This volume, An Encyclopedia of Practical Translation and Interpreting, is a sequel to An Encyclopedia of Translation: Chinese-English．English-Chinese that came out in 1995, after a lapse of twenty-three years. Twenty-three years ago, Profes sor David Pollard, then Professor of Translation and Chair man of the Department of Translation, and I worked together to produce the first encyclopedia in the field that has general entries on the history, theory, and practice of translation in a global context, as well as specific entries on issues relating to translation between Chinese and English. Ninety-nine schol ars and specialists from all over the world were invited to contribute chapters of their specialized areas. Twenty-three years later, a revised or updated edition of the encyclopedia is desirable but not possible. Some contributors are no longer with us; others have shifted their domains of research or become inactive in research due to retirement; still others are no longer in touch with us. All these mean that it is academi cally more rewarding and practically more manageable to create a new volume to supplement An Encyclopedia of Trans lation, hence the production of this reference work, entitled An Encyclopedia of Practical Translation and Interpreting. Practical Translation The first part of this volume is on practical translation. Included in this part is a chapter on the translation of practical writings from English into Chinese by Li Kexing, previously of the Department of Chinese and Bi lingual Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, who has many years of doing and teaching practical translation. In Chapter 3, he begins with a discussion of the different definitions of practical translation and theories which are relevant to the translation of practical translation, including communicative translation, skopos theory and functionalism, interpreta tive theory of translation, and cultural translation. He then illustrates with the use of theories in the translation of practical writings, such as cuisines, signs, news reports, tourist texts, and advertisements. This chap ter goes on with a discussion on the curriculum design and the teaching of the translation of practical writings, how practical translation has been taught at tertiary institutions in Hong Kong, and the level of research on the translation of practical writings. It goes without saying that the use of translation technology is not limited to the translation of practical writings, technology is essential in audiovisual translation. Rocío Baños of University College London in the United Kingdom illustrates with ample examples how audiovisual translation (AVT) is often associated with technology and technological developments due to the complexity and nature of audiovisual texts. This chapter explores the close interrelation between AVT and technological innovations and introduces the software which are used in the market to translate audiovisual content. Specific AVT software, well-established computer-aided translation (CAT) tools, such as translation memory or terminology management tools, as well as other language technologies, such as speech recognition or machine translation, are examined. In ad dition, interesting new developments in this field, often in the form of collaborative research projects between the industry and academia, are also discussed. The main aim of this chapter is therefore to reflect on the profound impact globalization and technological innovations have had on AVT as a practice and as a discipline, and to identify areas which require attention, considering the needs of companies, translators and audiences. As we all know, one of the important areas in practical translation is legal translation. This volume has two chapters on legal translation. The first is by Sin King-kui of the School of Translation, Hang Seng Manage ment College, Hong Kong. According to Sin, legal translation is an um brella term covering a motley of activities, ranging from the translation of legal terminology to the translation of a whole body of statutes, from the translation of the will of a single individual which has no significance beyond the lives of a few people, to the translation of an international treaty which has impacts on the lives of millions of people, from the translation of a slang expression which triggers a libel case to the transla tion of what is generally recognized as a legal document proper (e.g. a contract). Each of such activities is confronted with a distinctive cluster of problems arising not only from the form and content of what is to be translated but also from the particular setting for which the translation is required and in which the translation is carried out. What characterizes all such activities as legal translation is that the translation is performed in settings variously related to the legal process in which the use of lan guage is underpinned by a great variety of socio-cultural factors. As the study of language use in socio-cultural contexts, sociolinguistics provides us with insights into the shaping forces and social significance of transla tion in legal settings. This chapter highlights some of the important soci olinguistic issues relating to the Bilingual Laws Project of Hong Kong. It gives a reflective account of how a seemingly innocent issue of word choice can provoke political critique, how the Chinese language is handi capped by its syntactic structure in formulating polite language for the disabled community, how reason yields to the play of power in deciding appropriate translation of professional titles, and how the need for a new legal language to assimilate the common law is met with strong social re sistance. The primary aim of the discussion is to sensitize readers to the complex interplay of social forces exerted by all stakeholders affected by the translation of the law.
