In this paper, an attempt is made to reconsider the fate and place of theories vis à vis the task of translating one language into another, in spite of their popularity in scholarly studies. The idea is to re-submit the central concept of theory to a refreshing review such that the implicit spirituality involved in the task of translating could be given its right place and the central role of cultural specificity and inter-territorial constraints could be properly highlighted. It will also permit us to accord the necessary prestige and honour to unpredictable intellectual upsurge usually described as „brain wave‟ noticeable with authors of translation and often difficult to plot within a theoretical graph. Using French, English and Yoruba as key references, the paper ends with the assertion that, very often, the product of translation does not allow a direct insight into a given theory of the author‟s final access to the product.
Key words: translation, theory, translator-critic, Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT), Source language (SL), Target Language (TL),