Paper 1
On the idea of a theory
This article is based on a lecture that has been given to several groups of doctoral students at various times and in various places. It outlines five notions of what has been taken to constitute a “theory”: myth, metaphor, model, hypothesis and structured research programme. The most fundamental of these is the hypothesis. These different ideas of what a theory can be are illustrated with examples from Translation Studies. Any theory aims at description and explanation, and these two concepts are also discussed. A final comment takes up the idea that translations themselves are theories, and that a translator is thus a theorist or theoros.
Article outline
- 1.A way of seeing
- 2.Description, explanation
- 3.Kinds of theory
- 4.Myths of translation
- 5.Metaphors of translation
- 6.Models of translation
- 7.Hypotheses of translation
- 8.Structured research programmes (?)
- 9.Contributing to theory
- 10.A translation is itself a theory
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Notes