Translation had been thought of as a purely literary and secondary activity which was undertaken by scholars who had bilingual, if not multilingual, capabilities. It was not thought of as a science at all, and least of all was it thought to have a theoretical foundation.  The journey of Translation Studies towards a more scientific and systematic methodology was pioneered by Eugene Nida, an influential force in the field of translation theory in the U.S. Translation that had been viewed as a secondary activity without any theoretical base in the U.S was given a direction and ‘elevation’ to the status of a science by Nida. His theory evolved from the practice of translation, as it was a direct offshoot of his own translation of the Bible. Nida’s major works are Message and Mission (1960) and Toward a Science of Translating (1964).
Nida in his essay “Theories of Translation” outlined four major perspectives in translation theory. He stated that the different ways in which texts are translated in the process of interlingual translation, can basically be categorized according to four different viewpoints:

1. The SL text, its history of production, transmission and interpretation (Philological)

2. Languages involved in the process, including SL and TL (Linguistic)

3. The process of communication that goes on behind the translation (Communicative)

4. The different language and culture codes that are involved in the process (Sociosemiotic)

Nida points out that these categories are not always antagonistic but complementary and supplementary. He himself seemed to prefer the sociosemiotic approach.