Inspired by Lori Chamberlain’s work, Gender and the metaphorics of translation (1988/2000), this contribution seeks to identify conventional and dead metaphors in translation studies discourse and then discuss their impact, tackling the following questions: When scholars discuss translation theory, what framing do they adopt? What conventional or dead conceptual metaphors shape reasoning in the translation theory discourse? Are there shared or recurrent framings across translation studies? To this end, a very popular reference book in translation theory has been identified as corpus , namely the first edition of The Translation Studies Reader (2000) edited by Lawrence Venuti. This widely acknowledged 30-essay anthology of translation theory, spanning the twentieth century, «gathers essays, articles, and book chapters» from the diverse West tradition of translation theory. It thus offers a set of sample texts that, while homogeneous in terms of genre and being culturally Western, are intriguingly diverse in theoretical approaches. Additionally, the collection is historically significant, representing the diachronic development of this research field across the twentieth century. For the present study, analysis will be limited to a selection of scholars whose discussion of translation theory is informed by linguistics.