The Translator’s Knowledge

Abstract

Translation studies have emerged as a new discipline in the last 20 years. What is becoming increasingly obvious — and what Bassnett argues for — is the degree to which the work of a translator involves criteria that transcend the purely linguistic. One example given here is the translation of knitting patterns from Danish into English, which involve highly complex translation problems because the conventions that operate between English and Danish knitters are so different. A text belongs to its culture, its language, and its world and is changed when transferred to another culture and another language. Thus the task of the translator is to create a text in a target culture which in its context fulfils a similar function to that of the original. There can be no ideal “equivalence” between words and phrases in different languages, between text and translation. Translating is a highly skilled and highly creative activity.