Translation services in public institutions. The case of Galați

Abstract

The establishment and further enlargement of the EU have brought about the adoption of a common legislative frame, and have facilitated the free circulation of its citizens across the continent. Following Romania’s becoming a member state, public institutions have had to address the wider community and readjust the existing procedures in accordance with the emerging context. Although essential to the process of internationalization, translation has remained in the background, with little or no attention and credit, hence with no appropriate financing and no coherent development policy. As for interrogating the linguistic quality and cultural specificity of the translated text, it stays a distant goal outside the scholarly debate in translation studies. The paper presents a case study based on a questionnaire applied in eight public institutions from Galati, whose profiles are education, culture, health, administration, law, and law enforcement. Its goal is, on the one hand, to identify good practices and current flaws, and, on the other hand, to advance solutions for dealing with the problems encountered in social communication.