The study of translation has been dominated, and to a degree still is, by the debate about its status as an art or a science, so we shall begin with this issue. The linguist inevitably approaches translation from a ‘scientific’ point of view, seeking to create some kind of 'objective' description of the phenomenon and this will be the fundamental orientation of this book. It could, however, be argued in that translation is an 'art' or a 'craft' and therefore not amenable to objective, 'scientific' description and explanation and so, a fortiori, the search for a theory of translation is doomed from the start.