ABSTRACT
Translators are theorizing all the time. Once they have identified a translation problem, they usually have to decide between several possible solutions. Let us say you have to translate the English term “Tory,” employed to designate the Conservative Party in Britain. According to the situation, you might consider things like using the English term and inserting information to explain it, or adding a footnote, or just giving a word-for-word equivalent of “Conservative Party,” or naming the corresponding part of the political spectrum in the target culture, or just leaving out the problematic name altogether. All those options could be legitimate, given the appropriate text, purpose, and client. Formulating them ( generating possible translations) and then choosing between them (selecting a definitive translation) can be a difficult and complex operation, yet translators are doing precisely that all the time, in split seconds. Whenever they do it, whenever they decide to opt for one rendition and not others, they bring into play a series of ideas about what translation is and how it should be carried out. They are theorizing.
