Linguistic minorities are everywhere, and they are diverse. In this context, linguistic mediation activities – whether translation or interpreting – are key to the social inclusion of any kind of linguistic minority. In most societies autochthonous linguistic minorities coexist with foreignspeaking minorities and people with (or without) disabilities who rely linguistically or medially adapted on texts to access information. The present volume draws on this broad understanding of the concept of linguistic minorities to explore some of the newest developments in the field of translation studies and linguistics. The articles are structured around three main axes: • accessibility of content, especially audiovisual translation • intralingual translation, including initiatives regarding plain language, easy-to-read and easy language • mediation for minorities in a broader sense and language ideologies.

This volume presents current research and practices in the field of Easy Language and accessible communication. The publication of this volume was inspired by two international events, namely the International Easy Language Day Conference (IELD), and the panel The Social Role of Language: Translation into Easy and Plain Languages at the IATIS conference. By bringing together findings from different corpus-driven, cognitive and automation approaches in accessible communication research and providing insights into current projects of the emerging field of accessible health communication, the volume captures the dynamic and rapidly evolving nature of the field.

Minorities and Conflict are prevailing topics in literature and translation. This volume analyses their occurrence by focussing on the key domains: censorship/manipulation, translation flows from the linguistic periphery, and reflections on self-expression. The case studies presented discuss (re)translations of authors such as Virginia Woolf and treat a wide variety of languages, such as Flemish literature in Czech or Russian translations of Estonian prose. They also treat relevant topics such as heteroglossia, de-colonialism, and self-translation. The texts in this volume were originally presented at the conference Translating Minorities and Conflict in Literature, held in June 2021. In an increasingly interconnected and complex global landscape they advocate transparency, accountability, and the preservation of linguistic diversity.

Translations of the Bible take place in the midst of tension between politics, ideology and power. With the theological authority of the book as God’s Word, not focusing on the process of translating is stating the obvious. Inclinations, fluency and zeitgeist play as serious a role as translators’ person, faith and worldview, as do their vocabulary, poetics and linguistic capacity. History has seen countless retranslations of the Bible. What are the considerations according to which Biblical retranslations are being produced in current, 21st century, contexts? From retranslations of the Hebrew Bible to those of the Old and New Testaments, to mutual influences of Christian and Jewish translational traditions – the papers collected here all deal with the question of what is to be [re]gained with the production of a new translation where, at times, many a previous one has already existed.

In the field of Translation Studies no book-length work in English has yet been dedicated to the translation and circulation of migration literature. The authors of this volume seek to contribute to filling this gap through a detailed study of texts belonging to a variety of literary genres and engaging with the phenomenon of migration in different parts of the world. Not only will the challenges met by translators be discussed, but the different ways in which the translated texts travel from one cultural sphere to another will also be explored. The focus lies on the themes “migration and politics”, “migration and society”, as well as “the experience of migration in words, music and images”.

Volume 1: Translations of the Bible take place in the midst of tension between politics, ideology and power. With the theological authority of the book as God’s Word, not focusing on the process of translating is stating the obvious. Inclinations, fluency and zeitgeist play as serious a role as translators’ person, faith and worldview, as do their vocabulary, poetics and linguistic capacity. History has seen countless retranslations of the Bible. What are the considerations according to which Biblical retranslations are being produced in current, 21st century, contexts? From retranslations of the Hebrew Bible to those of the Old and New Testaments, to mutual influences of Christian and Jewish translational traditions – the papers collected here all deal with the question of what is to be [re]gained with the production of a new translation where, at times, many a previous one has already existed. Volume 2: Times are changing, and with them, the norms and notions of correctness. Despite a wide-spread belief that the Bible, as a “sacred original,” only allows one translation, if any, new translations are constantly produced and published for all kinds of audiences and purposes. The various paradigms marked by the theological, political, and historical correctness of the time, group, and identity and bound to certain ethics and axiomatic norms are reflected in almost every current translation project. Like its predecessor, the current volume brings together scholars working at the intersection of Translation Studies, Bible Studies, and Theology, all of which share a special point of interest concerning the status of the Scriptures as texts fundamentally based on the act of translation and its recurring character. It aims to breathe new life into Bible translation studies, unlock new perspectives and vistas of the field, and present a bigger picture of how Bible [re]translation works in society today.

Plain Language: A Psycholinguistic Approach employs principles from the field of psycholinguistics to explore factors that make a sentence or text easy or difficult to process by the cognitive mechanisms that support language processing, and describes how levels of difficulty might function within bureaucratic power structures. Drawing from experimental data on readability, the author employs a metaphor of three "ghost" readers in the mind that exist and interact with each other: the syntactic reader (the one searching for the structure), the statistical reader (the one driven by previous experiences), and finally the pragmatic reader (the one searching for meaning). The penultimate chapter concerns a novel psycholinguistic experiment showing that complexly written texts may prevent adult citizens with average literacy skills from accessing important information related to their health, work, and right to representation, thereby drawing a line between the psycholinguistics of language comprehension and the maintenance of existing power structures. Written in plain language itself, this book is designed to be easily understandable from an undergraduate level and makes for fascinating reading for all students and researchers in linguistics and psycholinguistics, as well as supplementary reading for students of sociolinguistics and related modules. Students, researchers, and interested general readers will develop an understanding that knowing how the mind reads and understands language can help stakeholders to ensure equal access to information and democratic processes.

The Routledge Handbook of Intralingual Translation provides the first comprehensive overview of intralingual translation, or the rewording or rewriting of a text. This Handbook aims to examine intralingual translation from every possible angle. The introduction gives an overview of the theoretical, political, and ideological issues involved and is followed by the first section which investigates intralingual translation from a diachronic perspective covering the modernization of classical texts. Subsequent sections consider different dialects and registers and intralingual translation from one language mode to another, explore concepts such as self-translating, transediting, and the role of copyeditors, and investigate the increasing interest in the role of intralingual translation and second language learning. Final sections examine recent developments in intralingual translation such as the subtitling of speech for the hard-of-hearing, simultaneous Easy Language interpreting, and respeaking in parliamentary debates. By providing an in-depth study on intralingual translation, the Handbook sheds light on other important areas of translation that are often bypassed, including publishing practices, authorship, and ideological constraints. Authored by a range of established and new voices in the field, this is the essential guide to intralingual translation for advanced students and researchers of translation studies.

This handbook is a comprehensive and up-to-date resource covering the booming field of Audiovisual Translation (AVT) and Media Accessibility (MA). Bringing together an international team of renowned scholars in the field of translation studies, the handbook surveys the state of the discipline, consolidates existing knowledge, explores avenues for future research and development, and also examines methodological and ethical concerns. This handbook will be a valuable resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, early-stage researchers but also experienced scholars working in translation studies, communication studies, media studies, linguistics, cultural studies and foreign language education.

This work is the first book-length treatment on translation policy. Nearly everywhere in the world, populations are multilingual and mobile; consequently, language policies developed by the authorities must include choices about the use or non-use of translation. This book recognizes that these choices (or the absence thereof) become policies of their own in terms of translation. It builds upon the work of scholars in the fields of translation studies and language planning and policy in order to develop a new theoretical perspective on translation policy. In essence, the book proposes that translation policy can be understood as the management, practice, and beliefs surrounding the use of translation. The book deals with these issues under European and international law and then explores such management, practice, and beliefs in the UK, as a case study. Ultimately, the reader can find a fuller appreciation of both the importance and complexity of translation policy.