This study aims at exploring the contributions of utterer-centered linguistics to an objective and anti-dogmatic view of translation. Developed by French linguist Antoine Culioli, this formalizing cognitive model relates linguistic units to extralinguistic reality, connecting the utterances to the subjects that produce them and thus laying the foundations for defining the necessary conditions not only of possible meanings, but also of actual ones. After a brief discussion of linguistics’ impact on Translation Studies, the authors illustrate, based on authentic translations and following Jacqueline Guillemin-Flescher’s lead, how such a framework could contribute to the understanding of language activity and to the systematic analysis of translation.