The Enlightenment Of Mary Snell-Hornby's Translation Theory: Toward A Paradigm Shift In Translation Studies Under The Impact Of Globalization

With the wide ranging exchanges among different countries in political, economic and cultural realms, the world is getting more and more globalized. Translation as a bridge for cross-cultural communication plays a more important role than ever before. Therefore, Translation Studies as an independent discipline should keep pace with the world and take on the challenges of globalization.A Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Vienna, Mary Snell-Hornby's translation theory is well-known in translation circle. John Benjamins Publishing Company published Professor Mary Snell-Hornby's book The Turns of Translation Studies: New Paradigms or Shifting Viewpoints? in 2006. In this book, Mary Snell-Hornby chiefly reviewed the development of Translation Studies in the past three decades and stated the trends for future development in this discipline. Undoubtedly, this book shed a new light on translation studies. The question-like title of the book makes us think: do we need a new paradigm of Translation Studies in the new millennium? In the process of globalization, practical translation in areas of science, politics, technology, administration plays a far more important role than literature translation yet most of the research done in Translation Studies is mainly focused on literary translation. The number of full-time and part-time translators in the world was conservatively put at 317,000 in 1999 and continues to grow (Cronin, 2003:14). Non-literature translation plays a more important role in the process of globalization.This paper adopts Thomas Kuhn's well-known theory of "paradigm shift" as the theoretical support. By examining the three paradigm shifts in Translation Studies, this paper comes to the conclusion that paradigm shift in Translation Studies takes place along with the social, economic, cultural changes. As these changes occur, old paradigms become inadequate when theorizing the new phenomena in this discipline.Guided by Thomas Kuhn's well-known theory of "paradigm shift" and enlightened by Mary Snell-Hornby's translation theory on globalization, this thesis attempts to propose that a paradigm shift in Translation Studies under the impact of globalization is inevitable.