ABSTRACT
Further reading Blaasch et al. 1 99 1 ; Cook 1 99 1 ; Duff 1 989; Howatt 1984; Kelly 1 969; Phillipson 1 992; Richards and Rodgers 1 986; Stem 1 992; Widdowson 1 979.
In 1 965 , Noam Chomsky sounded a note of caution in relation to the implications of gener ative grammar for translation: 'The existence of deep-seated formal universals . . . does not, for example, imply that there must be some reasonable procedure for translating between languages ' ( 1 965 : 30). In the same year, Catford published his well-known book A Linguistic Theory of Translation, which opens with the words: 'Clearly, then, any theory of translation must draw upon a theory of langu age - a general linguistic theory ' ( 1 965 : 1 ). This uncertain relationship between linguistics and translation theory continues to be reflected in the literature. Eight years later, we find Jom Albrecht expressing regret and astonishment that linguists have not concerned themselves with translation ( 1 973: 1 ) , while Shveitser, writing in the same year (although not widely available until 1987), makes the opposite claim, namely that many linguists have long since decided that translation could be the object of linguistic study ( 1 987: 1 3). Shveitser rejects the view that linguistics can explain only the lowest levels of translation activity as being based on toonarrow a view of lin guistics. He does, however, refer briefly to the
furore caused by the first major attempt in Russian to produce a linguistic description of translation (Fedorov 1 953), an attempt which provoked a lively polemic from the supporters of literary approaches to translation.
