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Mary Snell-Hornby (1988) presents an integrated approach based on
the theory, practice, and analysis of literary translation. She
develops a more cultural approach through text analysis and cross-
cultural communication studies. What is significantly relevant to this
study is her argument over translational equivalence which she
considers as 'only illusory'.
Snell-Hornby distinguishes two schools of translation theory which
currently dominate the scene in Europe. The first school, which
traditionally upholds a linguistically oriented approach to translation
or translatology, is based in England and Germany. In the United
States, Nida is the most influential scholar of this school, whereas in
England and Germany, Catford and Wolfram Wills are its chief exponents.
Both the English and German approaches to translatology agree that the
lexemes 'equivalence and equivalent' came into general use in both
English and German via exact sciences such as mathematics and formal
logic. Though existing linguistically oriented theories converge as
to the centrality of the concept of equivalence, they notoriously
diverge as to the nomination of the appropriate unit of translation.
The concept of the translation unit, which is generally understood as a
cohesive segment anchored between the level of the word and the
sentence, further expanded to cover the entire text. With the text
seen as a linear sequence of units, translation, as a transcoding
process, sought for the substitution in the target language a sequence
of units equivalent to those of the source language. Optimal
equivalence (textual) is then extracted from the diverse minimal
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