TRANSLATION STUDIES

Chapter 1
Main issues of translation studies

Translation studies is a relatively new academic research area that has expanded in recent
years, especially in the last five decades. While translation was formerly studied as a
language-learning methodology or as a part of comparative literature, translation workshops
and contrastive linguistic courses, the new discipline belongs to the work of James Holmes.
His seminal paper “The name and nature of translation studies” is generally accepted as the
founding statement for the field.
Holmes draws attention to the limitations imposed by the fact that translation research was
dispersed across older disciplines. He also stresses the need to forge “other communication
channels”, cutting across the traditional disciplines, to reach all scholars working in the field,
from whatever background.
Holmes puts forward an overall framework, describing what translation studies covers. The
same framework has been presented by Gideon Toury.

It describes two main branches of translation studies: Pure and Applied.

The objectives of the PURE areas of research are:

1 The description of the phenomena of translation (descriptive translation theory).
2 The establishment of general principles to explain and predict such phenomena (translation
theory).
The descriptive branch of “pure” research in Holmes (Descriptive translation studies) has three
possible ways: examination of the product, the function and the process.
The theoretical branch is divided into general and partial theories.
The term general is referring to those writings that describe every type of translation and
include generalizations that can be relevant for translation as a whole.
Partial or restricted theories are:
• Medium-restricted theories
• Area-restricted theories
• Rank-restricted theories
• Text-type-restricted theories
• Time-restricted theories
• Problem-restricted theories

The APPLIED branch of Holmes’s framework concerns:

1 Translator training (teaching methods, testing techniques, etc.)
2 Translation aids (dictionaries, grammars, information technology)
3 Translation criticism (evaluation of translation including the marking of student translation)

Despite this categorization, Holmes himself admits that several different restrictions can apply
at any one time and that the theoretical, descriptive and applied areas do influence one
another. Toury states that the main merit of the divisions is that they allow a clarification and
a division between the various areas of translation studies which in the past have often been
confused.
Pym points out that Holmes’s map omits any mention of the individuality of the style, decision-
making processes and working practices of human translators involved in the translation
process.
Chapter 2
Translation theory before the twentieth century

Up until the second half of the twentieth century, translation theory was locked in what George
Steiner calls a sterile debate over the triad of literal, free, and faithful translation
This can be called the pre-linguistic period of translation (according to Newmark), in this period
we have an important debate about the translation between:
- Word for word (literal translation)
- Sense for sense (free translation)
This distinction between literal and free goes back to Cicero and St. Jerome.
Cicero in De optimo genere oratorum, indicates a main difference between the interpreter and
the orator. The former is seen as the literal, the latter tried to produce a speech that moved
the listeners.
In the Roman times the word for word translation was exactly what it said, so, the
replacement of each individual word of the source text (Greek) with its equivalent in Latin.
St Jerome, one of the most important translators, cites the authority of Cicero’s approach to
justify his own Latin translation of the Greek Septuagint Old Testament. ...I render not word-
for-word, but sense-for-sense.
Jerome disparaged the word for word translation because it cloaking the sense of the original
while the sense for sense translation allowed the sense or content of the source language to be
translated.

The same type of concern has occurred in other rich and ancient translation tradition such as
in China and the Arab world where it seems that sense for sense translation has been largely
adopted.

Martin Luther
For over a thousand years after St. Jerome, issues of free and literal translation were linked to
the translation of the Bible and other religious and philosophical texts. The Roman Catholic
Church was concerned about the correct established meaning of the Bible to be transmitted.
There are several examples of translations that were judged heretical, banned or censored.
The French humanist Etienne Dolet was burned at the stake for a “rien du tout”.
But non-literal or non-accepted translations had become a powerful weapon against the
Church.
M. Luther had been criticized by the Church for the addition of the word “allein” (alone/only)
making “the work of law” redundant in his own translation of Paul’s words in Roman, because
there was no equivalent Latin word in the source text.
Luther follows St Jerome to reject the word for word translation strategy
Flora Amos
She notes that early translator often differed considerably in the meaning they gave such as
“faithfulness”, “accuracy” and even the word “translation” itself.
Louis Kelly
Looks in detail at the history of translation theory tracing the difference of meaning of terms
“truth” and “spirit” through the centuries.
John Dryden
English poet and translator would have enormous impact on subsequent translation theory and
practice.
He reduces all translation in 3 categories:
1 Metaphrase (word by word and line by line) which corresponds to literal translation
2 Paraphrase (words are not strictly followed as their sense) which corresponds to faithful or
sense-for-sense translation
3 Imitation (forsaking to word and sense) very free translation, adaptation.

