He is fascinated by the various ways in which the translation of language and culture can affect society. He has published research using experiences of translation as a lens to understand various aspects of the social world: how people communicate and act in times of crisis, how they try to reduce the risk of disaster, how they come to trust or distrust each other, how they cope with new technologies, or how they work and learn together. In an increasingly globalised and technologised world, he sees the study of translation as a powerful generator of new ideas and understandings about our social lives.

He has supervised/supervises PhD projects about the translation work of local government employees in Japan, development workers in Vietnam, queer subtitling communities in China, Arabic-speaking migrants in Ireland, and translators and terminologists in Malaysia. These PhD projects were all set out within a sociological framework and combine various digital and in-depth qualitative approaches.