A RATIONALE FOR DESCRIPTIVE TRANSLATI ON STUDIES

The basic assumption of Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) is diametrically opposed to that which is usually maintained by the practitioners of any process-based, application-oriented paradigm of translation theory. The apparatus for the description of translational relationships, and for the description of all the relationships that may obtain between target and source items, segments and texts, is one of the tools that DTS should be supplied with by the theoretical branch of translation studies. This chapter examines the main phases of the discovery procedure and the basic notions mentioned in the course of their brief presentation. Obviously, the mapping of each Hebrew binomial on its counterpart in the source text yields, in addition to the mere shifts, the target-source relationships obtaining between the members of the pairs. The Hebrew translation of Goethe's famous Wanderers Nachtlied is a particularly striking case in point.