Who needs a theory?
Any translator who also works as an academic involved in Translation Studies research and trains students or professional translators will be acutely aware of the uneasy relationship between translation theory and practice. As Emma Wagner points out: “There can be few professions with such a yawning gap between theory and practice”. It is not uncommon for professional translators to reject wholesale the notion of any possible contribution of Translation Studies to their daily work. And yet, experience shows that they can respond very positively to training based on translation theory.
Against this background, the purpose of the presentation is to:- assess arguments formulated against translation theory;
- put forward arguments in support of translation theory focusing on the translation process, translator training and translation as a profession;
- outline the criteria which a translation theory should meet in order to satisfy the requirements of practitioners.