A Review Of The Shifts Of Tvanslation Paradigms In Historical Perspective

This thesis adopts Thomas Kuhn’s well-known theory of paradigm shift as thetheoretical support. Since Thomas Kuhn applied this theoretical term into the field ofnormal science, translation studies have been taken as a series of changes intranslation paradigms in the direction of macro-study. The thesis focuses on westerntranslation theories since the1980s, pointing out that two turns, namely, cultural turnand interdisciplinary turn. The clear tendencies can be illustrated by the following twofundamental breakthroughs. Firstly, more emphasis is put on the study of whattranslation itself rather than how to achieve linguistic correspondence; secondly,translation is no longer regarded as an isolated fragment of language but as part of abroader socio-cultural context.Mary Snell-Horney’s translation theory is well-known in translation circle. Inthe book (2006) The Turns of Translation Studies: New Paradigms or ShiftingViewpoints she chiefly reviews the development of Translation Studies in the pastthree decades and states the trends of future development in this discipline.Undoubtedly, this book shed a new light on translation studies. The question-like titleof the book makes us think: do we need a new paradigm of Translation Studies in thenew millennium or merely the shift of viewpoints?With the wide ranging exchanges among different countries in political,economic and cultural realms, the world is getting more and more globalized. Undersuch circumstances, translation as a bridge for cross-cultural communication plays amore important role than ever before. Guided by Thomas Kuhn’s well-known theory of paradigm shift and enlightened by Mary Snell-Hornby’s translation theory onglobalization, the thesis makes a systematic review of the experience summed up byour predecessors and an analysis on the development of translation paradigms andnotions to expose the historical trace of translation notion and research paradigms,and Translation Studies as an independent discipline should keep pace with the worldand take on the challenges of globalization.