The purpose of translation theory, then, is to reach an understanding of the processes undertaken in the act of translation and, not, as is so commonly misunderstood, to provide a set of norms for effecting the perfect translation. In the same way, literary criticism does not seek to provide a set of instructions for producing the ultimate poem or novel, but rather to understand the internal and external structures operating within and around a work of art. The pragmatic dimension of translation cannot be categorized, any more than the 'inspiration' of a text can be defined and prescribed. Once this point is accepted, two issues that continue to bedevil Translation Studies can be satisfactorily resolved; the problem of whether there can be 'a science of translation' and whether translating is a 'secondary activity'.

From the above discussion, it would seem quite clear that any debate about the existence of a science of translation is out of date: there already exists, with Translation Studies, a serious discipline investigating the process of translation, attempting to clarify the question of equivalence and to examine what constitutes meaning within that process. But nowhere is there a theory that pretends to be normative, and although Lefevere's statement about the goal of the discipline suggests that a comprehensive theory might also be used as a guideline for producing translations, this is a long way from suggesting that the purpose of translation theory is to be proscriptive. 

The myth of translation as a secondary activity with all the associations of lower status implied in that assessment, can be dispelled once the extent of the pragmatic element of translation is accepted, and once the relationship between author/translator/reader is outlined. A diagram of the communicative relationship in the process of translation shows that the translator is both receiver and emitter, the end and the beginning of two separate but linked chains of communication:

Author—Text—Receiver=Translator—Text—Receiver

Translation Studies, then, has moved beyond the old distinctions that sought to devalue the study and practice of translation by the use of such terminological distinctions as 'scientific v. creative'. Theory and practice are indissolubly linked, and are not in conflict. Understanding of the processes can only help in the production and, since the product is the result of a complex system of decoding and encoding on the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic levels, it should not be evaluated according to an outdated hierarchical interpretation of what constitutes 'creativity'.

The case for Translation Studies and for translation itself is summed up by Octavio Paz in his short work on translation. All texts, he claims, being part of a literary system descended from and related to other systems, are 'translations of translation of translations':

Every text is unique and, at the same time, it is the translation of another text. No text is entirely original because language itself, in its essence, is already a translation: firstly, of the nonverbal world and secondly, since every sign and every phrase is the translation of another sign and another phrase. However, this argument can be turned around without losing any of its validity: all texts are original because every translation is distinctive. Every translation, up to a certain point, is an invention and as such it constitutes a unique text.

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