Translation and Text Transfer

Book excerpt: Translation obviously works on texts that move from one culture to another. But how should translation studies incorporate this basic principle of transfer? Refusing simple answers, this book sees the relation between translation and transfer as a complex phenomenon that must be described on both the semiotic and material levels. Various connected approaches then conceptualise this relationship as being causal, economic, discursive, quantitative, political, historical, ethical and epistemological... and indeed translational. Individual chapters address each of these aspects. The result is a highly suggestive and stimulating vision of translation studies.