Pre- and post-conlict language designations
and language policies
Re-coniguration of professional norms amongst
translators of the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian
languages
Jim Hlavac
Monash University
his paper examines the reported actions and strategies of translators working
in three closely related languages, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, which have
recently undergone re-codiication in countries that have greatly changed their
language planning and language policy regulations. he legacy of former and
unoicial designations such as ‘Serbo-Croatian’ or ‘Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian’
within the post-conlict situation is contextualised and translators’ decision-
making processes and reported strategies in relation to language form and
designation are examined. he paper seeks to demonstrate the explanatory
power of Toury’s notion of norms as a framework to account for new regularities
of practice. Texts identiied to be diferent from their nominal code, or market
requests to work from or into unoicial designations are now problematised and
re-negotiated as secondary practices or a less commonly reported behaviour. he
paper extends and applies the notion of norms to the social and occupational,
macro-pragmatic role that translators occupy.
Keywords: norms, language designations, post-conlict situations, Bosnian,
Croatian, Serbian, translator roles
1. Introduction
his paper examines pre- and post-1991 language designations and language
policies in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (hereater: SFRY) and the
successor states of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia respectively, and the
re-negotiation of professional norms amongst translators of Bosnian, Croatian
Target 27:2 (2015), 238–272. doi 10.1075/target.27.2.04hla
issn 0924–1884 / e-issn 1569–9986 © John Benjamins Publishing Company