Schleiermacher
Friedrich Schleiermacher is recognized as the founder of modern protestant theology and of
modern hermeneutics. He points out a romantic approach to interpretation based not on
absolute truth but on individual’s inner feeling and understanding
According to Schleiermacher there are two different type of text:
1 Commercial texts
2 Scholarly and artistic texts
Schleiermacher sees the latter on a higher creative plane. His strategy is to move the reader
toward the writer giving the reader the impression that he receives the work in his own
language. The translator must valorize the foreign and transfer that into the TL.
Schleiermacher’s respect for the foreign text was to have considerable influence over scholars
in modern times.

Chapter 3
Equivalence and equivalent effect

After the period of “fight” between free Vs literal we can talk about the meaning of a particular
issue like for example “equivalence”

Roman Jakobson in his opera “On linguistic aspects of translation” divided translation in 3
categories:
- intralingual (an interpretation of verbal signs by other signs in the same language)
- interlingual (classic translation)
- intersemiotic (or transmutation because it translate in non verbal signs like music and
paint)
Jakobson examines interlingual translation and stress the attention on the key issues of this
type of translation: linguistic meaning and equivalence.
He follows the idea (Saussure) that the signifier and the signified, together, form the linguistic
sign, but the sign is arbitrary.
For the message to be “equivalent” in source and target language, the code units will be
different since they belong to two different sign systems (languages) which partition reality
differently.
Ex. house: Is feminine in Romances languages and neuter in German.
Jakobson approach the problem of the equivalence with the famous definition: “Equivalence in
difference is the cardinal problem in language and the pivotal concern of linguistics”.
Only in poetry Jakobson talk about “untranslatable” and requires a creative transposition.

The question on meaning, equivalence and translatability became a prominent issue of

translation studies in the ‘60s and will be tackled by one of the most important figure in
translation studies, the American Eugene Nida.
Nida
He moves translation into a more scientific era by incorporating recent work in linguistics. Hi is
linked to the theory of “generative transformational grammar” by Chomsky. The most
important idea of Nida is that a word hasn’t meaning without the context.
Nida presents a series of techniques as an aid for the translator in determining the meaning of
different linguistic items, i.e. hierarchical structuring (superordinate and hyponyms),
componential analysis or semantic structure analysis.
NIDA: The old terms such as “literal ore free translation” or “faithful translation” are discarded
by Nida, in favour of two basic orientations or types of equivalence (formal and dynamic
equivalence).
Formal equivalence: Focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content.
Dynamic equivalence: Is based in what that Nida calls “the principle of equivalent effect”,
where the relationship between receptor and message should be the same as that which
existed between the original receptors and the message. The message has to be tailored to the
receptor’s linguistic needs and cultural expectation and aims at complete naturalness (the
closest natural equivalent to the source language message) of expression.

For Nida the success of the translation depends of:

1 Making sense
2 Conveying the spirit and manner of the original
3 Having a natural and easy form of expression
4 Producing a similar response
Chomsky
Chomsky’s generative transformational model analyzes sentences into series of related levels
governed by rules. The structure relation is a universal feature of human language. The most
basic of such structures are Kernel sentences, which are simple, active, declarative
sentences that require the minimum of transformation. Kernel is to be obtained from the
source language surface by a reductive process of back-transformation (Nida). This involves
analysis using generative–transformational grammar’s four types of functional class:
- events
- objects
- abstract
- relational
Kernels are the level at which the message is transferred into the receptor language before
being transformed into the surface structure in 3 stages: literal transfer, minimal transfer and
literary transfer.

Newmark
Newmark points out that the equivalent effect is “illusory” and the gap between emphasis on
source and the target language always remains as the overriding problem in translation
studies. He suggests narrowing the gap replacing the old terms with those of “semantic” and
“communicative” translation. Semantic translation differs from literal in that it respects context
while literal translation (word-for-word) even in its weaker form remains very closely to the ST
lexis and syntax. Thus the literal translation is not only the best, it is the only valid method in
semantic and communicative translation.
.
Koller
Koller examines more closely the concept of equivalence and its linked term correspondence:
the correspondence is considered within the field of contrastive linguistics and its parameters
are those of Saussure’s langue, while equivalence relates to Saussure’s parole.
He describes five different types of equivalence:
1 Denotative equivalence
2 Connotative equivalence
3 Text normative equivalence
4 Pragmatic equivalence (Nida dynamic equivalence)
5 Formal equivalence

