A Companion to Translation Studies

by Piotr Kuhiwczak (Editor), Karin Littau (Editor)

Overview

A Companion to Translation Studies is the first work of its kind. It provides an authoritative guide to key approaches in translation studies. All of the essays are specially commissioned for this collection, and written by leading international experts in the field. The book is divided into nine specialist areas: culture, philosophy, linguistics, history, literary, gender, theatre and opera, screen, and politics. Contributors include Susan Bassnett, Gunilla Anderman and Christina Schäffner. Each chapter gives an in-depth account of theoretical concepts, issues and debates which define a field within translation studies, mapping out past trends and suggesting how research might develop in the future. In their general introduction the editors illustrate how translation studies has developed as a broad interdisciplinary field. Accompanied by an extensive bibliography, this book provides an ideal entry point for students and scholars exploring the multifaceted and fast-developing discipline of translation studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847695420
Publisher:	Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Publication date:	04/12/2007
Series:	Topics in Translation , #34
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	314 KB

About the Author

Piotr Kuhiwczak is Associate Professor at the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Warwick. He has published extensively in the fields of comparative literature, cultural studies and translation studies, and is co-author of Successful Polish-English Translation: Tricks of the Trade (3rd revised edn 2005).

Karin Littau is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex. Her work on translation and film adaptation has appeared in a number of books and journals, among them MLN, Dedalus, and TTR. She is the author of Theories of Reading. Books, Bodies, and Bibliomania (2006).

PIOTR KUHIWCZAK is Associate Professor at the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Warwick. He has published extensively in the fields of comparative literature, cultural studies and translation studies, and is co-author of Successful Polish-English Translation: Tricks of the Trade (3rd revised edn 2005).

KARIN LITTAU is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex. Her work on translation and film adaptation has appeared in a number of books and journals, among them MLN, Dedalus, and TTR. She is the author of Theories of Reading. Books, Bodies, and Bibliomania (2006).

Read an Excerpt

A Companion to Translation Studies

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By Piotr Kuhiwczak, Karin Littau

Multilingual Matters

Copyright © 2007 Piotr Kuhiwczak, Karin Littau
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84769-542-0

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CHAPTER 1

Culture and Translation

SUSAN BASSNETT

Why did Translation Studies take a Cultural Turn?

Along time ago, in 1990 to be precise, André Lefevere and I were writing an introductory chapter to a collection of essays entitled Translation, History and Culture (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1990). We wanted to draw attention to changes that we believed were increasingly underpinning research in translation studies, changes that signalled a shift from a more formalist approach to translation to one that laid greater emphasis on extra-textual factors. The study of translation practice, we argued, had moved on and the focus of attention needed to be on broader issues of context, history and convention not just on debating the meaning of faithfulness in translation or what the term 'equivalence' might mean. The kind of questions being asked about translation were changing:

Once upon a time the questions that were always being asked were 'How can translation be taught' and 'How can translation be studied?' Those who regarded themselves as translators were often contemptuous of any attempts to teach translation, while those who claimed to teach often did not translate and so had to resort to the old evaluative method of setting one translation alongside another and examining both in a formalist vacuum. Now, the questions have been changed. The object of study has been redefined; what is studied is text embedded within its network of both source and target cultural signs. (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1990: 11–12)

When we wrote that, we were mindful of a split between linguistic approaches to translation and literary ones, and we sought to challenge both as too narrow and prescriptive. Translation studies had been developing as a distinct discipline through the 1980s, employing methodologies that drew upon research in linguistics and comparative literature and we felt, along with many other people working in the field of translation, that the time had come for increased employment of the tools of cultural history and cultural studies. Looking back, our introduction appears both naive and simplistic, for translation studies developed so rapidly in the 1990s and now occupies such a solid place in the academy that there is no longer any need for special pleading. The arguments we sought to present – that translation plays a major role in shaping literary systems, that translation does not take place on a horizontal axis, that the translator is involved in complex power negotiations (mediating between cultures, as it were), that translation is always a rewriting of an original – have been taken much further by scholars such as Michael Cronin (1996; 2000), Edwin Gentzler (1993/2001), Lorna Hardwick (2000), Theo Hermans (1999b, 2006), Tejaswini Niranjana (1992), Douglas Robinson (2002), Sherry Simon (1996), Harish Trivedi (1993), Elsa Vieira (1999), Lawrence Venuti (1995; 1998b) and many others. Translation studies has become an accepted academic subject and books, journals and doctoral dissertations appear faster than one can read them all, and at the heart of most of the exciting new research are broad questions about ideology, ethics and culture.

Even in 1990 we were by no means the only translation scholars arguing the case for a cultural turn. The move to broaden the object of study beyond the immediate frame of the text had started long before, with the work of the Polysystems Group inspired by Itamar Even-Zohar (1978), Gideon Toury (1978) and James Holmes (1978). In Germany, Canada, Brazil, France and India, arguments similar to ours were being presented, albeit from different perspectives, as translators and translation scholars set about the task of redefining the importance of translation in literary history, tracing the genealogy of translation in their own individual cultural contexts, and exploring more fully the ideological implications of translation and the power relationships that are involved as a text is transferred from one context to another.

