ABSTRACT
The translator is first and foremost a mediator between two parties for whom mutual communication might otherwise be problematic and this is true of the translator of patents, contracts, verse or fiction just as much as it is of the simultaneous interpreter, who can be seen to be mediating in a very direct way. Top-down analysis informs, and is constantly being informed by, the bottom-up analysis. But whereas the activity of translation criticism has more often than not adopted a uniquely 'bottom-up' approach. Intersexuality, or the way texts rely on each other, is a semiotic dimension which is powerful in reinforcing social attitudes. Thematic progression is to be altered in translation; it should not compromise in any way the rhetorical purpose of the SL text. Pragmatic aspects of discourse are important in all fields of translating but they are especially apparent in such activities as liaison interpreting.
