A discipline looking back and looking forward

Abstract

There is no doubt that self-reflection and meta-reflection are characteristic of every dynamic and developing scholarly discipline. Nevertheless, it is arguable that meta-reflection is exceptionally clearly present in Translation Studies (see Gambier: this issue). Some scholars may get the impression that the discipline, despite its perceived successful development over recent decades, is caught in a more or less permanent state of doubt and uncertainty. Or is this just a more negative perception of the very features that others consider signs of the dynamics of the discipline? After several paradigm changes and even more turns, after fights about scholarly territories and methodological renewal, after intra-and interdisciplinary discussions, after the question whether localizing knowledge embarrasses or rather complements globalizing research etc., Translation Studies continues to produce a large number of publications dealing with the struggle of defining itself and its object, with the borderlines of both the discipline and the object, with ways of interacting with related (sub)disciplines.Together with the institutionalization, the growth in knowledge and the variety of approaches and topics, the aspect of uncertainty may offer an additional explanation for the number of publications dealing not only with the history of the discipline, but also questioning its future directions. Translation Studies has often not only felt the need to look back and take stock of what had already been achieved, but also to look forward. As the topic of this special issue is exactly to question some of the unknowns of Translation Studies, this introduction analyzes the tendencies of similar 'predictive' articles of the past 10-15 years. We have used the Translation Studies Bibliography or TSB (Gambier & van Doorslaer 2011) and its extensive keyword system to track down publications looking ahead or combining the present state of the art with predictions about future developments. It is not our goal to present an exhaustive overview of those publications. In many cases, the 'state of the art' presented in the articles focused on a relatively small

Research models and methods in legal translation

“…To sum up, this special issue demonstrates that studies in legal translation require not only methodological eclectism and triangulation, but also interdisciplinarity. Similarly to other areas of Translation Studies, known also as an interdiscipline or a polidiscipline (see Bassnett, 2012;Brems Meylaerts, & van Doorslaer, 2012;Gentzler, 2003;), research into legal translation is stimulated by developments in neighbouring disciplines, in particular legal studies, comparative law, terminology and various brands of (functional) linguistics. These contacts have both opened up new research perspectives and brought into life new themes, concepts and methods.…”