ABSTRACT
The term ‘linguistic approaches’ has been used to refer to (a) theoretical models that represent translation and/or interpreting as a (primarily) linguistic process and are therefore informed mainly by linguistic theory (for example, Catford 1965; Nida 1964; House 1977/1981; Hatim and Mason 1990a, 1997; Davidson 2002), and (b) a diverse range of studies that apply findings, concepts and methods from linguistics on an ad hoc basis to explain specific aspects of the phenomenon of translation and/or interpreting. The meaning of any term, however, is not only a function of what it includes but also of what it excludes, and in the past linguistic approaches have come to be perceived as distinct, in particular, from so-called ‘cultural approaches’.
