The comparative perspective on translation belongs to the very core of its study. On a broader scale this may be illustrated by the close relationship between the discipline of Translation Studies and adjacent disciplines like comparative literature and various branches of contrastive studies (linguistics, pragmatics, stylistics). (Cf. for instance the problems of demarcation between Translation Studies and Comparative Literature and Contrastive Linguistics discussed in Bassnett 1993 and Malmkjaer 1999 respectively) In a more narrow sense comparative approaches to translation are associated with the comparison of texts (or discourses). This contribution will be mainly concerned with this aspect.