This article examines the role of structuralism in the formation and development of translation studies, tracing its intellectual foundations to Saussurean linguistics and the conception of language as a system of interrelated signs. It explores how structuralist principles contributed to the transformation of translation from an intuitive literary practice into a subject of systematic linguistic analysis. The discussion focuses on three influential theoretical traditions: the Prague School, Catford’s linguistic theory of translation, and Nida’s theory of translation. It examines key concepts, including equivalence, units of translation, componential analysis, formal correspondence, translation shifts, and dynamic equivalence, highlighting their contributions to the development of analytical frameworks for translation. The article also considers the theoretical assumptions and limitations of these approaches, particularly their treatment of meaning, linguistic structure, and reader response. It argues that structuralism established the linguistic paradigm that dominated translation studies from the 1940s to the mid-1980s, while its concepts and analytical methods continued to influence subsequent developments in the discipline.