Translation Today: A Global View

Arne Zettersten, to whom this publication is devoted, has been one of the pioneers in the study of varieties of English in the world thus adding a global dimension to English Studies. Today's global view of English cannot avoid to take into account the central role of English in translation work and, at the same time, to note that the shift in focus from the Western world to the global stage also changes the emphasis in Translation Studies. Translation has always been international, but this article will address mostly the remarkable changes that have occurred in the fields of practical translation, theoretical Translation Studies, and the interplay between theory and practice with special emphasis on the seachanges since 1990. The first major changes in the field are traced back to the beginning of the 20 t h century, and the article describes the new modes of transfer, their specific constraints and geographical placements. The article then turns towards developments that have become particularly visible or even only introduced within the last decade, such as large-scale useful translation memories, Internet translation, and the introduction of computers at all levels of language work at the European Union institutions. These factors call for new models for the description of translation and the acceptance that target-language texts are not always subordinate to the sourcelanguage texts, the 'originals'.