The Translator behind the Scenes

In keeping with the demands of the contemporary globalising digital era, communication is heavily supported by the Internet. Addressing an international audience and having societal goals, public institutions resort to carefully designed web pages to carry the message across frontiers, cultures, strata. Engaged in these inter- and intra-cultural communicative endeavours are translators, whose presence is not always manifest, yet whose contribution to conveying and filtering information is essential. Looking into policies of advertising translation services for the community and into textual manifestations of linguistic expertise or lack thereof, the present paper aims at conferring visibility to the translator behind the scenes and at raising awareness with regard to his/ her role in a minority language speaking society. The case study proposed is that of sample documents and pages made available on or in connection with the official site of the Romanian Police.