ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a more restricted sense of politics, which has until now received too little attention in Translation Studies. Politics will refer to ‘the art or science of government’. The term translation will be used in a general sense, to cover the provision of both translation and interpretation services, in all possible forms. Studying the politics of translation in multilingual states would consequently cover the total complex of literary, religious, economic, political, social, and other translations and translation strategies in a society: their goals and effects, their impact on the relations between the people living in that society. In addition, officially multilingual states may have large proportions of monolingual populations and, vice versa, in an officially monolingual state many inhabitants may be multilingual. In order to enhance insight into the politics of translation in multilingual states, it is important to complement a top-down, theoretical approach with a bottom-up, practical perspective.
