Guest editors:
Gianluca Pontrandolfo (University of Trieste)
Carla Quinci (University of Padua)
Legal Translation and Automation
Many myths and deep concerns surround neural machine translation (NMT) and the role specialised translators play in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). The scary idea of ‘human parity’, i.e. the belief that NMT can achieve human quality, sparks off heated debates about the implications of the recent outstanding technological advancement for the translation profession. The alleged threats posed by the results achieved by AI in combination with the gaps in the academic literature about the functioning of (N)MT and its influence on the translation process and product have caused widespread scepticism and mistrust, when not an a priori rejection of NMT. Scholars worldwide have attempted to debunk these myths by studying the actual advantages and disadvantages of using automation. For instance, do Carmo (2023) recently proposed the term “artificial translation” – rather than “machine translation” – to stress that MT does not perform a complete translation process, which would take into account not just the meaning of the source and the target sentences but also extratextual elements e.g. the voice of the author, the intended readers, the purpose of the target texts, which are crucial in any (legal) translation brief (Scott 2019: 81-102).
These concerns are particularly serious in the legal field, where the legal and ethical risks (Canfora & Ottmann 2020, Kenny, Moorkens & do Carmo 2020, Moorkens 2022) related to privacy and confidentiality, together with low risk tolerance and liability, contribute to that feeling of scepticism and mistrust. Thus, legal translation has generally been considered unsuitable for automation (Sánchez-Gijón & Kenny 2022, 85-86), especially due to its inherent challenges. While other specialised fields tend towards conceptual universality and univocity, legal notions and procedures are largely system-bound and historically rooted, which naturally reflects on individual legal languages and culture-bound legal references (cf. Prieto Ramos 2022). This results in incongruities and asymmetries, which represent the typical challenges faced by legal translators (see Biel 2014, 2022, Pontrandolfo 2019, Prieto Ramos 2022). Another “distinctive feature of this specialisation is the high variability of the texts and legal conditions that determine the role of translation itself in each communicative situation, i.e. its communicative priorities between or within legal systems, according to the conventions of specific branches of law and legal genres at the national and international levels” (Prieto Ramos 2022; see also Cao 2007, Biel 2014, Biel et al. 2019). Legal translation involves negotiating not only between legal languages/discourses but also – and most importantly – between legal systems and legal genres (see Scott 2019: 31-55).
However, the evolution of AI and MT is changing the legal professional landscape, where the ‘triangle of MT’ (quality, price and speed) still plays a pivotal role. Legal translation service providers as well as law firms are increasingly betting on AI and NMT worldwide. Thanks to the growing quality of MT outputs and the development of custom engines (Martínez Domínguez et al. 2020), NMT and machine translation post-editing (MTPE) are now also used in the legal sector. The most recent version of the EMT Competence Framework “acknowledges that [it] represents a growing part of translation workflows, and that MT literacy and awareness of the possibilities and limitations of MT is an integral part of professional translation competence” (EMT Expert Group 2022, 7). Then, the question is not so much if machine translation and post-editing (PE) should be implemented in legal translator training but when, and how they are and will be used by professional translators (Quinci, forthcoming; Quinci & Pontrandolfo 2023).
Against this background, this Special Issue aims at mapping the new opportunities and risks related to fast technological advancement and the rapidly changing landscape of legal translation in training and professional settings by exploring a wide array of issues including, but not limited to, the following:
• Implications of translation modality (human translation, post-editing, etc.) on the translation process
• Quality evaluation of AI/MT/MTPE outputs in the legal field
• Effects of MT, MTPE and/or AI on the translation product from end-users’ perspective
• MT/AI performance across legal genres and languages
• Implementation and implications of AI and MT in legal translator training and/or the professional practice
• Impact of AI/MT/MTPE on legal translators’ creativity
• Training of MT engines for legal translation purposes
• Legal Machine Translationese and Post-editese
• Ethics & legal MT/AI
Deadline for abstracts: 31 May 2024
For more information, click here.
