Translation: The Basics

House introduces basic “ideas and trends” in translation in a clear, well-structured fashion. In ten dense chapters she discusses the history of translation, linguistics and the cultural turn in translation studies, ranging from much debated questions on translation quality and the existence of translation universals to an overview of the most recent trends in the field. Firstly, readers are introduced to translation and its evolution over time, then to machine translation and how globalization has increased the demand for translations suitable to different contexts and cultures. Translators’ competence has developed into a more dynamic process, also leaving room for creativity. Readers are guided through the contribution of linguistics and social-anthropological studies to the foundation of the discipline of Translation Studies,before arriving at a more complex definition of culture. The second part proves interesting for the concept of translation quality assessment, whereas corpus-based translation is analysed in the third part with examples illustrating the importance of quantitative research in this field. Finally, the fourth part provides suggestions on how to integrate translation into teaching practice, before introducing translation in the real world of multilingual environments. House has found the way to close the circle of translation from theory to practice in a manual that is suitable for translation courses at university.