Translation Studies Scholars Research Articles

Does Simplification Occur at Sentence Level in the English Translations of Chinese Academic Works? –A Comparable Corpus Analysis of Syntactic Complexity

ABSTRACT Scholars of translation studies have hypothesized that translated texts tend to show simplification at lexical and syntactic levels compared to non-translated native texts. The present study examined simplification at the sentence level between translated and native English texts from the perspective of syntactic complexity. The research finds that the English translations of Chinese academic works tend to be simpler than their non-translated counterparts on 8 of 14 widely accepted indices of syntactic complexity. The study reveals that simplification at the sentence level exists and tends to occur at indices related to linguistic structures or units with more complex semantic or syntactic relationships. In contrast, complexification tends to occur at indices related to linguistic structures or units with less complex relationships. We suggest future research focus on investigating the extent, ways, and indices at which syntactic simplification occurs in translation, along with its effects and implications, rather than debating its existence.

A Critical Evaluation of Equivalence in Translation Theories

The concept of equivalence can be assumed to hold a central position intranslation studies. However, it has been controversial, causing many heateddebates among scholars of translation studies according to its nature,definition and applicability. This research paper provides a critical evaluationof the most influential equivalence theories that have been proposed byscholars in the field, such as Vinay and Darbelnet (1958), Jakobson (1959),Nida and Taber (1969), Catford (1965), House (1997), Koller (1979), Newmark(1981), Baker (1992), and finally, Pym (2010). These theories are presented inorder to provide a better understanding of how the concept of equivalencedeveloped. It is concluded that the concept of equivalence in the translationprocess varies among translation scholars according to their view on thequalities of equivalence.

Technická kompetencia vo výučbe prekladateľov: východiská, súčasný stav a možnosti vývoja

This article deals with technical competence in translator training. It first focuses on the development of thinking about this competence in Slovakia, mentioning translation studies scholars who asked themselves what knowledge and skills a good translator should possess. It also briefly describes how technical competence is defined by the international competence framework European Master’s in Translation. The next practical part of the article contains a comparative analysis of some of the existing Slovak research focused (not only) on the technical competence of Slovak translators. In the last part of the article, we present our attempt to propose a model of teaching translation with a focus on acquiring technical competence. In doing so, we draw on the aforementioned research on the Slovak translation market, on students’ requirements, the integrated model of teaching professional translation (Kraviarová, 2014; Angelovičová – Bachledová, 2021), Lisá and Newman’s model of competences (2020) and on technical competences as defined by EMT (2022). This article's main aim is to propose a model that reflects the current market needs, students’ demands and rapid technological development.

PROBLEMS OF ADAPTATION OF KAZAKH FICTION (ON THE EXAMPLE OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT TRANSLATIONS OF A. NURPEISOV'S NOVEL "SONGY PARYZ")

The need for language mediators dates back to ancient times. It was caused by the lack of society to establish cultural, commercial, political, and other contacts between geographically and linguistically distant communities. Indirect translation served as a bridge between “small or regional” languages through a global language. In the modern world, indirect translation remains a pervasive form of interaction in a wide range of human spheres. Due to the globalization of international contacts, in the organization of international conferences and forums, communication is conducted through international languages. The article aims to consider ways of adaptation of Kazakh fiction through comparative analysis of direct translation into Russian and indirect translation into English of Nurpeisov’s novel “Songy Paryz”. Objectives 1) to generalize and substantiate the approaches of comparative analysis of the source text, the intermediary text, and the target text in modern translation studies; 2) to determine the causes, specificity, and role of indirect translations; 3) to carry out structural-system analysis aimed at identifying translation transformations and techniques as strategies used in two translations, to identify their appropriateness and significance and objective need for representation of the writer’s authorial style. The authors offer their translation of the excerpts under consideration to identify discrepancies between translations and the source text. The study results would be interesting for scholars in linguistics, translation studies, linguocultural studies, and literary criticism.

The Multidimensional Analysis of the Translator Style in English Translations of The True Story of Ah Q

This research investigates the characteristics of the translator style in five English translations of The True Story of Ah Q, with particular attention paid to lexicons, syntax and overall text structure. The primary goal is to examine patterns between translation versions as well as identify subtle variances that exist among translation versions. By employing Multidimensional Analysis techniques, we delve deeper into the concept of Translator Style. Explore their choices and patterns across translation projects. Our findings illustrate elements that define a translator style at a level, such as syntactic structures and overall text composition in The True Story of Ah Q. This study emphasises the significance of translators and scholars of translation studies recognising how translator styles impact translated text. Further research should be undertaken to gain more insights into translator styles and their effects; furthermore, findings from such research could also be integrated into translation training programs to promote greater appreciation of translation as an art form.