Chapter 4
The translation shift approach

Since the 1950s there has been a variety of linguistic approaches to the analysis of translation
that have proposed detailed lists or taxonomies in an effort to categorize the translation
process.
Vinay and Darbelnet: they carried out a comparative stylistic analysis of French and English.
The two general translation strategies identified by Vinay and Darbelnet are: direct
translation and oblique translation which hark back to literal vs. free. The two strategies
include 7 procedures of which direct translation covers three:
• Borrowing
• Calque
• Literal translation
In those cases where literal translation is not possible Vinay and Darbelnet propose the
strategy of oblique translation. The latter covers a further four procedures:
• Transposition
• Modulation
• Equivalence
• Adaptation.
These seven procedures are operated on 3 levels:
1 The lexicon
2 Syntactic structures
3 The message
A list of five steps that the translator has to use is:
1 Identify the units of translation
2 Examine the source language text, evaluating the descriptive, affective and intellectual
content of the units
3 Reconstruct the metalinguistic context of the message
4 Evaluate the stylistic effects
5 Produce and revise the target text

Catford: He creates the term “shift” in the area of translation. Catford makes an important
distinction between formal correspondence and textual equivalence. He considers two kind of
shift:
Shift of level: something which is expressed by grammar in one language and lexis in
another.
Most of Catford’s analysis is given over the category shifts.
These are subdivided into four kinds: structural shifts, class shifts, unit shifts and intra-system
shifts);

Jirì Levy (Czechoslovakia): He gives an important attention to the expressive function or style
of text. (Attention to poetry)

Van Leuven-Zwart: His model is intended for the description of integral translation of
fictional texts and comprises two different models:
1 Comparative model: Involves a detailed comparison of ST and TT and a classification of all
the microstructural shifts. This model is as follows:
1. Division in comprehensible textual units called Transemes, i.e. “she sat up quickly” is
classed as a transeme, as its corresponding Spanish “se enderezò”.
2. define the Architranseme (core sense of the ST transeme). In the above example the
Architranseme is “to sit up”.
3. establish the relationship between the two transemes.
2 Descriptive model: Is a macrostructural model, designed for the analysis of translated
literature. It is based on concepts borrowed from narratology and stylistics.

Chapter 5
Functional theories of translation

Text Types
Katharina Reiss created 3 main kinds of categories which classify the texts: Informative,
Expressive (Aesthetic), Operative (Persuasive), there is also another fourth category:
Audiomedial texts such as visual and spoken multimedia instruments.

Each kind of text we know can be classify on a certain type of the 3 we have just talked about,
for example a Poem is clearly an Expressive text while an Electoral Speech is an Operative one
etc…some texts can also be classified as hybrids of two categories, such as a Sermon which is
either Informative and Operative.

Katharina Reiss suggests specific translation methods according to text type. As we have
different kinds of texts we also have various ways to translate them from a ST into a TT, it is
clear that

• The TT of an Informative Text should transmit all the information in a simple and clear
way
• The TT of an Expressive Text should preserve the artistic form of the Source Text
• The TT of an Operative Text should try a good method to create an equivalent effect
among the Target Text readers
During the translation of these texts the translator must keep on mind that there is a wide
range of elements which should be considered, these elements are Intralinguistic (lexis,
grammar…) and Extralinguistic (time, place, receiver…).

Translational Action
The translational action is a model proposed by Holz-Manttari which has the aim of provides
students, scholars and translators in general with a set of guidelines suitable for a wide range
of situations.

Interlingual translation is described as “translational action from a source text” and as a

communicative process involving a series of roles and players:

• The initiator: the company or individual who needs the translation

• The commissioner: who contact the translator
• The ST writer: who wrote the original text
• The TT user: the person who will receive the TT text (libraries or shops)
• The TT receiver: who finally read the book for personal interest or study

As we have just told the Translational Model aim to create a TT which is suitable and clear for
the TT reader, this kind of result is supposed to be achieved by adapting the text to the target
context and not by totally following the ST.

Even if this model has taken account of the different important elements in translating a ST it
has the imperfection not to consider the great amount of cultural differences among cultures.

The Skopos Theory

The Skopos Theory were introduced by Hans J. Vermeer with the collaboration of Katharina
Reiss, this theory predates the Manttari’s Translational Action model and can be considered to
be part of this same theory.
The theory is mainly based on 6 basic rules:
1. A Translatum (or Target text) is determined by its Skopos (or purpose)
2. A TT is an offer of information in a target culture and TL concerning an offer of
information in a source culture and SL.
3. A TT doesn’t initiate an offer of information in a clearly reversible way
4. A TT must be internally coherent
5. A TT must be internally coherent with the ST
6. The five rules above are ordered hierarchically with the Skopos rule predominating.

In this model, the ST is dethroned and the translation is judged not by equivalence of meaning
but by its adequacy to the functional goal of the TT situation as defined by the commission...

This theory has been discussed by some other theorists whose judge the Vermeer’s Work as
not-functional for the literary texts where there’s not a clear purpose and the structure is too
complex to be adapted in a such simple way, in addition they note as the Skopos theory
doesn’t pay sufficient attention to the linguistic level of the ST concentrating excessively on the
purpose.

