The Instrumental and Hermeneutic Models of Translation in Higher Education

Since the founding of Western translation theory, it has been maintained that there is always an element of choice on the part of the translator when s/he translates a complex message. Indeed, as Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-143 B.C.) revealed in De Optimo genere oratorum (ca. 46 B.C.), in his translations of the most famous orations of the Attic orators, Aeschinos and Demosthenes, he did not render the original text word for word, a literal translator (or interpres) would do. Instead, he preserved the original style and force of the original in a way that conformed to the usage of the target language (Robinson 1997, p. 9). The choices that translators make are implicitly or explicitly informed by a research model. This paper examines the 'instrumental' and 'hermeneutic' models of translation (Venuti 2017), and expounds on how they underpin current pedagogic approaches and methods in higher education.