As is the case with most disciplines which cover both theory and practice, the discipline of translation is a "divided houseé, with practitioners ignoring or deriding theory as something that has no bearing on the practice of translation and theorists often ignoring the need to make their theorizing comprehensible. The author of the present article argues that theoretical concepts can prove very useful to the translator and that translation theory can provide translators with principles and guidelines on the basis of which they can make appropriate decisions. In this paper an attempt is made to bridge the gulf between theory and practice of translation.