Descriptive1

Here Holmes uses ‘translating’ for the process and ‘translation’ for the product. The
descriptions and generalized principles envisaged were much reinforced by Gideon
Toury in his Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond (1995) where two tentative
general ‘laws’ of translation are proposed:
1. the law of growing standardization – TTs generally display less linguistic
variation than STs, and
2. the law of interference – common ST lexical and syntactic patterns tend to be
copied, creating unusual patterns in the TT.
In both instances, the contention is that translated language in general displays
specific characteristics, known as universals of translation.