Spatial Territories in Translation Studies

Space-driven concepts have always been present in Translation Studies. Translation has been historically viewed as a movement between source and target language/text and the field is replete of space-bound metaphors such as “translation as transfer” and “the landscape of translation”. Space in the current study was taken in its Lefebvrian sense, defined as a social construct and identified, among others, as being relational, multiple and dynamic. Therefore, not all views that draw on space would be considered as a spatial theory on translation and those theories that employ static space were excluded from this study. Upon critical analysis of theories on translation, four space-driven strands of conceptualization have been identified, namely, translation space, translation and urban space, translation and geography and translation and ecology; all based on interdisciplinary dialogue. Each of these strands introduced a new arena for studying translation though incorporating a similar episteme. Through mapping spatial theories of Translation Studies, the current positioning and future tendencies of the field would become more vivid.