The author reviews key elements of linguistic and communicative translation theories, which he sees as being the first two 'stages' of translation theory. For the author, 'linguistic' theories continued up to George Steiner's After Babel (1975/98) were devoted mainly to the study of literary translation and were centred on the opposition of word-for-word and sense-for-sense translation. The theories which fall under Newmark's 'communicative' stage include most notably the seminal work of Nida on formal correspondence and functional equivalence which brings the audience into the centre of the translation equation. The author also touches on what he terms the third ('functional') and fourth ('ethical') stages of translation theory. Newmark's concerns are with the usefulness of 'translation theory' and the recurring question of the translator's search for the 'truth', moral and aesthetic. He therefore distinguishes between literary and non-literary texts, which he considers to have different characteristics and objectives.