Community translation, the written language service that facilitates communication between public services and speakers of minority or marginalised languages, is still in its early stages of development. This applies to this area as a professional activity, teaching domain and research interest. In terms of research and scholarly literature, not much has been written. This volume therefore comes as an attempt to promote interest in this field of study and to draw the attention of researchers, trainers and public institutions to the significance of this communication service, the need for collaborative efforts to improve its quality, and the special practical and theoretical questions it poses. The book is a further step on a road hopefully leading to a prominent position for community translation on the agenda of translation studies scholars, public service leaders and local communities. It comes as a continuation of previous milestones such as the creation of the International Community Translation Research Group in 2013, the organisation of the International Conference on Community Translation in 2014 (University of Western Sydney) and the publication of Taibi and Ozolins' book Community Translation in 2016.

Community translators deal with a variety of text types and genres in a variety of national and local contexts. The texts to be translated are generally produced or commissioned by national, regional or local authorities, but they may also come from non-governmental organisations, ethnic groups, or other (individual or collective) social agents. Situations requiring the work of community translators are, naturally, characterised by bilingualism or multilingualism, whether this is the result of political, demographic or sociolinguistic developments deeply rooted in history, or more recent migratory population movements. What are often common denominators among different local situations are (1) a socio-economic gap between the dominant social group and minority groups needing community translations, (2) a linguistic and terminological gap between the mainstream language and minority languages and (3) a significant and challenging diversity within the target audience itself.