Linguistics plays a decisive role in the teaching of translation since it strictly distinguishes theory from practice. Such a distinction is closely related to the subject-object opposition and vice-versa. These contradictory poles refer to the issue of language as an independent object of linguistic studies and not to language as a process. This is the main point discussed in this text. Both in translation and in foreign language teaching, it is necessary to think about the possibility of making the subject-object and theory-practice fusion more explicit, so that translators and language learners can effectively participate in the process of production of meaning in which they are involved.