Nord and the Translation-oriented text analysis

Christiane Nord presents a more detailed functional model incorporating elements of text
analysis. The first distinction is between two basic types of translation product: documentary
translation and instrumental translation.
Documentary translation: In this kind of translation the TT reader knows that the text he’s
reading has been translated from another language\culture, these are the cases of a text
which the author wants to preserve as “exoticizing” or to maintain some cultural specific lexical
items.
Instrumental translation: Contrary to the previous one, the instrumental translation let the
reader know that the text has never been translated. In addition the translator should try to
turn the translation suitable for the target culture, context and time.
In her last book C. Nord proposes a more flexible version of the model where she highlights
“three aspects of functionalist approaches that are particularly useful in translator training:

•
• the importance of the translation commission
• the role of ST analysis
• the functional hierarchy of translation problems.

Analyzing the text, the translator needs to compare the 2 profiles in order to see where they
may be different, the main features to pay attention to are: the text function, the sender and
receiver, the target time and place, the way the text will be exposed (speech or writing) and
the purpose for which the text was written and why needs to be translated.

This model is thought to be applicable to all text types and translation situations but actually
there are cases in which the use of a fixed model may create some problems

Chapter 6
Discourse and register analysis approaches

Since the 70s up until to the 90s discourse analysis came to prominence in translation studies.
Building on Halliday’s systemic functional grammar it has come to be used in translation
analysis. There is a link with the text analysis model of Christiane Nord. However, while text
analysis normally concentrates on describing the way in which texts are organized (sentence
structure, cohesion, etc.) discourse analysis looks at the way language communicates meaning
and social and power relations.
The model of discourse analysis that had the greatest influence is Hallidayan’s model of
discourse analysis that is based on what he terms systemic functional grammar, is geared
to the study of language as communication, seeing meaning in the writer’s linguistic choice
systematically relating these choice to a winder sociocultural framework.
In this model there is a strong interrelation between the surface-level realizations of the
linguistic functions and the sociocultural framework.
ORDER:
• Genre (the conventional text type associated with a specific communicative function ,
for example a business letter) is conditioned by the sociocultural environment
• Register (comprises three variable elements: field tenor and mode)
• Discourse semantic (ideational, interpersonal, textual)
• Lexicogrammar ( transitivity, modality, theme-rheme/cohesion)
Halliday’s grammar is extremely complex
House’s model of translation quality assessment
One of the first work that use Hallidayan’s model. The model involves the systematic
comparison of the textual profile of the source and target language.
According to Juliane House the translation can be categorized into two types: overt and
covert translation.
An overt translation is a TT that doesn’t purport to be an original.
A covert translation is a translation which enjoys the status of an original source text in the
target culture. The source language is not linked particularly to the source language culture or
audience; both source language and target language address their respective receivers
directly.

Mona Baker
She does incorporate a comparison of nominalization and verbal forms in theme position in a
scientific report in Brazilian, Portuguese and English. He gives a number of examples from
languages such as Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic. The most important point of ST. Thematic
analysis is that translator should be aware of the relative markedness of the thematic and
information structures.
Baker considers various aspects of pragmatics in translation. Her definition of pragmatics is
as follows: “the study of language in use. It’s the study of meaning manipulated by the
participants in a communication situation”.
She stresses the attention on coherence and cohesion in translation and gives more attention
to implicature (what the speaker means rather than what he says).

Hatim and Mason (Camus and “L’entranger” passage)

They pay extra attention to the realization in translation of ideational and interpersonal
functions and incorporate into their model a semiotic level of discourse. They consider
shifts in modality (the interpersonal function). They also concentrate on identifying dynamic
and stable elements on the text. These are linked with translation strategy.

Works by both Baker and Hatim and Mason bring together a range of ideas from pragmatics
and sociolinguistics that are relevant for translation and translation analysis. Baker’s analysis is
particularly useful in focusing on the thematic and cohesion structures of a text. Hatim and
Mason move behind House’s register analysis and begin to consider the way social and power
relations are negotiated and communicated in translation.

Chapter 7
System theories

In the 1970s another reaction to the old static prescriptive models was polysystem theory,
which saw translated literature as a system operating in the larger social, literary and historical
systems of the target culture. It was an important move.

Polysystem theory was developed in the 1970s by the Israeli scholar Itamar Even-Zohar
borrowing ideas from the Russian formalists of the 1920’s.
Literary is thus part of the social cultural, literary and historical framework and the key concept
is that of the system, in which there is an ongoing dynamic of mutation and struggle for the
primary position in the literary canon.

Even-Zohar focuses in the relations between all these systems in the overarching concept to
which he gives a new term, the Polysystem (Conglomerate of systems which interact to bring
about an ongoing, dynamic process of evolution within the polysystem as a whole).
The dynamic process of evolution is vital to the polysystem, indicating that the relations
between innovatory and conservative systems are in a constant state of flux and competition.

