A few words about the Canadian “translation industry”

Abstract

Canada is one of the few countries in the world, whose constitution includes a provision relating to two official languages. This results in the fact that – since the Official Languages Act (Le loi sur les langues officielles) came into force in 1969 – simultaneous interpretation for both languages must be provided during all the debates in the federal parliament. The same applies to the translation of all official federal documents. It is worth recalling that translators as professionals were first mentioned in Canada only in 1867, while the organised activities of professional translators began in 1934 with the creation of the Translation Bureau (Bureau de la traduction). As a bilingual country Canada can be proud of a well-thought-over and consistent model of translators’ formation which has been used for many years. In the Canadian context, the role of translators on the market is worth mentioning: they are associated in professional organisations, their activities are widely appreciated and clearly visible, which is reflected in the name of „the translation industry”, used in relation to translation activities in this country. The aim of the present study is to outline the Canadian model of translation and to consider how the Canadian achievements, especially in the field of teaching translation, could be used in Poland.