ПЕРІОДО-ОРІЄНТОВАНА РЕТРАНСЛЯЦІЯ: ЗМІНИ В МАКРОСТРАТЕГІЇ ПЕРЕКЛАДУ УКРАЇНОМОВНОЇ ПРОЗИ, НАПИСАНОЇ МІЖ 1918 І 1939 РОКАМИ

Tendencies in the macrostrategies (domestication and foreignization) concerning translation receive signifi cant attention from the translation studies scholars. A common assumption is that domestication typically precedes all forms of foreignization during the translation of the same literary texts. The main goal of this article is to analyze theoretical material regarding this topic and off er an analysis of the outlined assumption from the standpoint of English translations of Ukrainian prose aimed at the 1918–1939 period. The analysis of the theoretical and practical materials allows proclaiming that the assumptions regarding the transition from domestication to foreignization with the development of national literature are incorrect. Instead, translation macrostrategies change on the basis of objective factors such as ideology. More importantly, they are visible in the case of diverging prose texts with similar ideological topics. Key words: macrostrategy, censorship, retranslation, culture, domestication, foreignization.

Metaphors and practices of translation in anglophone anthropology

This article argues that while translation as a metaphor was prominent in anglophone anthropology for most of the second half of the 20th century, the practices of interlingual translation that are often central to the production and circulation of disciplinary knowledge have tended to attract much less attention. The first main section begins by briefly reviewing debates about the idea that anthropology crucially involves ‘the translation of culture’ or ‘cultural translation’. This use of translation as a metaphor to characterize the discipline emerged within both UK and US anthropology in the 1950s, but subsequently became subject to sustained criticism. The focus of the article then shifts in the second and third sections to practices of translation in, respectively, anthropological fieldwork and the international circulation of anthropological texts. More specifically, it examines the difficulties associated with interlingual translation in fieldwork and ethnographic writing; the hidden or invisible ‘translation work’ undertaken in the past by the assistants and spouses of ethnographers; and the translation of anthropological work into other languages. The article concludes by calling on more anthropologists to publish detailed accounts of their own translation practices, arguing that in so doing they will be able to draw on valuable historical antecedents from within the discipline, important collections of anthropological reflections on translation that have appeared over the past 30 years, as well as on relevant work by translation studies scholars and sociologists of translation.

The invisible ubiquity of philosophy in translation studies: towards a re-articulation of the discipline’s relationship with philosophy

ABSTRACT The relationship between philosophy, translation, and translation studies has not been explicitly articulated. This article starts from the premise that philosophy is foundational to any academic discipline, and translation studies can critically reflect on itself by engaging its object of study and foundations philosophically. Three distinctions are offered as possible ways of articulating the relationship between translation studies and philosophy: (1) Philosophically informed research in translation studies / Philosophy of translation; (2) Philosophy of translation / Philosophy of translation studies; and (3) Philosophy as an imported doctrine / Disciplinary philosophizing. While philosophy of translation asks what translation is (ontology), philosophy of translation studies examines how we can know about translation (epistemology). The proposed distinctions ascribe philosophical agency to translation studies scholars and presuppose that philosophy can also emerge from within translation studies through disciplinary philosophizing. The proposed distinctions enable addressing ontological and epistemological underpinnings of translation studies.

An encounter with some translators: Challenges they faced when translating Long Walk to Freedom

Scholars of translation studies are on record as saying that the translation process is not an easy task, because languages are unique. What can be easily expressed in one language may not be easily expressed in another. Added to the problem of lack of equivalent linguistic elements in translation are the challenges of culture. Translators feel compromised when encountering translation challenges which they cannot address though they possess mastery of both the source and target languages. The challenges faced by the four South African translators of Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom into Sesotho sa Leboa, isiZulu, isiXhosa and Afrikaans respectively are a case in point. Although these translators translated the same text into their languages, they each had unique challenges. This article examines the obstacles to the translation of the source text into the four languages mentioned above and the strategies used to address the obstacles. This study is qualitative in nature, where the responses of the translators during interviews are exposed, assessed and analysed.

