Economics of literary translation: A simple theory and evidence

Victor Ginsburgh, Shlomo Weber and Sheila Weyers
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Sheila Weyers: Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

No 2007062, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: Books are an important factor of cultural transmission, but need, in most cases, to be translated. According to some authors, this may lead to a form of cultural domination, in particular of English, on other languages. All these papers ignore that thepopulation speaking English as a first language is, with the exception of Mandarin, the largest in the world. It is therefore not surprising that English produces more fiction (and much more scientific literature, as scientists from all countries write more and more in English) than any other language. We develop a theoretical model of translation, which is estimated on the basis of UNESCO translation data. We show that translations from English are dominated by translations from other languages,including Scandinavian ones and French.

Keywords: languages; translations; cultural and linguistic distances (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L82 Z11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-08-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Economics of Literary Translation. A Simple Theory and Evidence (2008)
Working Paper: Economics of Literary Translation. A Simple Theory and Evidence (2008)
Working Paper: Economics of Literary Translation: A Simple Theory and Evidence (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2007062

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