher education in the anglophone West, in particular in New Zealand as compared to the United Kingdom. The chapter first argues that this renewed interest is driven mainly by globalization and the shift from liberalism to neoliberalism as the dominant economic discourse of Western nation-states. It then contends that this shift has mainly resulted in a narrow economic and instrumental view of the contemporary university, which in turn has had a detrimental effect on the traditional university culture of academic freedom and independent learning in the West, and, consequently, on the value of education in languages and translation. The chapter subsequently discusses new literacy aims for translation in the emerging global knowledge economy from the perspectives of internationalization, intercultural communication, and the economics of information, among others. It concludes that, in an age of knowledge capitalism, the role and aims of translation in education are not necessarily the same as those of education in translation, and identifies a number of intersecting literacy goals within an emerging global education sector that requires the repositioning of both language and translation learning against a paradoxical backdrop of decreasing student numbers and increased market demand for intercultural mediation services.