Translation and redevelopment in post-communist Europe

Abstract

The article describes the nature and scope of the means deployed around translation as a phenomenon that underpinned the development of Eastern Europe once it had been liberated from Soviet control. The concept of redevelopment is introduced as best describing what followed in most of the countries of the ‘socialist camp’, given their state of development before World War II. First, the situation in the market of translation and interpreting services, in the translator training as well as in the trainer training in the Central European countries with the focus on the Višegrad countries (V4) is considered. Second, the situation in the former Soviet republics, now independent states, is discussed with the focus on the Turkic-speaking states and especially Azerbaijan. Although the main issues arising in the former Turkic-speaking republics of the Soviet Union were comparable to those in Central Europe, the linguistic context and the end of the Soviet regime gave these problems a particular dimension and intensity. By way of conclusion, two theoretical points are discussed: the interaction between social systems and the definition of translation.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2013, 31(4): 415–433