The Holmes Map of Translation Studies
James S. Holmes proposed in 1972 that translation studies needed a discipline-internal map. He drew one. Gideon Toury redrew it in 1995. Every subsequent theorist works inside that map or argues with it.
Two main branches
- Pure: theoretical (general, partial) and descriptive (product, process, function-oriented).
- Applied: translator training, translation aids, translation criticism, translation policy.
Why this matters for tooling
Most AI translation discourse sits in the applied branch (aids) and the descriptive process branch (how machines produce translations). The pure-theoretical branch (what translation is) is where framework choices like skopos and equivalence belong. Mixing the branches without naming them is the root of most cross-purpose arguments about whether AI can translate at all.
Further reading: Toury DTS, the 8 frameworks.