Workshop Language Contact through Translation in the History of Romance and Germanic Languages (Germersheim, 17-18 October 2024)

Sarah Del Grosso (Germersheim), Franz Meier (Augsburg) and Michael Schreiber (Germersheim) organise a workshop on "Language Contact through Translation in the History of Romance and Germanic Languages". The workshop will take place on 17 and 18 October 2024 at the University of Mainz in Germersheim and is part of the activities of the Interdisciplinary Research Network in Translation Studies and Linguistics (InTraLing). The workshop will be streamed and online participation is possible (Further information will follow).

In language history, translation has played an important role in the development and culture of literary or standard languages. This applies in varying degrees to the many forms of written communication in Romance and Germanic languages, and concerns both the emergence and expansion of these languages. A fundamental aspect for the innovative potential of translations is their definition as a contact-induced variety of the target language which differs from the current usage of the target language due to the occurrence of interferences or replications, amongst others. Translations constitute a form of written language contact which is inextricably linked to the translator and his/her competence in several languages. Unlike other forms of language contact, translation involves reflecting on and comparing languages in the translator’s multilingual mind and demands a constant conscious shift between languages. From this perspective, multilingualism is to be understood as a source of linguistic creativity which enables translators to deviate from established target language norms without hindering communication, but rather to pursue communicative goals even more effectively. On the diachronic level, translation contact phenomena which do not remain as a single individual usage but spread throughout the target language community and become a means of expression which is potentially available to all speakers bear particular relevance. Nonetheless, the analysis of translation induced language change is always subject to considerations of plausibility, since it is hardly ever possible to causally attribute particular innovations to specific translators.

Even though the impact of translation on the development of the target language has been repeatedly identified as a relevant object of research, translation as a possible trigger of language change has so far received little attention in language and translation historiography. As far as Romance languages are concerned, language change through translation has mainly been discussed with regard to the relatinisation of the respective target languages in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Apart from individual case studies, there has been little interest in the study of language contact through translation by means of comprehensive, empirically based studies. This also applies to the systematic and theoretical interpretation of the different features of this type of language contact, although there has been recently an increasing quest for a stronger contact linguistic foundation of translation studies.

In our workshop, we examine different translational language contact scenarios and their possible contribution to the emergence and dissemination of linguistic innovations in the history of Romance and Germanic languages.