ABSTRACT
This chapter sets the scene for the volume’s exploration of a practice-theoretical approach to translation. It first traces the broad lines of product-oriented and process-oriented translation research, as paradigms that dominate translation studies. It then considers how translation studies has increasingly sought to centre the translator in sociological studies, a conceptual and methodological move that is also associated with the emergence of a small but growing body of empirical research focusing on translators as they work. I argue that this gradual move towards a practice-oriented perspective on translation can be further strengthened by drawing on the conceptual foundations of practice theory, to explore more fully the implications of conceptualizing and researching translation as an embodied and materially mediated social practice.
