Discourse and the Translator, by Basil Hatim and Ian Mason of Heriot-Watt University at Edinburgh, is a book in quest of a subtitle. Books on discourse have had a way of multiplying in the past several years, and so have books on translation. What is remarkable of Hatim's and Mason's contribution is its success in fitting into a compact format a bird's-eye view of those parts of linguistics that bear on translation, as well as an appreciation of translation not only as a technical exercise but, and above all, as a social and pragmatic undertaking.