Polysystems theory was primarily concerned with literary translation, but other translation scholars whose work included the non-literary were pursuing parallel paths. The skopos theory, for example, developed by Hans Vermeer, Katharina Reiß (Reiß & Vermeer, 1984) and others, postulates that the objective or function of a translation determines the translation strategies to be employed. Hence the translator's subjective takes precedence, and the function that a translation is meant to fulfil in the target culture enables that translator to make certain choices. This is a far cry from source-focused theories of translation, and can also be said to reflect a cultural turn. Summarising translation studies in the 1980s and 1990s, Edwin Gentzler writes:

The two most important shifts in theoretical developments in translation theory over the past two decades have been (1) the shift from source-oriented theories to target-text-oriented theories and (2) the shift to include cultural factors as well as linguistic elements in the translation training models. Those advocating functionalist approaches have been pioneers in both areas. (Gentzler, 2001: 70)

What is obvious now, with hindsight, is that the cultural turn was a massive intellectual phenomenon, and was by no means only happening in translation studies. Across the humanities generally, cultural questions were assuming importance. Linguistics has undergone a cultural turn, with the rise of discourse analysis and, as Douglas Robinson (2002) has argued, a move away from constative towards performative linguistics. The growth of interest in corpus linguistics, pioneered by Mona Baker, is arguably another manifestation of a cultural shift in linguistics.

In literary studies, cultural questions took over long ago from formalist approaches to textual study. From post-structuralism onwards the tidal waves of new approaches to literature that swept through the last decades of the 20th century all had a cultural dimension: feminism, gender criticism, deconstruction, post-colonialism, hybridity theory. Literary studies adopted methods from cultural studies, blurring the lines between what had once been distinct fields of investigation. History too underwent a similar shift, with more emphasis on cultural and social history, and the expansion of what had once been marginal areas such as the history of medicine, the history of the family and the history of science. Cultural geography led to a renaissance of geography as a subject. As area studies grew in importance, modern language departments renamed themselves to emphasise the cultural approach. Classics discovered a new generation of students whose interest in the subject was fuelled by studying the relationship between ancient cultures and contemporary ones.

Lorna Hardwick, scholar of ancient Greek and author of a book on intercultural translation, suggests that the act of translating words also 'involves translating or transplanting into the receiving culture the cultural framework within which an ancient text is embedded' (Hardwick, 2000: 22). She makes bold claims for translation as an instrument of change, and in so doing alters the emphasis for today's student of classical languages. The task facing the translator of ancient texts, she argues, is to produce translations that go beyond the immediacy of the text and seek to articulate in some way (she uses the organic metaphor of 'transplantation', which derives from Shelley) the cultural framework within which that text is embedded. Moreover it is the very act of translation that enables contemporary readers to construct lost civilisations. Translation is the portal through which the past can be accessed.

The cultural turn in translation studies, then, can be seen as part of a cultural turn that was taking place in the humanities generally in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and has altered the shape of many traditional subjects. In translation studies, polysystems theory had prepared the ground for a cultural turn since, despite its formalist origins, the issues that came to occupy a prominent position related principally to questions of literary history and the fortune of translated texts in the receiving culture. As an example of parallel trends in the study of translation and the study of literature, we need only think of the way maps of literary history can be altered when a period is considered from an alternative point of reference.

Feminist criticism questioned the dominance of male writers in the literary canon and effectively forced a reassessment of how that canon had been constructed. In consequence, if we consider the 18th century from a post-feminist perspective, it no longer appears as a century dominated by male writers, but rather as the age when women began to make a major contribution to intellectual life. Similarly, if we look from a translation studies perspective at the 15th century in England – which used to be regarded as something of a wasteland, with little of any significance being produced after the death of Chaucer in 1400 – what we find is a period of intense translation activity of both secular and sacred texts. The feminist reassessment of the 18th century in terms of rethinking the canon and the re-evaluation of literary production in the 15th century in terms of the importance of the translations undertaken are but two examples of how new information can change our historical perspective. The works by women had simply become invisible, just as the importance of translation had been ignored. Reassessing these two periods of literary history involves rethinking our assumptions about what constitutes significant literature. In both cases, a parallel process of questioning established norms has taken place, and this process can be considered a definite cultural turn.

