Abstract: In comparison with traditional translation criticism, descriptive translation criticism (DTC) has launched a pursuit of reason and objectivity in the analysis of data and facts, aiming to discover the operational laws that govern translation as process, product and function.This paper, based on a review of the essence and function of the traditional criticism, explores the descriptive and scientific aspects of DTC, providing a strategic construction of the interpretative and explanatory aspects of it.It concludes that the transformation from the traditional to modern criticism is one from the conservative prescriptivism towards the open descriptivism.