ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on conceptualisations of science as culture, drawing primarily on research from the field of science and technology studies. It highlights differences between traditional, Western positivist views of science and more culturally oriented, constructivist perspectives. The chapter focuses on how the translation of science has been approached within translation studies, ranging from textbooks guiding students in translation practice, to studies of scientific translation activities within historical and present-day contexts and analyses of translated scientific discourse. The conventional scientific epistemology that was challenged by Thomas S. Kuhn and other post-positivist thinkers included assumptions about science as singular or unitary. Constructivist and cultural perspectives on science, widely accepted in science and technology studies or sociology of science, may be less in evidence in other scientific circles. A number of historians of science and historians of scientific publishing are also developing more complex understandings of the transcultural nature of science.