The Role of Mediating Text in Adapting Indirect Literary Translation

Translatology of modern Kazakhstan has actualized the problem of translation of Kazakh literature into worldlanguages. The active process of literary translation has increased the interest of foreign readers in the national culture, creativity, and identity of the Kazakh people. It set a new vector for the research of Kazakh scholars in translation studies. However, owing to the lack of professional translators, direct translation from Kazakh into English has always been problematic, so Kazakh writers’ works were translated indirectly fromRussian into foreign languages. The article presents the problem of defining “indirect translation” by Western, Russian, and Kazakh linguists. Authors consider ways of adapting the direct and indirect translations bycomparing them with the source text of A. Nurpeisov's novel “Songy Paryz”. The paper aims to reveal theways of implementing linguocultural, pragmatic aspects of the original text and strategies for transferring artand pictorial means of the Kazakh language in direct and indirect translations. Experts in linguistics, translation studies, cognitive science, linguocultural studies, and literary criticism will be interested in the researchresults.

The translator as an observant reader in the Story of the Stone from the perspective of aesthetic illusion and habitus

ABSTRACT The classic Chinese novel Hong Lou Meng is renowned for portraying a verifiable world with various characters. Previous scholars of translation studies demonstrated a lopsided interest towards the translated Hong Lou Meng texts without highly considering the translator’s experience in perusing the original fiction. The current study endeavours to integrate narratology and sociological theory with translation studies by referring to The Story of the Stone: A Translator’s Notebooks, which aims to examine the translator David Hawkes’s mental state of aesthetic illusion as an observer before translating Hong Lou Meng. Specifically, Hawkes was postulated to be both the translator and reader immersed in the imaginary setting of Hong Lou Meng to observe the personas. Simultaneously, Hawkes remained a certain distance from the fictional world to enable pinpointing of the author’s inconsistencies through professional habitus, which is critical to resolving the source text inconsistencies while translating.

Evaluating the evaluator: A novel perspective on translation quality

Due to its complex nature, providing a comprehensive framework for translation quality assessment (TQA) has always been a challenging task. To address this gap, many scholars spared no effort to provide a framework, approach or theory from philosophical, linguistic, and cultural perspectives, like those by Williams (2004), House (2015) and Reiss and Vermeer (1984), to mention but a few. According to Drugan (2013: 35), “theorists and professionals overwhelmingly agree that there is no single objective way to measure quality”. In the same vein, Dong and Lan note that “translation evaluation [. . .] remains one of the most problematic areas of translation studies as a field of study” (2010: 48). Notwithstanding, there is no consensus among scholars in this regard. Yet it remains one of the most interesting but controversial research areas in Translation Studies. Bittner’s book presents the historical trajectory of this concept by critically reviewing the eclectic and up-to-date viewpoints of Translation Studies scholars, investigating the pros and cons and applications of each. The book under review consists of seven chapters, each of which investigates a specific topic relating to translation quality assessment.

Krążenie wiedzy przekładoznawczej: lektury polskich studentów

CIRCULATION OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT TRANSLATION: POLISH STUDENTS READING LISTS The circulation of knowledge about translation is increasingly coming into the focus of translation studies scholars. Among the various forms of knowledge circulation in this field, in addition to conferences, regular meetings and academic publications, they point to encyclopaedias, anthologies and other collections of foundational texts, as well as textbooks. The present study is based on the reading lists drawn from the syllabuses of translation studies courses featuring in the curricula of various modern languages programmes offered by Polish universities in 2016-2019. It aims to identify the ‘Polish canon’ of translation studies knowledge emerging from the recent pedagogical practice. The analysis of the lists shows a fragmentation of recommended readings, leading to the conclusion that such a canon does not actually exist, and signals a dominance of texts written in English. Another striking finding is a very low proportion of translations, and especially the absence of foreign ‘classics’ of translation studies in Polish.

