It is a commonplace that texts (as defined in Chapter 1) exist in their social context: the understanding of the textual features of any text, including translations, will inevitably involve the creators and the audience of texts as well as the social and cultural relationships holding between the human interactants involved. Such human relationships will also involve possible unequal statuses between the parties concerned, which will give rise to diverse relations of power. Power, in fact, stands for the social power of groups or institutions over persons or groups of people (as described in more detail in Section 4.5.2.4.3). Even if power is primarily a social phenomenon (as it exists between humans), language will be a very powerful tool for obtaining and maintaining power in human communicative contexts (Fowler 1985). Once such power relations have been accepted, are taken for granted and are seen as natural in a given social-cultural context, it is possible to talk about an ideology with reference to the social groups involved. Ideology is a composite of the “basic beliefs that underlie the social representations of a social group” (van Dijk, 2003, p. 10, the definition of ideology will be further clarified in Section 4.5.2.4.4).