ABSTRACT
Translation studies share the idealist bias of cultural studies, by being more interested in representations of reality than in reality itself. The first crucial text to consider is the well-known one by Roman Jakobson, dating from 1959. The distinction between intralingual, interlingual, and intersemiotic translation that is often cited in translation-studies texts and textbooks has its origin in the translation article. Maria Tymoczko’s contribution to conceptualizing translation in Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators is not only important because it is the only full-length effort at doing so, but also because she is one of a very few scholars who engages the topic philosophically. The literature shows clear indications of a growing awareness among translation-studies scholars of the limitations of a narrow interlingual conceptualization of translation. It also indicates a growing realization that semiotics is a viable avenue to explore, in order to overcome these limitations.
