Diversity, uniformity and creativity in translation

Recent developments in translation research have broadened the spectrum of translation studies to include a plurality of approaches involving a wide range of theoretical and methodological frameworks. Attention has been increasingly focused on the historical, socio-cultural and ideological components of translation, which has greatly enhanced the potential of linguistic analysis. The present paper investigates the concepts of diversity, uniformity and creativity in the light of these developments and in relation to the pivotal status of translators in the act of translation. Diversity and uniformity are proposed as complementary rather than mutually exclusive features since duality and hybridity are envisaged as being inherent aspects of the phenomenon of translation. A translation is at the same time an independent text, as far as the receiving culture is concerned, and a derivative text insofar as it is a reconstruction or recreation of another text and the result of the translator’s mediating presence.