Translation policy

All aspects of organizing and carrying out translation within a broader context, be it a multilingual society, a company, or an NGO, are based on decisions that have either been made in the past, are being made in the present, or are to be made in the future. Translation policy deals with the motives, results, and impacts and consequences of these decisions. For official multilingualism, such a translation policy is of strategic importance, see my paper on Language or Cultural Boundaries? Translating for Regional and Minority Languages, but also for the use of translation technology, see the paper Towards a Digital Translation Policy. The topic of translation policy is comprehensively covered in my monograph Translation Policy for Regional or Minority Languages.

Translation technology

All of the mentioned areas are now inconceivable without the support of modern communication technology. Furthermore, the implications of increasing computing capacities, global networking, and modern software development are a significant factor in global cultural and thus linguistic changes. In relevant courses, I attempt to provide an overview of methods and applications of modern translation technology, including Large Language Models and Pretrained Transformer Models. Cooperative free software development has led to very good results in the field of translation, which is why I primarily use free software as well as open local LLMs in my courses. Our experiences with a specific Linux desktop system for translators (TuxTrans 2008-2022) and a collection of translation-specific free and open Software Apps (USBTrans) are published in the book Translation and Openness. The effects and consequences of increasing automation are referred to in the paper "'It’s the economy, stupid': discussing the translator’s business against the background of a changing techno-economic landscape".

Specialized communication

As an abstraction of the previously mentioned subject areas, specialized communication transcends both specialized language and terminology as well as translation, forming, so to speak, the overarching bracket. In its multilingual form, transcultural specialized communication is increasingly becoming a decisive factor in globalization (see "Specialized Translation", "Specialized Content on the Web", "Specialized Translation", "Multilingual Legal Communication"). In this context, the third-party funded project I led within the EU Interreg II program on "Terminology Austria-Italy in Law and Economics I" and "Terminology Austria-Italy in Law and Economics II" is also situated.

Multilingualism and legal language

My research into terminology in law (see my dissertation) has also sparked an interest in the translation of legal texts (see Legal Translation) and the corresponding framework conditions (see "Multilingual Legal Communication" and Legal Translation). Multilingual cultural contexts are particularly affected by this problem. The anthology "Übersetzen von Rechtstexten" provides an overview of the factors and problem areas to be considered. In my courses on legal translation, this knowledge is didactically prepared and applied to the language pair German and Italian.

Terminology

Terminology is an inter- and transdisciplinary field of research that, in addition to the actual general theory of terminology (following Eugen Wüster), also concerns all individual disciplines and therefore has enormous practical relevance (optimization of specialist communication, monolingual and multilingual). An investigation of the terminological problems typical for a single discipline constitutes my dissertation (Abstract in English, see full details). The proceedings I edited for the TKE '99 Congress brings together a series of contributions that reflect the state of terminology research in 1999.
Terminography is the focus of the terminological diploma theses that are created at the department for various subject areas (see supervised diploma theses). Some terminology collections have also been published in book form (e.g. the Wellness Glossary).

Globalization

Globalization in the sense of the compression of space and time and all the associated social changes inevitably generates increased contact between people, cultures and language communities. On the one hand, this can lead to homogenization, but on the other hand it also requires linguistic and cultural adaptation to local conditions. Localization describes such linguistic and cultural adaptation of products and services; translation is text-based localization. (please refer to 1, 2 und 3). I am particularly interested in the localization and thus translation of websites, which places new demands on translation.