This article views translation first and foremost as a means of cross-language communication. The communication theory on which it builds is relevance theory, as developed by Sperber and Wilson since the mid-1980s. The account it attempts to give of translation is intrinsically competence oriented: starting “from the observation that human beings have the remarkable ability of telling in one language what was first told in another language” (Gutt 2000:205), it seeks to find out what this ability consists in and how it works. Assuming that this competence rests in the human mind, the orientation of this research is cognitive. Furthermore, if translation takes place in the human mind, it is of paramount importance that the translator understands how it works. Indeed, the better one understands the mental faculties and processes involved, the better the chances of achieving successful communication via translation will be.