Christian Felix Weiße the Translator: Cultural Transfer and Literary Entrepreneurship in the Enlightenment by Tom Zille

Reviewed by: Christian Felix Weiße the Translator: Cultural Transfer and Literary Entrepreneurship in the Enlightenment by Tom Zille Caroline Summers Christian Felix Weiße the Translator: Cultural Transfer and Literary Entrepreneurship in the Enlightenment. By Tom Zille. London: IMLR Research. 2021. xiii+221 pp. £25. ISBN 978–0–85457–273–1. This first monograph from Tom Zille explores the extensive translation output and literary influence of the Enlightenment writer Christian Felix Weiße (1726–1804). It is the first published volume in English on Weiße's work, and it offers a detailed study of his contribution to Anglo-German relations and translation culture in a period that saw the emergence of professional translation and the modern book trade, along with 'the accelerating evolution of the German literary idiom' (p. 7). Zille delivers a carefully researched microhistory, with a focus on substantial analysis of Weiße's unpublished correspondence that generates much to interest book historians, translation scholars, and modern translators. The study is not primarily concerned with theoretical approaches, but Germany's complex intercultural relationships with its European neighbours are explored through a broad focus on the question of cultural transfer. This is a concept that has made some inroads in Translation Studies, including recent work not mentioned by Zille such as Maud Gonne, Klaartje Merrigan, Reine Meylaerts, and Heleen van Gerwen's Transfer Thinking in Translation Studies: Playing with the Black Box of Cultural Transfer (Leuven: Leuven University Press 2020). Weiße's correspondence reveals the complex interests that shape intercultural mediation and offers insights into the newly marketized field of literary translation, for example through his criticism of the 'Raubsucht der Übersetzer' (p. 31) who take great liberties with their texts or demonstrate limited knowledge of the source language. Some space is given to scrutiny of Weiße's own translations, allowing an illustration of his developing translation strategy. Zille explores how Weiße negotiated contemporary debates on translation, navigating binaries of stylistic accuracy versus target-language fluency or equivalent effect versus literalness that continue to preoccupy the field. While Translation Studies scholars may find themselves frustrated by a lack of theoretical context and the seeming self-evidence of comments on the 'success' (or otherwise) of Weiße's translation choices, such textual analysis allows an exploration of the blurred boundaries of the role of the translator, looking at the intersections between Weiße's translation and his original writing to show how translation might shape target-language usage. It is in the two chapters on networks and agency that Weiße's literary entrepreneurship is most compellingly presented. The correspondence reveals a powerful network of cultural influence, and in places the book reads like a Who's Who of eighteenth-century German literature (although Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is conspicuously absent). However, while Weiße enjoyed some illustrious connections, the letters also record the precarity of his various and intersecting roles as translator, writer, publisher, editor, commentator, educator, and literary advocate. The variety of texts he translated reflects an ongoing struggle to reconcile literary prestige with commercial viability, a dilemma that may be just as familiar to literary translators in the present day. The result is a robust portrait of a flesh-and-blood [End Page 273] translator, for whom translation is both a creative endeavour and a material necessity. This is a carefully researched and vivid account of eighteenth-century German culture that reveals the power and position of translators within a developing ecosystem of literary professionalism and intercultural relations. It would have been enriched by fuller engagement with the wider Translation Studies context: Zille acknowledges his focus specifically on translation debates contemporary to Weiße, but it is surprising that there is no nod even towards ideas about foreignization (Friedrich Schleiermacher) or Weltliteratur (Goethe) that would begin to circulate in Germany almost immediately after Weiße's death, or to the ongoing discourse on both these issues that continues to characterize debates in Translation Studies and beyond. There is also certainly more to be said about how Weiße's work maps onto established and more recent theories of translator agency and networks. However, what emerges powerfully from the study is...

Vladimir Nabokov et la traduction ed. by Julie Loison-Charles and Stanislav Shvabrin

