Leipzig School (translation)

The Leipzig School of Translation Studies (Leipziger Übersetzungswissenschaftliche Schule), or simply Leipzig School, is the denomination of a group of translation and interpreting scholars centered in the Leipzig University.

Notable during the years of the Cold War, it had a close relationship with the Moscow School (Barkhudarov, Komissarov, Shveitser, Kolshanskiy, etc.). It influenced the international debate on translation studies; one of its main developments was communicative equivalence, based on linguistics, semiotics and communication theory.

Among its most prominent members are Otto Kade, Gert Jäger and Albrecht Neubert. In 1965, with his doctoral dissertation Subjektive und objektive Faktoren im Übersetzungsprozeß (Subjective and objective factors in the translation process) Kade sought to go beyond the limits of a purely linguistic approach to interpretation and translation; his dissertation is considered one of the most significant achievements of translation theory in Germany, and also the first milestone of the Leipzig School.