ABSTRACT
The way in which scholars conceptualize their object of study is inextricably linked to the methodologies adopted for its study, for example concerning what constitutes data and how data are approached. This chapter offers a brief overview of how scholarly conceptualizations of translation have changed alongside theoretical and technical developments, and how such changes are reflected in methodological developments, for example, from prescriptive to descriptive and on to explicitly political, or from textual to contextual and on to inter-semiotic. The discipline’s methodological toolkit, initially derived from literary and linguistic fields and focused on texts, soon expanded as the contextual, social, ideological and technological dimensions of texts were revealed by researchers, and as the mode and means of translation evolved with digital, economic and social developments. This chapter discusses the implications of the growth and diversification of data, its advantages and blind spots, and argues that as the data and the theory evolve, we may need to re-evaluate the meaning of research.