Call for papers:Event: Who Appears After Translation? Authors, Artists, and Transcultural Personas — ACLA 2027American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting 2027University of Houston, May 20–23, 2027Organizers: Maya Boutaghou and Song Huang, University of VirginiaPossible topics include, but are not limited to:literary translationself-translationmultilingual writingtranslated authors and authorial personastranslators as mediators of cultural identityperformance circulationadaptationvisual translationartistic and celebrity personasdigital mediadiasporic and postcolonial translationmultilingual subjectivityuntranslatabilitytranscultural mediationtranslation and cultural memorytranslation across literary, visual, and embodied mediaSubmissionPaper proposals must be submitted through the ACLA 2027 online portal.Deadline: September 22, 2026More info: https://www.acla.org/seminar/7a421fda-c5ce-4e42-b382-0d05b579746b
Call for Papers:Event: History and Translation Network Conference 2027 Time : September 20-23, 2027Place: Ghent University, BelgiumPossible topics include:translator branding and authorial visibilitygendered and postcolonial invisibilityarchival recovery of neglected translators and mediatorstranslation and mechanisms of canonisationthe historical circulation of texts in manuscript, print, and digital culturesthe materiality of texts, media ecosystems, and publishing networkscensorship, patronage, cultural diplomacy, and cultural policytranslation as labour, profession, and economic practicereaders, reception, and communities of interpretationtranslation and media(tion)the shifting boundaries between human and non-human mediationsocial, intellectual, institutional, and communication networksdigital humanities approaches, network analysis, corpus studies, and archival methodologiesPaper submission deadline: 1 February 2027More info: https://htn2027.ugent.be/en
Call for Papers:International Conference: Translating Sacred Texts: Dimensions, Challenges, and Contemporary Perspectives Date: December 03, 2026Format: In-PersonVenue: Faculty of Arabic Language, Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakech, MoroccoSubmission Guidelines• Abstract: 250–300 words, accompanied by a short biographical note. • Keywords: 4–6 keywords. • Conference Language: English. • Submission Email: sacredtexttranslation@gmail.com• Submission Deadline: September 1, 2026. Read more: https://sites.google.com/uca.ac.ma/sacredtextconference/accueil
Call for Papers Journal: Translation Spaces 18 (1) 2029Theme: Translating the city, curating the museum: city museums as translation zonesGuest editors: Anneleen Spiessens (Ghent University) and Luc van Doorslaer (University of Tartu/KU Leuven)Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:· conceptual convergences between city translation and museum translation· methodological approaches for studying translation in urban or museum contexts· the position of city museums within the broader translational framework of multilayered urban memoryscapes· the role of translation in unlocking multilingual collections· the symbolic and political dimension of language policies in city museums· the role of translation in diversifying museum audiences and fostering sustainable communities· the interplay of interlingual, intralingual, intersemiotic and intrasemiotic translation in exhibition contextsSubmissionAbstracts of up to 300 words should be submitted by 15 September to the guest editors by email (anneleen.spiessens@ugent.be and luc.vandoorslaer@ut.ee).Key dates:15 September 2026: abstract (300 words) and bionote (100 words) submissionIn the course of 2028: online first publication of individual articlesSpring 2029: print publicationMore information: https://benjamins.com/series/ts/call-for-papers-ts.2029.pdf
Call for AbstractConference: the 19th International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting (IPCITI)Venue: Dublin City UniversityDate: 3-4 December 2026Theme: Across Academia and Industry: (In)Visibility and Interdisciplinarity in Translation and InterpretingTopics include:Interdisciplinary engagement with translation and interpreting studies (e.g. Comparative Literature, Linguistics, Cultural Studies, Sociology and Anthropology)Interdisciplinarity and knowledge exchange in translation and interpreting studies (e.g. Communication Studies, Information Science, Higher Education Studies)Visibility and invisibility of translation and interpreting research (e.g. Sociology of Knowledge, Media Studies)Translation and interpreting across academia, institutions and industry (e.g. International Relations, Public Policy)Translation and interpreting technologies and digital practices (Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Natural Language Processing (NLP))Translator and interpreter training and pedagogy (e.g. Curriculum Design, Cognitive Psychology, Applied Linguistics)Community and public service interpreting (e.g. Medical Humanities, Social Work)Specialised translation (e.g. terminology, literary translation, audiovisual translation, localisation)Professional identities, ethics, and labour conditions (e.g. Professional Ethics, Labour Economics, Human Resource Management)Translation, migration, multilingualism, human rights, and social justice (e.g. Human Rights Law, Migration Studies, Political Philosophy)Critical approaches to translation studies (e.g. Decolonisation of Translation and Interpreting Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Gender Studies, Critical Discourse Analysis, Deconstruction)Innovative, creative and interdisciplinary research methodologies in translation and interpreting studies (e.g. Digital Humanities, Corpus Linguistics, Ethnography, Mixed Methods Research)Translation and interpreting in crisis and conflict settings (e.g. Peace and Conflict Studies, Disaster Management, Risk and Crisis Communication)Deadline for abstract submission: 31 August 2026More details: https://www.dcu.ie/ctts/ipciti-2026
