The European Union’s translation policies, practices and ideologies: time for a translation turn

Abstract

ABSTRACT Translation pays a pivotal role in the workings of the European Union, the most multilingual body of institutions in the world – with 24 official and working languages. This paper offers an exclusive and transdisciplinary look into the EU’s translation policies, practices and ideologies, drawing together theoretical and epistemological threads from applied and sociolinguistics, translation studies, philosophy of language, political theory and language policy research to analyse both the EU’s acquis communautaire and interviews recently conducted by the author with EU translators and decision-makers. Its chief argument is that translation remains trapped within a mechanistic, utilitarian framework increasingly predicated on English as a lingua franca of sorts, heightening the EU’s de facto (English-speaking) monolingualism and flying in the face of its de jure multilingualism policy. The paper also stresses the detrimental effect that the effacement of translations – currently in practice through the authentication of language versions – has on the status of translation and translators, as well as on language hierarchy. Drawing insight from Jacques Derrida’s and Paul Ricoeur’s visions for Europe, the paper ends with a call for a translation turn in the EU, encompassing a renewed role for language and translation in its bodies, agencies and institutions.