Achieving Consilience

Book excerpt: At Master’s level, students in Translation Studies may choose to complete their course by compiling a dissertation by commentary. Such projects involve detailed discussions of the strategies and procedures that students opt for when translating a source text of their choice (be it literary, audiovisual, or technical). However, the vast majority of these dissertations by commentary usually remain stored in university libraries. Achieving Consilience: Translation Theories and Practice brings to the fore the theoretical and practical potential of these dissertations by commentary. It demonstrates how theories in Translation Studies can be fruitfully, consciously and systematically applied during the translation practice, thus helping to transcend the received wisdom according to which theorists and practitioners share little common ground. Additionally, the contributors to this volume evince their ability to apply a research-driven approach to their analysis by comparing their work with official translations or other field-related texts. As such, this essay collection will contribute to a better understanding of the translator’s decision-making process, and will offer future students valuable guidelines regarding the procedure normally followed in completing a dissertation by commentary.