Central to polysystems theory as articulated by Even-Zohar was contestation of established literary canons. Even-Zohar argued that any model of a literary system should include translated literature, for translation was often the conduit through which innovation and change can be initiated: 'no observer of the history of any literature can avoid recognising as an important fact the impact of translations and their role in the synchrony and diachrony of a certain literature' (Even-Zohar, 1978: 15). Having stated his belief in the fundamental importance of the role of translations in a literary system, Even-Zohar then endeavoured to define the circumstances in which translations might assume particular importance. He pointed out that, as literatures evolve, their need for translations fluctuates; hence a well-established literary system might translate less than one that is undergoing changes and upheaval. Newly evolving literatures would, according to Even-Zohar's theory, translate more texts, a hypothesis proven by translation scholars (e.g. Macura, 1990) working in northern or central European literatures, for example. Literatures, such as Czech or Finnish, that evolved in the 19th century in the context of both a linguistic revival and a political struggle for national independence were greatly aided by translation. In complete contrast, we have China, which for centuries translated very little since Chinese writers had no need of external influences. Today, however, there is a translation boom in China, linked to modernisation, Westernisation and China's entry into the global economy. English literature offers yet another example: translation activity started to slow down in the 18th century, after several centuries that had seen the introduction of new poetic forms (e.g. the sonnet and ottava rima), new ideas (e.g. political and social theory) and revolutionary shifts in religion with the coming of the Reformation and the great debates about Bible translation. By the late 18th century the need for innovation from outside had diminished, and the wealth of writers producing texts in English resulted in a diminishing of translation. This resulted in a decline in the status of translation, so that today translation into English is minimal and, as English continues to develop as a global lingua franca, there are no signs of translation regaining the importance it had in the age of Shakespeare or the age of Dryden.

Even-Zohar's (1978) proposition that cultures translate according to need seems self-evident today, but in its time it was an extremely important statement, for the implications of his theory of cultural change were enormous. The historical situation, he suggested, would determine the quantity and type of translations that might be undertaken, and the status of those translations would be greater or lesser according to the position of the receiving culture. So a work could be fundamentally important in the source culture, and could then be translated and have no impact at all in the receiving culture or, vice versa, a translation could alter the shape of the receiving literary system. The case of Jack London, a relatively minor American novelist who enjoys canonical status in Russia and other former Soviet countries, is an example of how translation can radically alter the fortunes of an individual writer. Another such case is provided by Clarice Lispector, the Brazilian novelist who was translated into French and English in the 1980s by very able translators. The translations came at a moment when the continent of South America was the object of fascination in European literary circles, and writers such as Borges, Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa were lionised. Lispector filled a particular need: she was female, Brazilian and beautifully translated, among others, by Giovanni Pontiero. As a result, her works were widely read and she came to occupy a more prominent position in Brazilian letters outside her own country than she had ever enjoyed at home in Brazil (see Lispector, 1992a, 1992b).

A further example of the cultural turn in translation studies has been the expansion of research into norms governing translation strategies and techniques. Gideon Toury (1978; 1995), Andrew Chesterman (1993) and Theo Hermans (1999b) in particular have sought to explore translational norms, in terms not only of textual conventions but also in terms of cultural expectations. Toury is explicit about the cultural importance of norms in translation:

Translation activities should be regarded as having cultural significance. Consequently, 'translatorship' amounts first and foremost to being able to play a social role, i.e. to fulfil a function allotted by a community – to the activity, its practitioners, and/or their products – in a way which is deemed appropriate in its own terms of reference. The acquisition of a set of norms for determining the suitability of that kind of behaviour and for manoeuvring between all the factors which may constrain it, is therefore a prerequisite for becoming a translator within a cultural environment. (Toury, 1978: 83)

More recently, there has been growing interest in examining norms of accountability operating in a particular context, as attention shifts again in translation studies towards greater emphasis on ethical issues in translation.

By the time Lefevere and I wrote our book, Constructing Cultures (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1998), we felt able to say simply that the house of translation now had many mansions. We recognised the enormous amount of work being put into all aspects of translation, into translator training and translation theory, and we recognised also the different emphases that the growing number of translation studies scholars placed on the multiple aspects of translation. In our introduction (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1998:6), we suggested that the most tremendous change in the field of translation had not happened as more inter-fields or sub-fields (literary, anthropological, cultural, etc.) were added to the linguistic, but rather that the goal of work in the field had itself been widened:

In the 1970s, translation was seen, as it undoubtedly is, as 'vital to the interaction between cultures'. What we have done is to take this statement and stand it on its head: if translation is, indeed, as everybody believes vital to the interaction between cultures, why not take the next step and study translation, not just to train translators, but precisely to study cultural interaction. (Bassnett & Lefevere, 1998: 6)

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from A Companion to Translation Studies by Piotr Kuhiwczak, Karin Littau. Copyright © 2007 Piotr Kuhiwczak, Karin Littau. Excerpted by permission of Multilingual Matters.
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Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

1. Culture and Translation - Susan Bassnett 

2. Philosophy and Translation - Anthony Pym 

3. Linguistics and Translation - Gunilla Anderman 

4. History and Translation - Lynne Long 

5. Literary Translation - Theo Hermans 

6. Gender and Translation - Luise von Flotow 

7. Screen Translation - Eithne O’Connell 

8. Theatre and Opera Translation - Mary Snell-Hornby 

9. Politics and Translation – Christina Schäffner 

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

The strength of the book is thoughtful, well-researched and carefully documented. Anyone who is interested in translation studies and relevant discipline will find beneficial to read it.

Bibliographical and Lexicographical Information, Babel, Vol 57:2, 2011 - Lu Shisheng

"This excellent critical companion will be welcomed by students and established scholars alike. Organised thematically, it presents different strands and schools of thought in the context of their contributions to particular shared concerns, thus offering an ideal springboard for further reading in both translation studies and neighbouring disciplines."

Kate Sturge