Translation in the XX century

EITHER PRIMARY OR SECONDARY

1) If it is PRIMARY it participates actively in shaping the center on the polysystem. Translations are a leading factor in the formation of new models for the target culture, introducing new poetics and so on. when a young literature is being established. When a literature is peripheral or weak and imports literary types which it is lacking (smaller nation or language is dominated by a larger one). When there is a critical turning point in literary history which challenge traditional models or there is a vacuum in the literature of the country.

2) Secondary position: peripheral system within the polysistem; has no major influence over the central system and even becomes a conservative element, preserving conservative forms or literary norms of the target system. Even-Zohar points out that the secondary position is the "normal" one for translated literatures. A culture translates according to need. The position occupied by translated.

literature in the polysystem conditions thetranslation strategies

PRIMARY SECONDARY

translators tend to break conventions translators use existing target culturemodels for the tt

TT reproduces a close match of the ST

Influence of the foreign language may lead to

The production of new models in the TL

ADVANTAGES OF THE POLYSYSTEM THEORY

Literature itself is studies alongside the social, historical and cultural forces

• Even-Zohar moves away from the isolated study of translations, including

• cultural and literary systems connected

The adequacy of a translation varies according to the social, historical and

• cultural situation of the text

LIMITS: applied only to literary translation

TOURY AND DESCRIPTIVE TRANSLATION STUDIES

Worked with Even-Zohar in Tel Aviv

• He focuses on developing a general theory of translation

• Interested in methodology and research techniques made as explicit as possible

•1) Translations are first and foremost «facts of target cultures: on

Occasion facts of a peculiar status, sometimes even constituting identifiable (sub-systems of their own)

He proposes a 3-phase methodology for systematic DTS:

1. Situate the text within the target culture system
2. Undertake a textual analysis of the ST and TT to identify relationships between corresponding segments in the two texts (coupled pairs): identify translation shifts, both obligatory and non-obligatory
3. Attempt generalizations about the pattern identified in the two texts, which helps to reconstruct the process of translation for this ST-TT pair
4. Repeat these phases for other pairs of similar texts

This leads to the identification of the NORMS pertaining to each kind of translation: the ultimate aim is to state laws of behavior for translation in general

Distinguish trends of translation behavior, making generalizations about the decision-making processes of the translator

NORMS are: "the translation of general values or ideas shared by a community"

to what is right or wrong, adequate or inadequate – into perfomance instructions appropriate for and applicable to particular situations» Toury 2012,63

Norms are sociocultural CONSTRAINTS specific to a culture, society and time•

Rules〈---------〈 norms 〈---------〈idiosyncrasies

RULES are supported by legislation: strongest constraints

NORMS are generally agreed forms of behavior, weaker than rules

CONVENTIONS are more informal still

TRANSLATION is an activity governed by norms, and these norms determine the type and extent of equivalence manifested in actual translations: regularity of behavior

Options that translators in a given socio-historical context select on a regular basis

NORMS OPERATING IN THE TRANSLATION PROCESSES

1) INITIAL NORM

2) PRELIMINARY NORM

3) OPERATIONAL NORM

1) INITIAL NORM: a general choice made by the translator with regard to the ST or the TT Individual translator’s choice to subject oneself either to the original text or target

1. culture's linguistic and literary norms. It determines whether the translation is source-norm oriented or target-norm oriented.

   IF SOURCE ORIENTED: adequate translation

   IF TARGET ORIENTED: acceptable translation

   Two poles: adequacy & acceptability

   No translation is ever entirely "adequate" to the original version because the cultural norms cause shifts from the source text structures.

   No translation is ever entirely "acceptable" to the target culture because some new information and forms will be introduced to the system.

2. PRELIMINARY NORM

   Involving factors such as which govern the choice of the work and the overall translation strategy.

   It includes the choice of translation policies and the directness of the translations (whether translation occurs through an intermediate language)

3. OPERATIONAL NORM

   Presentation and linguistic matter of the TT (relocation of passages, textual segmentation, addition of passages,

The examination of the ST and TT should reveal shifts in the relations between the two that have taken place in translation, which is in fact at the root of his idea of equivalence.

Equivalence is ASSUMED, not achieved: the analysis of shifts is a way to understand how translators USUALLY operate.

CONSEQUENCE:

The cumulative identification of norms in descriptive studies will enable the formulation of PROBABILISTIC LAWS OF TRANSLATION AND THENCE OF UNIVERSALS OF TRANSLATION.

These NORMS are produced by some sort of LAW underneath them: what happens in the process of translating is related to a certain context of production.

Toury's proportion of laws of translations:

1. The law of growing standardization: translations are flatter, simpler, less-structured, less ambiguous – if compared to non-translations. This happens when the status of the translation is more peripheral.
2. The law of interference: Translators bring across structures that

are in the source text, even when these are not normal in the TLTOLERANCE OF INTERFERENCE depends on socio-cultural factors and the prestige of the different literary system: we tolerate more interference when translating from a prestigious language or culture, especially if the target language or culture is considered to be «more» minor

The key element that determines these norms is the social and cultural• condition

Ex. Censorship: TT would standardize or substitute culture-specific elements• and omit chunks that conflict with the accepted target culture ideology

Criticism to Toury’s work

1. Where is the ST’s culture in terms of• Status of the source text• Promotion of translation in the soruce culture• Effect of the translation exerted back on the system of the source culture•

The «universals» of translations are common tendencies in translated texts, but are potentially infinite, since every act of translation is different.

«cenoni»)The Concept of NORMS and Universals has a great bearing on the development ofrecent TRANSLATION STUDIESMANIPULATION SCHOOLBELGIUM, ISRAEL; THE NETHERLANDS (1975- 1980)•José Lambert, Theo Hermans

Manipulation of Literature: Studies in Literary translation, edited by Theo Hermans(1985)

Central concept: Translation is manipulation of the ST; literature is not studied inisolation but within its social, historical and cultural context.

Scholars compare and study traslations, not the process of translating.

VIEW ON TRANSLATED LITERATURE:«interested in the norms and constraints that govern the production and reception oftranslations» often through comparison of different translations and translators.

“From the point of view of the target literature, all translation implies a degree ofmanipulation of the source text for a certain purpose”

They compare different Ts of the same text (diachronically), study the reception of Tsin a specific culture, etc.

Thus, their analyses belong more to the field of Comparative Literature. However, the significant fact is that they examine translated texts / literature in translation. The focus is on description of the TT as a manipulated text.

TRANSLATION STUDIES: the CULTURAL TURN

Translation is seen as a text type in its own right, as an integral part of the target culture and not merely as the reproduction of another text." (Snell-Hornby: 24)

Move from translation as TEXT to translation as CULTURE

• This was called the "cultural turn", developed especially by the scholars Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere.

This approach includes studies of changing standards in translation over time, the power exercised in and on the publishing industry in pursuit of specific ideologies, feminist writing and translation, translation as appropriation, translation and colonization, translation as rewriting. literature is regarded as one of the systems of culture, and a culture/society is

The literary system is influenced by its environment and interacts with other systems. These interactions are determined by the logic of the culture to which they belong. In this system, there is a constant struggle for conquering a place in the literary canon. (André Lefevere, 1992: pp. 11-14)

Who controls the "logic of the culture"? In the case of literary systems, control comes from inside and outside the system.

Control from the inside comes from the professionals within the literary system: critics, publishers, reviewers, teachers, translators.

Control from the outside comes from 'patronage', i.e., the powers (institutions, persons, etc.) that