The Linguistic Approach in Translation Studies

This chapter explores the linguistic approach in translation studies, highlighting its longstanding and fruitful integration with linguistic theories and methods. It traces the historical development of this approach, from early structuralist linguistics to contemporary advancements in corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, psycholinguistics, and neurolinguistics. The chapter outlines key research methods borrowed from linguistics, such as componential analysis, systemic functional grammar, and empirical-experimental techniques, and their applications in translation studies. It also examines the interdisciplinary nature of translation research, emphasizing the contributions of linguistic subfields like critical discourse analysis and multimodal discourse analysis. While acknowledging the strengths of linguistic methods in addressing translation’s linguistic properties, the chapter also discusses their limitations in handling extralinguistic factors. The conclusion calls for a dynamic and dialectical perspective, encouraging further innovation and integration of linguistic methodologies to advance translation studies while maintaining a critical awareness of their scope and applicability.