Translation policies in Belgium during the French period (1792-1814). Legal and administrative texts

Caroline Ingelbeen & Michael Schreiber

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Titre

Translation policies in Belgium during the French period (1792-1814). Legal and administrative texts

Résumé

In our paper we will present the outlines of a research project on the translation policy in Belgium during the so called French period, from 1792, when the Southern Netherlands were occupied for the first time, via 1795, when the territory was annexed by France, to 1814, the end of the French period in Belgium. The project, which is financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and organized in cooperation with Lieven D’hulst (KU Leuven), focusses on the translation of administrative, legal and political texts from French into Flemish. According to the opinio communis, the period under consideration, especially from 1795 on, was strictly monolingual with French as the only language of administration and justice. We will argue that there was a ‘covert multilingualism’ that today is often ignored. There was a huge amount of official or semi-official bilingual texts. The translation was organized partly on the national level (in Paris, the Bulletin des lois was translated), partly on the regional or local levels (this is valid for shorter texts published by different authorities). We will present a part of these bilingual documents, focusing on legal and administrative texts. Some of the typical features of the translations will be illustrated in our paper.

Mots-clés

Translation policy, Belgium (French period), legal texts, administrative texts

DOI 10.17462/para.2017.01.04