Reviewed by: Vladimir Nabokov et la traduction ed. by Julie Loison-Charles and Stanislav Shvabrin Suzanne Eade Roberts Vladimir Nabokov et la traduction. Ed. by Julie Loison-Charles and Stanislav Shvabrin. Arras: Artois Presses Université. 2021. 306 pp. €19. ISBN 978–2–84832–517–0. This stimulating collection of articles, edited by Julie Loison-Charles and Stanislav Shvabrin, encourages a re-evaluation of Nabokov as a translator, translation scholar, and object of translation. Moving beyond what tends to be known about his self-translations and the high proportion of footnotes to text in his version of Pushkin's Evgenii Onegin, it includes a new appraisal of Nabokov's literalist approach to translation, analysis of his collaborative translations, and discussion of the challenges of translating Nabokov. The volume, which contains slightly more articles in French than in English, is the latest to appear in the 'Traductologie' series of Artois Presses Université, which regularly publishes Francophone scholarship in Translation Studies, as well as translations into French. Thus, a major benefit of this book is how it presents both Anglophone and Francophone scholarly writing. The Nabokov researchers represented here are based primarily in the USA, the UK, France, and Canada. Moreover, the contributors encompass the disciplines of Translation Studies, Linguistics, English and Slavic Literature, as well as Comparative Literature. The Introduction fascinatingly reveals the hazards of this eclectic approach: in Nabokov's œuvre, it is not always easy to distinguish between a translation, an original, a self-translation, or a collaborative translation, or to harmonize the dates of first publication. Stanislav Shvabrin's enjoyable article begins by reminding us that 'the backlash against [Nabokov's] translation theory and praxis rivals the endurance of Lolita's [End Page 274] grip on its readers' (p. 87). He offers a more nuanced picture of Nabokov's literalism, drawing on Bakhtin to reassess Nabokov's translations, even youthful ones, as 'dialogic encounters' in which he can try out different approaches to literary translation. These experiments vary 'from wilful adaptation to most exacting literalism and everything else in between' (p. 96). Christine Raquet's essay draws attention to the numerous ways both of reading a text and of translating it, even though 'le tempérament littéraire autocratique de Nabokov avait souvent du mal à accepter [les choix d'un autre traducteur]' (p. 23). His collaborations became power struggles in which any other translator was expected to capitulate. In contrast, Susan Elizabeth Sweeney identifies recurrent ideas of ineffability and untranslatability in Nabokov's work, relating them to his synaesthesia. Julie Loison-Charles's contribution examines the treatment of the many foreign words used by Nabokov in Ada and the varying ways in which this multilingualism is conveyed by the novel's French and Russian translations. Similarly, Marta Arnal Gas focuses on how Nabokov's jeux linguistiques are translated into Spanish and Catalan. Russianists, meanwhile, will be interested in Lyudmila Razumova's comparison of the reception of samizdat (Soviet-era), perestroika-era, and post-perestroika translations into Russian of Pale Fire and her conclusions about the changing market for translation in Russophone nations. In terms of comparing Francophone and Anglophone Translation Studies, it may be a coincidence that two French scholars, Isabelle Paulin and Stanislas Gauthier, draw productively on the work of French translation theorist Antoine Berman in their respective analyses of the nature of Nabokov's translations or the reception of translations of Nabokov. The final section of this volume focuses on intersemiotic translation. It includes Yannicke Chupin's enlightening interview with Émilie Moreau, exploring the latter's choice to incorporate shadow play and masks into her theatre adaptation of Lolita. The appendix includes a convenient index of Nabokov's original work and his translations. This volume constitutes both a significant contribution to the different facets of Nabokov's work and an accessible examination of the challenges of translating Nabokov into several European languages. There is much to interest both Translation Studies scholars and Nabokov specialists. Suzanne Eade Roberts University of Bristol Copyright © 2023 Modern Humanities Research Association

A critical analysis of the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's discourse of fastness and BBC Persian’s dubbing strategies

Translation Studies scholars have recently indicated the emergence of a political ecology of translation. Viewing this new trend, the present study aimed to explore discoursal features of Jamie Oliver's talk in Jamie’s Thirty Minute Meals cookery show and the way they were rendered in the dubbed version broadcast by BBC Persian. To this end, the comparative model of research and the notion of tertium comparationis was used. To analyze the discoursal features of Jamie Oliver, the principles of the grounded theory were applied. The findings indicate that the predominant stylistic features of fastness in Jamie Oliver’s talk are repetition of title, using time phrases indicating fastness, and using words implying easiness and briskness. Analysis of the dubbed version revealed that all the identified expressions of fastness were translated literally into Persian, though they do not sound natural. In other words, in Toury’s (1980) term adequate or source-oriented strategies were used to dub the show into Persian. The findings can shed some light on the realization of food colonization in translation.

