From the Fall of the Wall to Facebook. Translation Studies in Europe twenty years later

Abstract

The paper focuses on the present state of the art of Translation Studies in comparison with its possible future as foreseen in 1990, when the discipline had just emancipated itself from applied linguistics and comparative literature. In the 1990s, the European Union held high the principles of cultural diversity and democratic multilingualism for all member states and envisaged greater needs for translation and interpreting, but this vision has been modified by developments caused by globalization on the one hand and the breath-taking advances of information technology on the other. One has led to the dominance of (International) English as the worldwide lingua franca, the other to radical changes in the language professions and the nature of communication (e.g. via electronic media). Crucial areas for Translation Studies will probably lie in the field of intercultural communication and the need for fostering so-called ‘minority’ languages, with translators and translation scholars continuing to act as mediators.