When we investigate a large corpus of translations, we find many instances where a source text expression is translated in a large number of different ways in the target text. One way to interpret these findings is to use the concept of ‘modulation’, defined as ‘un changement de point de vue’. The definition is rather vague, and the examples used to illustrate the concept are wide-ranging. By analyzing various translations of the same expression, however, it is possible to define the concept more restrictively and to shed light on the data. The author uses examples from German-English and English-French data taken from the INTERSECT translation corpus and proposes a conceptual framework, based on Relevance Theory, in which modulation finds a natural place.