要讨论翻译批评，有两个术语需要首先加以介绍和讨论。Mona Baker 主编的 Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies 一书中对“翻译评论”和“翻译批评”作了区分：

Reviewing and criticism are evaluative practices that provide distinct but inseparable responses to published literary translations (translations of literature in the broadest sense of not only imaginative writing but also nonfiction and other materials in the humanities). On the one hand，the differences cited conventionally between the two forms of evaluation hold true for translation as well：the reviewer alerts a reader to new books, describing them and passing judgement as to whether they are worth reading and buying; the critic addresses books that may or may not be new， considering them in detail and usually assuming a reader's familiarity with them (Oates 1990; Leonard Woolf 1939 ：29; Virginia Woolf 1939:7). On the other hand, neither the reviewing nor the criticism of literary translation has developed fully as an art—unlike the reviewing and criticism of literature. This can be explained only in part by the multiple difficulties presented by any attempt to analyse and pass judgement fairly on creative activity. The general lack of value associated with translation in the West has undoubtedly been an additional factor and an equally determinant one. 

上文将两个术语的主要区别定位为：翻译评论主要针对新书而言，对之评论意在引导读者阅读或购买；而翻译批评则针对读者可能已经熟悉的旧书或新书，对之进行详细评论。这种区分，从译评实践的角度看，确有一定道理：如《文汇读书周报》、《中华读书报》、《出版广场》等报刊，就有不少推介刚出版的新书的文章，这些文章划入“翻译评论”范畴应当是恰当的；而《中国翻译》、《中国科技翻译》、《上海翻译》等专业期刊上的不少译评论文则应归为“翻译批评”。

这一术语来指代。这样做理由有二：

1.“评论”也好，“批评”也罢，两者应当属于同义词；

2. 以“评论”（或“批评”）的对象（新书、旧书）来区別二者，实际意义并不大，若说二者有区別，可能根本性的区别还在于评价的方法：“评论”侧重于介绍新书的内容，因此所要求的理论性并不 强，而“批评”则恰好相反，对理论性视角有较高要求。但我们也不能因此就将“翻译评论”弃之ー旁，否则对翻译实践中的许多现象便无法解释。尽管我们的侧重点还是在后者。