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Lotman (1976, pp153-96) argues that a text is explicit (it is
expressed in definite signs), limited (it begins and ends at a given
moment), and it has structure as a result of internal organisation.
This structuralist view is taken up by Mukarovsky who considers the
literary text as having both an autonomous and a communicative
character. The signs of the text are in a relation of opposition to
the signs outside the text. The Prague structuralist linguists view
the text as an automonous, vibrating, communicative structure.
Structural linguistics, however, is at variance with text linguistics
with respect to textual analysis. A structuralist translator
approaches the text from within, breaking it up into minute grammatical
and lexical microstructures. No attempt is made to place the text in
its relevant socio-cultural context. A text-linguistic translator, on
the contrary, approaches the text from without, linking its
microstructures (microtextual and microcontextual) to its relevant
socio-cultural layout, and interpreting it in the light of its spacio-
temporal relationship with prior or contemporaneous texts.
In fact, anyone well acquainted with the complexity of languages
cannot but conclude that equivalence in translation cannot be defined
in terms of identity or evenness. Since no two languages, even if they
were twin sisters in the same family, share identical grammar and
lexis, equivalence in the sense of absolute synonymy is far from
realizable. Translators can come as close as possible to the original.
Gideon Toury (1980) introduces his approach to translation
equivalence which, he hopes, "will correct many flaws inherent in the
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