This book takes a linguistic approach to translation issues, looking first at the structural view of language that explains the difficulty of translation and at theories of cultural non-equivalence. A subsequent chapter on text types, readership and the translator's role completes the theoretical framework. The linguistic levels of analysis are then discussed in ascending order, from morpheme up to sentence, while a summarising chapter considers various translation types and strategies, again considered in relation to text type, author and reader.

An in depth examination of linguistic variation and change as a reflection of social convergence in the major French-speaking countries of Europe - France, Belgium and Switzerland. Considered in the context of linguistic levelling the book provides a detailed account of recent social and linguistic change in European French.

The authors explore some of the ways in which standardization, ideology and linguistics are interrelated. Through a number of case studies they show how concepts such as grammaticality and structural change covertly rely on a false conceptualization of language, one that derives ultimately from standardization.

"Looking at language variation in French using linguistic data that has emerged in recent years from France, Belgium and Switzerland, and comparing it to other European countries, this comparative study sets out to track how language changes have followed social and attitudinal developments, giving it a particular sociolinguistic slant"--