This is the first article in the "Translation Studies Forum: Translation Studies and Invariance" replying to Brian Mossop's article on "Invariance orientation: Identifying an object for translation studies" published on 4 May 2016. Whilst fully endorsing Mossop’s broad premise of giving a more central place in translation studies to professional practice and sameness rather than change, there are other more specific points of his proposal that are taken issue with in this reply. First, his insistence that the translator's mental stance at the moment of production needs to be sharply distinguished from the point of view of translation users, with the related claim that his proposal is neither sociological nor cultural. Second, his downright rejection of the methodology of comparing different translations of the same source text, which he brands as only aiming to find different degrees of variance. Third, his attempt at defining the exact scope of translation studies’ object of study by making a black-and-white distinction between "invariance-orientation", taken as the only criterion for inclusion, and "variance-oriented production", including a variety of language-related skills that today’s translators should in fact possess.