Gideon Toury focuses on developing a general theory of translation. He goes on to propose

just such a methodology for the branch of Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS).
For Toury translations first and foremast occupy a position in the social and literary systems of
the target culture, and thus position determines the translation strategies that are employed.
The 3 phases methodology for DTS of Toury are:
1 Situate the text within the target culture
2 Compare stand target text for shifts
3 Draw implications for future translating

The concept of norms (Toury)

The translation of general values or ideas shared by a community into performance

instructions appropriate for and applicable to particular situations. He considers translation to
be an activity governed by norms and these norms determine the equivalence
manifested in actual translation. They appear to exert pressure and to perform some kind
of prescriptive function:
 The basic initial norm refers to a general choice made by the translators. When the translator
subject himself toward the ST, the TT will be adequate; if the target culture norms prevail,
then the TT will be acceptable. Other norms described by Toury are:
• 1 Preliminary Norms (Factors which determines the selection of the text)
• 2 Operational Norms (Describe the presentation and linguistic matter of the target
text)

Toury also propose the Laws of translation:

1 Law of growing standardization
2 Law of interference (a kind of default)

Lambert and Van Gorp (they are in contradiction with Toury and Even-Zohar)
They accept that is impossible to summarize all relationship involved in the activity of
translation but suggest a systematic scheme that avoids superficial and intuitive commentaries
and judgements and convictions.

Chapter 8
Varieties of cultural studies
The move from translation as text to translation as culture and politics is what Mary Snell-
Hornby terms “the cultural turn”.
It is taken up by Bassnett and Lefevere as a metaphor for the range of case studies in their
collection.
These include studies of changing standards in translation over time, the power exercised in
and on the publish industry in pursuit of specific ideologies, feminist writing and translation,
translation as appropriation, translation and colonization, and translation as rewriting,
including film rewriting.
Three main areas have influenced translation studies on the course of 1990s: translation as
rewriting, translation and gender, translation and postcolonialism.

Lefevere
Describes the literary system in which translation functions as being controlled by three main
factors: professionals within the literary system, patronage outside the literary system, the
dominant poetics. The people involved in such power positions are the ones Lefevere sees as
rewriting literature and governing its consumption by the general public.
The motivation for such rewriting can be ideological or poetological. He claims that “the same
basic process of rewriting is a work in translation, historiography, onthologization, criticism and
editing”.

Sherry Simon
She approaches translation from a gender studies angle. She sees a language of sexism in
translation studies, with its image of dominance, fidelity, faithfulness and betrayal
Simon points out that the great classics of Russian literature were initially made available in
English in translations produced mainly by one woman (ex. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy).
The feminist theorists see a parallel between the status of translation, which is often
considered derivative and inferior to original writing, and that of women, so often repressed in
society and literature.
Sherry Simon gives examples of Canadian feminist translator Barbara Godard who seek to
emphasize the feminine in the translation project.
Simon links, as well, gender and cultural studies to the developments in postcolonialism.
She highlights Spivak’s concerns about the translation of the third world’s literature into
English.
Spivak’s view is often expressed in “translationese” which eliminates the identity of politically
less powerful individuals and cultures.
Spivak’s critique of western feminism and publishing is most biting when she suggests that
feminists from the hegemonic countries should show solidarity with woman in postcolonial
contexts by learning the language in which those women speak and write.

Brazilian cannibalism
Another important postcolonial movement in translation has come from Brazil from the famous
story of the ritual of cannibalization of Portuguese bishop by native Brazilian.
It’s based on the metaphor of anthropophagy or cannibalism with the Andrade’s “Manifesto
Antropofago”. The metaphor has been used by the strong Brazilian translation studies
community to stand for the experience of colonization and translation. Colonizers and their
language are devoured, their life force invigorating the devourers but in a new purified and
energized form that is appropriate to the needs of the native peoples.
It’s important to be aware that postcolonial writings on translation have found their echo in
Europe, especially in the Irish context.

The Irish context (by Cronin)

Cronin himself concentrate on the role of translation in the linguistic and political battle
between the Irish and English languages, examining how Irish translators have discussed and
presented their work in preface, commentaries and other writings. He uses the metaphor of
Translation to draw a parallel with what was happening physically to the Irish (translation at a
cultural level)

Chapter 9
Translating the foreign: the (in)visibility of translation

Venuti: Domestication and Foreignization

Lawrence Venuti is a cultural theorist who influenced the nature of the translation. In
particular he focused his attention on what he calls “Invisibility of the translator”.
Like other cultural theorists Venuti insists that the aim of translation studies must take account
of the nature of the sociocultural framework. He contests the Toury’s “scientific” descriptive
model that produces “value-free” norms and laws of translation.

