Translators’ prefaces as documentary sources for translation studies

This article pleads for the idea that translators’ prefaces could be used in a more profitable manner as documentary sources for research and training in translation studies. Its purpose is twofold. First, it aims to suggest, from a functionalist perspective, a classification of functions that translators’ prefaces may fulfil in the receiving cultures. This classification works as a more systematic framework in the analysis of translators’ prefaces which is provided in the article, but it could also be used in scholars’ further investigations of translators’ prefaces and, possibly, in subsequent translation criticism. Second, the article offers concrete directions along which translators’ prefaces and scholars’ theoretical investigations could feed on each other, thus trying (once more!) to narrow the gap between theory and practice in translation. This reconsideration of the functions, value and importance of the translators’ prefaces draws on the examination of a corpus of such meta-texts which came out in Romania between 1940 and 2002. It highlights a large number of translation issues that the prefaces bring into discussion and could be further explored by scholars, trainees and translators themselves.