ABSTRACT
On the question of what kind of contrastive studies we need as a basis for the training of translators, I say: no linguistic contrastive system so far proposed will do. We need to get away from the linguistic organization and look at reality, precisely because that reality is encoded in situations and texts for the translator and not in languages. He is not concerned with what the language encoding is or ought not to be. The fact that he thinks he is and makes mistakes thereby is another matter. (Denison; twelfth and concluding discussion in Grähs et al., 1978: 348)
the text cannot be considered as a static specimen of language (an idea still dominant in practical translation classes), but essentially as the verbalized expression of an author’s intention as understood by the translator as reader, who then recreates this whole for another readership in another culture.
