Translation and the Law

This project takes an innovative, interdisciplinary approach that attempts to link the two fields of law and translation. Two main lines of investigation are involved: First, the right to translation will be examined, in order to develop a theoretical figure for the right to interpretation and translation and their conditions that until now has not been much examined in either scholarly work on translation studies or in the legal field. There will be an empirical section on specialist interpretation in the medical, legal, and social sectors of immigrant societies as well as on the form of translation in crisis and conflict regions. Second, the subject of law in translation shall be examined via the study of the application and functionality of translated legal texts. Particular attention will be paid to the legal specifications of translation practices and the possibility of translation in the “strict sense” (translation proper). The relevance of the right to translation as a research topic is evident above all in the context of immigrant integration, as well as in refugee law, in emigration and/or immigration law, and in the area of criminal and civil law. The question of whether, when, and how translation/interpretation takes place and how processes of translation have an affect, via the agent, beyond the immediate act of translation link the double focus of this research project and suggest the significance of observing broader contexts in studies of translation.

Project Term: April 2010-Ongoing
Funding: Förderlinie 1, JGU Mainz (2010)

Project Directors:
Prof. Dilek Dizdar, Intercultural German Studies, Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies (FTSK), Germersheim/JGU Mainz
Dr. Sebnem Bahadir, Intercultural German Studies, Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies (FTSK), Germersheim/JGU Mainz

Faculty Staff:
Dirk Hommrich, M.A. ,Intercultural German Studies, Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies (FTSK), Germersheim/JGU Mainz