Translating “Translation Studies”: Relational and (Self)reflexive Analysis on (the absence of) Translated Articles in Translation Studies Journals in Turkey

Bourdieusian sociology of translation calls for relational and (self)reflexive analysis in translation studies (TS). This call urges researchers to objectify TS itself and themselves as objectifying subjects. TS scholars are invited to analyse TS as a field, scrutinise their own positions in the field, question their own scientific knowledge production processes critically, and thus discern how the organisation of the field, their positionings, and power relations within the field influence their practices. Heeding this call, this study aims to conduct relational and (self)reflexive analysis on (the absence of) translated articles in TS journals in Turkey and tries to trace the possible reasons why there are almost no translated “translation studies” articles in the journals although translation has played a pivotal role in the birth and development of TS field in Turkey. To this end, the archives of the TS journals on the DergiPark database were scanned first. It was observed that except for a few translated short stories and articles, there are almost no translated TS articles in the journals. As a TS scholar inhabiting the field for almost 10 years, my observations, experiences, and interactions with other TS scholars in the field suggest that copyrights, the assumption that TS scholars are polyglot and thus do not need translation, the fact that translated articles are not included in academic promotion criteria and intellectual bias considering translation secondary and derivative act are the possible reasons for this situation. Collective and critical reflexivity and various changes in the TS field In Turkey will be offered as potential solutions at the end of the study.

Cannibalism Translation Theory and Its Influence on Translation Studies in China

Haroldo de Campos’ cannibalism translation theory boasts of distinct Brazilian cultural characteristics. With its rich and profound connotations, it has now become an important translation theory in the world. In China, Jiang (2003) first introduced cannibalism translation theory and it gradually aroused Chinese scholars’ academic interest. The current paper charts the developments of this theory by elaborating on its theoretical relationships with the West and China and exploring its theoretical value. Based on first-hand data, the paper focuses on the influences of the theory on translation studies in China. The study found that a) cannibalism translation theory has provided a new research perspective for Chinese translation studies scholars; b) it improved Chinese scholars’ understanding of Western and Chinese translation theories; c) it had a lasting academic influence on China’s translation studies.

FitzGerald’s Translation of the Mantiq-Ut-Tayr: A Colonial Approach towards Metrics, Textual Rhythm, and Rhyme Translation

The Mantiq-Ut-Tayr[1] is a collection of mystical poems composed by Farid ud-Din Attar in 1177 in Iran. He was a doctor, druggist, perfumer, and at the same time a Sufi in his ideas. In 1857, the British poet and translator, Edward FitzGerald, introduced this collection of couplets to England for the first time. As a Victorian translator, he attempted to colonize the Persian text and recreate Attar’s rhythmic pattern in his translation. In other terms, he tried to introduce the Persian Metrics of the twelfth century into English literature of the nineteenth century.
 By introducing Persian fixed metric patterns into English literature, one may wonder how FitzGerald’s invention affected the norms of the Victorian poetry. Has the British translator become successful in recreating the close correlation, which exists between rhythm and the underlying significance of the Mantiq-Ut-Tayr in his translation?
 By applying the theories of scholars in linguistics and translation studies, such as Derek Attridge, André Lefevere, Antoine Berman, Susan Bassnett, and Harish Trivedi; this research seeks to investigate the way FitzGerald rendered the Persian Masnavi—rhyming couplets—and the genre in established English norms. Thus, the present study might provide an interesting research field for developing a postcolonial methodology with regard to the rendition of the Mantiq-Ut-Tayr’s rhythm and rhyme in English. In fact, this research attempts to evaluate the change of meaning, comprehension, and above all the reception between the Persian text and the English translation of Attar’s masterpiece.
 Keywords: exception, metrics, rhythm, colonial approach, translation, Mantiq-Ut-Tayr.
 
 
 [1] The conference of the birds.

Translation and the promise of analogy

ABSTRACT Scholars of literature tend to see analogy as tied to its counterpart, metaphor, a literary device used to enrich poetic expression. Scholars in Translation Studies, on the other hand, tend to overlook analogy and instead align translation with metaphor, itself currently a controversial notion in the discipline, which, moreover, also operates on the same one-to-one logic as its counterpart, equivalence. From both points of view, analogy seems interesting, but unworthy of further critical investigation. However, as this paper argues, analogy holds promise for the discipline of Translation Studies and its pedagogy, first, because analogy was designed from the time of Aristotle to be inventive, and second, because analogy was understood by Aristotle’s medieval commentators as endowed with an intermediary nature associated with ambiguity and polysemy. Looking to analogy may allow us to respond more creatively and flexibility to the ever-changing nature of meaning today, not only in the theory and the practice of translation, but also in how we teach both.