Venuti argued that in Anglo-American culture the translators tend to translate the texts in a
“fluent” way in order to make an easy-readable Target Text and giving the text an illusion of
transparency, this kind of behaviour ,nevertheless, hide the original nature of foreign text
deleting sometimes important elements.

Furthermore Venuti described two different methods to translate a text:

Domestication: In this method the translator is hidden, the text is adapted to the target
culture minimizing the foreignness of the original text. The final result is a fluent text which
gives the reader the illusion that the text has been originally written in his language.

Foreignization: Is the Venuti’s favourite way to work on a foreign text, in this case the
translator tries to convey the TT reader all the impressions, the forms and the contents the
writer wanted to communicate. This method brings out the work of the translator whose
strategies are centred create a text which respects the original idea of the text even in a target
language.

Despite his preference to the foreignization, Venuti highlight that the first method as the
second one are not perfect models and that they were created to promote research in
translation field.

Antoine Berman
Berman’s works precedes and influence Venuti’s theories.
Berman describes the translation as an “épreuve”, a trial. Berman deplores the general
tendency to negate the foreign in translation by the translation strategy of naturalization (the
same of Venuti’s later domestication). He identifies twelve “deforming tendencies”. His
examination of the forms of deformation is termed “negative analytic”.
1. rationalization
2. clarification
3. expansion
 4. ennoblement
5. qualitative impoverishment
6. quantitative impoverishment
7. the destruction of rhythms
8. the destruction of underlying networks of signification
9. the destruction of linguistic patternings
10. the destruction of vernacular networks or their exoticization
11. the destruction of expressions and idioms
12. the effacement of the superimposition of languages

The publishing industry

Venuti describes how the publishers tend to hide and influence the work of the translator, as
the market requires fluent target texts; the publishers drive the translator to a more
domesticating translation.
Another power element Venuti points out is the literary agent, the agents represent the writers
and take a percentage of their profits, they help the translator offering to him the possibility to
be published in other countries, but the more requested books are the ones which are easily
assimilated in the target culture, so again the translation is modified.

Venuti speaks against the Anglo-American publishing, defining it as ethnocentric monolingual

people who refuse the foreignness to aggressively preserve their own culture

The reception and reviewing of translations

The best way, in Venuti and Meg Brown opinion, to examine the reception of a translation is
analyzing the reviews of a translated text. As Venuti noted the translation notes are the first
overlooked when cuts are requested, the whole text is often considered by the review writers
as a text written in their language completely leaving out the translator’s work. Sometimes
some Anglo-American review writers talk about a TT as if the text were been written by an
English author, making comparisons with other Anglo-American texts.
Sometimes the writers of the reviews talk about the translation, judging it as inappropriate or
less fluent often without having any knowledge in the field.

Chapter 10
Philosophical theories of translation
Over the second half of the twentieth century we see an inter-attraction of translation and
philosophy.
The hermeneutic movement owes its origins to the German Romantics such as
Shleiermacher, and, in the twentieth century, to Heidegger. George Steiner’s “After Babel”
is the key advance of the hermeneutics in translation. Steiner defines the Hermeneutic
Approach as “investigation of what it means to understand a piece of oral or written speech
and diagnose the process”. This investigation consists of 4 parts:
1 iniative trust (The translator’s first move is a belief and trust that there is something in the
source language that can be understood);
2 aggression (It’s an invasive move. The translator invades, extracts and brings home);
3 incorporation (Importing of the meaning of the foreign text can potentially dislocate or
relocate the whole of the native structure). The target culture either ingests and becomes
enriched by the foreign text, or it is infected by it and ultimately rejects it
4 compensation (The meaning of source language leaves the original with a dialectically
enigmatic residue). Dialectic because there has been a lost for the ST, while the residue is
seen as a positive enhancement produced by the act of translation.

Ezra Pound’s work was very much influenced by his reading of the literature of the past,
including Greek and Latin. In his translations, he sought to escape from the rigid straitjacket of
the Victorian/Edwardian English tradition by experimenting with an archaic style which Venuti
link to his own foreignizing strategy. He emphasize with his translation and criticism the
way that language can energize a text in translation.
Benjamin
Walter Benjamin’s 1923 essay, translated into English as “The task of the translator” was
originally an introduction to his own German translation of Baudelaire’s “Tableaux Parisiens”.
Central to Benjamin’s paper is the notion that a translation does not exist to give an
understanding of the meaning or information content of the original, but also giving the
original a sort of continued life. In this expansive and creative way translation provide the
creation of a “Pure and higher language”.

