ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses social context, ideology and translation, particularly how the first two terms have been and can be used in translation scholarship across a range of disciplines. It argues that best practices for the study of social context, ideology and translation are attentive to the disciplinary tradition in which they were developed, and that all benefit from dialogue across fields and even disciplines. Translation is a social act. Neither translators nor their translations exist outside social context. One critical issue that runs through a range of topics related to social context, ideology and translation is whether these terms encode neutral heuristics or political concepts. Another critical issue and topic concerning the ideological and social positions of translator or translation scholar is how these affect methodology. Translation researchers must first decide if they are studying the ideology of translation, or the translation of an ideology.
