letter and sense: mutually exclusive or coexistent in translation

The old age dichotomy of word and sense is one of the most important concepts in the history of translation. This dichotomy، first introduced by Cicero، has influenced most of the traditional translation theories as well as translation studies today. According to this dichotomy، the letter (word) and sense (meaning) of a literary works are two opposite poles that cannot be translated at the same time and the presence of one is the absence of the other. The terms “target oriented” and “source oriented” are a result of this dichotomy. Under the influence of this dichotomy the translators have always faced the dilemma of translating word or sense; thus in this paper we will first study whether there are any translation theories that privilege both sense and letter. Then we will study whether there is a way to overcome this old age dichotomy and opposition between letter and sense and hence talk about the peaceful coexistence of word and meaning of the source text in the target text.