4 - Translation and Transmission across Cultural Borders

Summary

Although French was displacing Latin as the international language of choice, print increasingly relied on the vernacular of its intended readers. This allows the translation and transnational dissemination of texts to be mapped more precisely. Printing itself helped to standardise 'national' languages, but authors and translators also learned to gauge their vocabulary and style of writing to suit a wider audience. Theories of language were combined with detailed study of core languages and dialects, leading to a greater awareness of the principles and practices of translation. Dictionaries and other language tools had first emerged in connection with Bible translation, but from the late seventeenth century more imaginative reference works and encyclopedias allowed authors to adopt more sophisticated writing techniques to evade censorship. For historians aware of these processes of international transmission, printed texts of all kinds provide a vast resource not just for content analysis, but also for conceptual history.