In practice, translation has been carried out since the earliest of times among and within diverse human societies all over the world. Translation activities most likely accompanied the first acts of writing, nearly 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, as populations settled and economies expanded, thus prompting the need to more accurately regulate trade, commerce and administration. "Oral translation" would have emerged far earlier in time. In precise terms, oral translation is referred to by the word "interpreting", while the word "translation" implies the presence of a written text which must be read and interpreted for meaning before being rewritten. Both oral translation (interpreting) and written translation refer to the sequence of complex processes involved in understanding content in a source language and re-formulating it in a target language. Professional translation places a high value on the mastery of two or more language-cultures, and excellent writing skills in one`s native language.

The practice of translation has a very long history indeed, and from time to time groups of translators have organized into "schools", notably in Baghdad (8th-10th c.) and in Toledo, Spain (13th c.). However, the formal theorizing and reflection on translation practice in a systematic way and within academic institutions is actually quite recent. As a discipline of study, "Translation Studies" emerged gradually, as a sub-disciplinary outgrowth of Linguistics. It was first formally proposed and sketched out by James S. Holmes (1972/1988), and has since developed internationally into a dynamic interdisciplinary discipline in its own right. It applies various conceptual perspectives and methodological approaches (linguistic, cultural, literary, sociological, historical, computational, psychological, etc.) to the study of translation as product and process, and examines related translation phenomena.