J.C. Sager starts from a reflection on the concept of equivalence and argues that it is useful to put this concept into perspective. He stresses the need to develop new approaches to the relationship between source and target text, by taking into account both user needs and technical possibilities. To redefine this source and target text relationship, J.C. Sager uses a number of concepts from communication theory such as messages – documents –texts; secondary and primary readerships; information mediators, alongside concepts such as text type and reader expectation. He wants to enlarge the scope on the basis of which a translation theory is constructed and argues that, apart from the linguistic form, also the content and purpose of a text might undergo modifications in translation. He rounds off his article by widening the concept of translation and suggests that translation is treated as a generic concept, subdivided by the mode of production (human/machine), the change of content and the change of intention.