Translation Rights – Historical database on the translation market for German-language literature and literature in German

• Applicants: Christian Hauschke; Professor Dr. Alexander Nebrig
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; Data Management, Data-Intensive Systems, Computer Science Methods in Business Informatics
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 550260291

The bridging project "Translation Rights" combines literary-historical and statistical research on the modern translation market on a copyright basis (since 1886) with the necessary development of a reusable database. Drawing primarily on the GND data of the German National Library, this database makes metadata on translations from and into German available on a long-term basis and distinguishes between translations of works in the public domain and translations of works protected by copyright in order to map the international translation market. In a dissertation project, the international trade network of Suhrkamp Verlag since 1950 is examined as an example. The qualitative analysis of the Suhrkamp subset serves to develop questions for statistical research on a large data basis. The subset also provides the variables for the knowledge graph. An essential research task, on which the knowledge graph is based, is to define rules for a license algorithm. This allows automated differentiation between translations of protected and public domain works. In the spirit of the bridge project, "Translation Rights" combines a research question with an infrastructure measure that are mutually related. The assessment of findings on the translation market is only possible if the extent and network relationships are quantified. Conversely, the development of the research database, which for the first time distinguishes between works in the public domain and protected works, would remain deductive without parallel research into the history of translation and would not take into account the necessary connections at a categorical level. The sustainable use of "Translation Rights" is one of the main objectives. As a project that is intended to support international research into the history of books, translation and literature with bibliographical metadata in the longer term beyond the planned funding period, the bridge project with the Suhrkamp subset also creates a model subset for the future development of further subsets and thus for the combination of qualitative and quantitative book, literary and translation studies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants