ABSTRACT
While research in translation studies has accumulated knowledge on the translation process, the dissemination of this knowledge remains inadequate. We can observe a lack of understanding of translation not only among lay people, but also among clients and those involved in translation technologies, which motivated us to further concretise the descriptions of translation processes. This chapter elaborates on the role of metalanguages in translation and in translation studies. We start by briefly summarising the contributions of translation studies to the clarification of translation processes. We then observe that the understanding of translation processes is not sufficiently shared among related actors, pointing out that concrete metalanguages provide the basis for promoting a common understanding of the processes. The definition of a metalanguage, together with the role of metalanguages in related fields, is then outlined. Last, the desiderata for metalanguages used for talking about translation processes are formulated.
