This chapter raises and addresses the key question of the relation between empirical translation studies and the descriptive branch of pure translation research initially proposed in the late 1980s. It analyses, explains, and illustrates the rationale and viability of the proposed ‘empirical turn’ in translation studies, which is to better align the central aims and purposes of the discipline with new, practical research needs arisen from our changing social environments in many parts of the world. It is argued in the conclusion that as demonstrated by the diverse chapters in the book, translation studies, especially the descriptive, empirical research branch has benefited and will continue to benefit from the integration of advanced quantitative research methodologies and advances in corpus analytical software development and natural language processing technologies such as machine translation. This bourgeoning translation research field is thus well equipped to play a larger, more significant role in addressing practical, pressing social and research issues such as environment communication, sustainable development and health literacy which is proposed as the much-needed ‘social turn’ in empirical translation studies.