Translation as an Intertextual Practice

The article uses insights from the theory of intertextuality in order to explain the nature of the relationship between the source text and the target text, which are here called the prototext and the metatext. It argues that the two texts stand in an intertextual relationship to one another because the metatext repeats the prototext in terms of content and form without being limited to it. Two levels of intertextuality are distinguished in translation. The first is the intralingual (local) level, at which the prototext relates to all texts appearing before it in its own language in terms of content and form. The second is interlingual (global), at which the metatext relates to the prototext and to its all other possible metatexts appearing either in the same language or any other language.