Institut for Kommunikation og Kultur

Translation, interpreting and lexicography represent three separate areas of human activity, each of them with its own theories, models and methods and, hence, with its own disciplinary underpinnings. At the same time, all three disciplines are characterized by a marked interdisciplinary dimension in the sense that their practice fields are typically ‘about something else’. Translators may, for example, be called upon to translate medical texts, and interpreters may be assigned to work on medical speeches. Similarly, practical lexicography may produce medical dictionaries. In this perspective, the three disciplines frequently come into touch with each other. This chapter discusses and explores some of the basic aspects of this interrelationship, focusing on the (potential) contribution of lexicography to translation and interpreting and on explaining the basic concepts and methods of the former discipline to the translation and interpreting readership of the present volume.