本书总结了苏珊·巴斯内特翻译研究的主要思想。作者通过对翻译中意义的分析、不可译性、等值论等**问题的剖析，追溯了翻译理论发展的历史，阐述了诗歌、小说及戏剧翻译的具体问题，界定了翻译研究作为一门独立学科的基本研究范畴。
该书初版于1980年，之后分别于1991年和2000年再版，广为流传，成为英语**翻译教学的入门教材。

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Preface to the third edition
Introduction
1 Central issues
Language and culture
Types of translation
Decoding and recoding
Problems of equivalence
Loss and gain
Uvtranslatability
Science or‘secondary activeity’?
2 Histroy of translation theory
Problems of ‘peridod study’
The Romans
Bible translation
Education and the vernacular
Early theorists
The Renaissance
The seventeenth century
The eighteenth century
Romanticism
Post-Romanticism
The Victoryians
Archaizing
The twentieth century
3 Specific problems of literary translation
Structures
Poetry and translation
Translating prose
Translation dramatic texts
Conclusion
NOTES
SELECT BILIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX:THE ORIGINAL TEXT OF THE SEAFARER
INDEX