Theories of Translation

Abstract

Chapter 1 discusses the nature of theory, how theory can be applied, and the interaction among theories. The last issue is especially important for a discipline like translation studies, which interacts in a variety of ways with other disciplines, as Part III highlights. The chapter takes us from St Jerome in his study at the end of the fourth decade of the Christian Era, when he was commissioned by Pope Damasus to revise the existing Latin translation of the Old Testament, through early and towards contemporary theories of the translation endeavour, and towards the terminology that has been developed along the way, to pinpoint the discipline’s important concepts, considerations and approaches.