Deconstruction: the movement owes its origins to the 1960s in France and its leading figure
is the French philosopher Jaques Derrida. The terminology employed by Derrida is complex
and shifting, like the meaning it dismantles. The term “différance” is perhaps the most
significant; it plays on the two meanings of the verb différer (defer and differ), neither of
which encompasses its meaning. Deconstruction begins to dismantle some of the key
premisses of linguistics, starting with Saussure’s clear division of signified and signifier and the
stability of linguistic sign. Différance suggests a location at some uncertain point in space and
time between differ and defer. Derrida redefines Benjamin’s pure language as différance and
deconstruct the distinction between source and target text because the original and translation
owe a debt to each other.

Chapter 11
Translation studies as an interdiscipline

Interdiscipline challenges the current conventional way of thinking by promoting and

responding to new links between different types of knowledge and technologies. But the
relation between translation studies and other discipline is not fixed.

In her book “Translation studies: An Integrated Approach” Mary Snell Horby attempts to
integrate a wide variety of different linguistic and literary concepts in an overarching and
integrated approach.

In more recent years, translation studies have gone beyond purely linguistic approaches to
develop its own models, such as Toury’s descriptive translation studies.
Much research in translation studies makes use of techniques and concepts from a range of
background
A combination of linguistics analysis and critical theory has been made by Keith Harvey that
with his Theory of contact examines the way gay man and lesbian work within appropriate
prevailing straight and homophobic discourse from a range of communities.
The new studies such as Harvey’s, represents an important step and produces very
interesting results by combining a linguistic toolkit and a cultural studies approach.
For the moment the kinds of interdisciplinary approach seem to be one way of bridging the gap
between linguistics and cultural studies.

The role of changing technologies

The tools at the disposal of the translator and the theorist are altering. One of the reasons for
this is the growth in the new technologies, which inevitably determine new areas of study.
Corpus linguistics already facilitates the study of features of translated language. The
availability and exchange of information facilitate communication among scholars. Finally the
internet is also changing the status and visibility of translators.
At present, however, application to the practice of translation remains somewhat problematic

SYNOPSIS OF THE BOOK Trainee translators have available to them a

wealth of literature to help them consider these matters, but this
material varies in quality, uses a wide range of different
terminology, has differing priorities, and is often hard to find.
Munday's book is an introductory guide to this literature, aimed
primarily at students studying translation theory as part of a
practical course in translation. Pp. 15-16 give an outline of the
different chapters of the book, which I have drawn on in the summary
that follows. The first chapter gives an overview of the field, based
largely on Holmes (1988/2000). Chapter 2 "Translation theory before
the twentieth century", concentrates on Cicero, St. Jerome, Luther,
Dryden and Schleiermacher.

The next four chapters deal with what Munday calls "linguistic-
oriented theories". Chapter 3 "Equivalence and equivalent effect"
looks at Nida's distinction between "formal equivalence" and "dynamic
equivalence", as well as the semantic framework proposed in Nida &
Taber (1969). We are also introduced to the distinction between
semantic and communicative translation put forward by Newmark (1988),
and the analysis of different types of equivalence in Koller
(1979/89). (Semantic translation stays closer to the original text,
and is recommended when the distinctive style of the original author
is thought to be worth preserving. It may involve unusual forms of
expression in the target text. Communicative translation can depart
further from the original, and the result may look no different from
any non-translated text in the target language. Serious works of
literature where the author has a notable personal style may be
translated semantically; "popular" fiction is more likely to be
translated communicatively).

Chapter 4 "The translation shift approach" focuses on attempts to

classify the linguistic changes or "shifts" that translators make,
including the work of Vinay & Darbelnet (1958, 1995), Catford (1965)
and Leuven-Zwart (1989, 1990). Chapter 5 "Functional theories of
translation" outlines text-type and skopos theories (Reiss 1981/2000;
Vermeer 1989/2000), and Nord's text-linguistic approach (Nord 1988;
1991). ("Skopos", the Greek word for "aim" or "purpose", is used for
the purpose of a translation and of the action of translating, and
takes into account how the translation is commissioned). In Chapter 6
"Discourse and register analysis approaches", Munday summarises the
work of House (1997) on translation quality, as well as the discourse-
oriented work of Baker (1991) and Hatim and Mason (1990), who draw on
Halliday's systemic-functional linguistics.

The remainder of the book is devoted to "cultural studies" approaches

to translation. Chapter 7 "Systems theories" discusses the place of
translated literature within the cultural and literary system of the
target language (TL), following Even-Zohar (1971/2000). Toury's
"descriptive translation studies (1995), which grew out of this work,
is then outlined, highlighting Toury's notion of translation norms,
and his proposal that translated texts tend to have specific
characteristics such as greater standardisation and less variation in
style than their source texts. (Translation norms are sociocultural
constraints which affect the way that translation is viewed and
carried out in different cultures, societies and times). This chapter
then summarises the development of this work by Chesterman (1997), and
looks briefly at the Manipulation School (Hermans 1985). Chapter 8
"Varieties of cultural studies" examines Lefevere (1992), who treats
translation as "rewriting" and identifies ideological pressures on
translated texts. This chapter also looks at the writing of Simon
(1996) on gender in translation, and at postcolonial translation
theories which stress the part that translation has played in the
colonisation process and the image of the colonised (cf. Bassnett and
Trivedi 1999).

Chapter 9 "Translating the foreign: the (in)visibility of translation"

follows Berman (1985/2000) and Venuti (1995) in analysing the foreign
element in translation and exploring the contention that translation
is often considered a derivative and second-rate activity, and that
the most common method of literary translation is to "naturalise" the
text so that it makes for comfortable reading in the target language.
Munday argues that this method should not be taken for granted. In
Chapter 10 "Philosophical theories of translation" the book introduces
a selection of philosophical issues concerned with language and
translation, including Steiner's (1998) "hermeneutic motion" and
Derrida (1995) and deconstructionism. Finally chapter 11 "Translation
studies as an interdiscipline" starts from Snell-Hornby (1995) and
looks at recent work that tries to integrate the linguistic and
cultural approaches. The author also discusses the relationship
between the internet and translation.

Each chapter contains:

- one or more case studies which apply the concepts of that chapter to
a particular text. - a set of "discussion and research points" as
activities for students. - a list of key concepts and key literature
at the beginning. - a summary at the end.

EVALUATION

In my opinion, this book is a brave and largely successful attempt to

synthesise a wide range of disparate material. Most of the important
contributions to translation studies are represented here, though the
book leaves out some work that perhaps should have been included. To
mention three in particular: many people think that Gutt (1991/2000)
is an important and original study, which says useful things about
different types of translation and which is linked to a specific
linguistic framework, relevance theory. Gutt is mentioned briefly in
passing, but with no attempt to discuss his ideas in detail.

Secondly, there is an interesting line of research, mostly in French,

which develops some ideas of Vinay & Darbelnet (1958). Munday limits
his discussion of Vinay & Darbelnet to their classification of
translation shifts, ignoring the bulk of their book which proposes
that there are underlying differences between French and English
textual practices. Other writers on translation who have pursued this
idea include Guillemin-Flescher (1981), Ballard (1995, 1998), Van Hoof
(1989) and Delisle (1995) (although Delisle's earlier work on
discourse analysis (1982) is alluded to, I think that his later work
is more important in a book like this).

A third body of work under-reported here is that of Peter Newmark, who

has said many profound things about translation. Students should be
made aware of his recent collections of provocative insights (1993,
1998), not least because they are more readable than most writing
about translation. I accept that Newmark is hard to summarise, but he
has much more to offer than just the distinction between semantic and
communicative translation outlined in chapter 3 - which in any case is
refined and elaborated in his more recent books.

As a textbook this volume is admirably designed, and its weaknesses

mostly stem from the field that it covers and are not the fault of the
writer. Munday criticises much of the work he outlines in the earlier
chapters because it relies on notions such as "equivalent
communicative effect" which are slippery and very hard to define; or
because the principles discussed in these chapters sometimes do not
take into account different types of text (translating a poem is
different in many ways from translating a software manual). But at no
point in the book does he mention any work which tries to define
"equivalent communicative effect" precisely (perhaps there is none
worth mentioning), and his section on text-types in chapter 5 is very
brief - indeed, it questions "whether text types can really be
differentiated" (p. 76). This is too dismissive: translators have to
operate with some notion of the type of text which they are about to
translate, so a principled attempt to classify texts in a
translationally-relevant way can help them do this in a more informed
way.

What's more, many of the contributions which are discussed in the

chapters on "cultural studies approaches" focus exclusively on
literary translation - a "text-type" limitation if ever there was one.
On the other hand, as a linguist who is sceptical about cultural
studies I was pleased to find some of the topics covered in these
chapters genuinely enlightening. Should serious literature be
translated in a way which loses its foreign flavour, or should readers
of translated literature be encouraged to read versions which are not
"naturalised", even though they will be more difficult? My son, a
literature student, has recently read English translations of novels
by Balzac, Kafka, Marquez and Grass, trying to remember each time that
the version he was reading was not as definitive as the original.
Maybe published translations of novels ought to come with a health
warning, indicating the approach to translation that was adopted.

The book covers a wide area, and some topics are only sketched
rapidly. The work of Nida in chapter 3, and the discourse-based
approaches in chapter 6, will be hard for some students to grasp for
this reason. On the other hand, Munday makes great efforts to
encourage further reading of the original sources, giving references
which are quite easy to access. As a survey of some of the basic
material in translation studies this book is generally excellent, and
I think that students and teachers of translation will welcome it with
enthusiasm.