TRANSLATION SCHOLARS AND THEORIES TIMELINE

 0300 BC - 0100 BC Greek Septuagint

Greek Septuagint –The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that was
adopted by the Christians. Its translation process, which spanned over a long period starting in the
3rd c BCE and ending in the 1st c BCE, took place in stages and has been described as ‘the first
major translation in western culture’ (Tessa Rajak, Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the
Ancient Jewish Diaspora, OUP, 2009). Some believed that the translators who worked in the
process had divine inspiration. The Septuagint became the basis of old Latin versions of the Bible,
collectively known as the Vetus Latina, and also of the Coptic, old Slavonic, old Armenian, old
Georgian and old Syriac versions of the Old Testament. St Jerome also used it (see St Jerome),
along with the Hebrew version, for his translation of the Bible.

 0046 BC Marcus Tullius Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) - Roman rhetorician and politician. In his work De optimo
genere oratorum (46 BCE) he outlines his approach to translation as avoiding the then normal
practice of ‘word-for-word’ translation (see St Jerome), which replaced each individual word of the
ST with its closest grammatical equivalent in the TL, aiming instead to reproduce the ‘general style
and force of the language’. In Western translation theory Cicero is often identified with the
concepts of literal and free translation.

‘Literal’ translation - ‘Literal’ translation, as opposed to ‘free’ translation, is understood as a type

of translation that adheres closely to the surface structures of the ST message, both in terms of
semantics and syntax. The term ‘literal translation’ has been used by scholars in different ways. In
the 1950s, Vinay and Darbelnet use it as synonym of what they call direct translation and also to
refer to one of the three procedures used in direct translation whereas the term ‘free’ translation
is used within the framework of oblique translation (see Vinay and Darbelnet) . Antoine Berman
on the other hand, uses the term to refer to the ‘signifying process’ that allows translators to bring
the sense of the foreign into the TT (see Antoine Berman).

‘Free’ translation - ‘free’ translation, as opposed to ‘literal’ translation, attempts to recreate a text
that sounds natural in the TL and therefore does not necessarily adhere closely to the SL elements
and structures. (See also ‘sense-for-sense’ in St Jerome).
  0395 St Jerome

St Jerome (347-420) - Theologian and historian who in 395 completed his translation of the Bible
commissioned by Pope Damasus. This would later become known as the Latin Vulgate. As a basis
for it, St Jerome took not only the Greek Septuagint, the traditional reference, but also the Hebrew
version of the Bible, in what was a controversial decision at the time (see Greek Septuagint). Thus,
St Jerome was the first to note differences between the two versions. St Jerome explained that he
had translated ’not “word-for-word” but “sense-for-sense”’, therefore setting out the dichotomy
that would dominate much of the study of translation until the 20th century.

’word-for-word’ – ‘word for word’ translation, as opposed to its opposite ‘sense-for-sense’

translation, refers to a form of translation in which a SL word is replaced by the closest TL
correspondent (see also ‘literal translation’ in Cicero).

‘sense-for-sense’ - ‘sense-for-sense’ translation, as opposed to its opposite ‘word-for-word’

translation, attempts to translate the meaning of the word within its context and within target
language requirements. (See also ‘free’ translation’ in Cicero).

‘fidelity’, ‘spirit’ and ‘truth’ - The use of these concepts has varied through time. Fidelity, or
faithfulness, was dismissed by the Roman poet Horace (65 – 8 BCE) as literal ‘word–for–word’
translation. However, at the end of the seventeenth century fi trans had come to be identified
with faithfulness to the meaning rather than the words. Spirit similarly has been used in various
ways: the Latin word spiritus denotes creative energy or inspiration, proper to literature, but St
Augustine (354-430 CE) used it to mean the Holy Spirit of God, and his contemporary St Jerome
employed it in both senses. Much later, spirit lost the religious sense and was used in the sense of
the creative energy of a text or language. For St Augustine, spirit and truth (Latin veritas) were
intertwined, with truth having the sense of ‘content’; for St Jerome, truth meant the authentic
Hebrew Biblical text to which he returned in his Latin Vulgate translation. In the twelfth century,
that truth became fully equated with ‘content’.

 0750 – 1250 Abbāsid period of translation

Abbāsid period of translation (750-1250) – A period of intense translation activity centred in

Baghdad, encompassing a range of languages and topics but centred on the translation into Arabic
of Greek scientific and philosophical material, often with Syriac as an intermediary language.
Initially, a highly literal translation method (see Cicero) was adopted, where the Greek word was
given an equivalent Arab word and Greek terms were borrowed into Arabic. When this method
proved unsatisfactory, there was a shift towards ‘sense-for sense’ translation (see St Jerome).

 1483 – 1546 Martin Luther

Martin Luther (1483-1546) – German priest and theologian who was a leading figure of the
Protestant Reformation in Europe. He translated first the New Testament (1522) and later the Old
Testament (1534) into East Central German, which went a long way to reinforcing that form of the
German language as standard. To the accusation that he had altered the Holy Scriptures in his
translations, he countered by saying that he was translating into ‘pure, clear German’ and rejected
a ‘word-for-word’ translation (see St Jerome) strategy since it would be unable to convey the same
meaning as the ST.

Protestant Reformation – European Christian reform movement of the early 16th century that
objected to some of the established doctrines, rituals and structure of the Catholic Church. The
Protestant movement challenged the Church control over thinking and religion through the
translation of the Latin version of the Bible into vernacular languages. It was preceded and
influenced by the European Humanist movement of the 14th and 15th centuries, which advocated
the recovery of classical Latin and Greek and their secular writers. The translation of any book
which diverged from the Church’s interpretation could be considered heretical, being censured or
banned, and the translators ran the risk of entering into conflict with the Church. Such was the
case of Tyndale and Dolet and Martin Luther, a crucial figure in the Reformation (see also William
Tyndale and Étienne Dolet) . The Protestant Reformation was to lead to a huge schism within
Christianity.

 1494 – 1536 William Tyndale

William Tyndale (1494-1536) - English scholar and translator, he was said to have mastered ten
languages, including Hebrew. His English Bible, produced in exile, was later used as the basis for
the Geneva Bible (1560) and King James Version (1611). It was banned and copies confiscated on
the orders of King Henry VIII. Tyndale was abducted, tried for heresy and executed in the
Netherlands in 1536.

 1509 – 1546 Étienne Dolet

Étienne Dolet (1509-1546) - French scholar and translator. In his 1540 manuscript La manière de
bien traduire d’une langue en aultre he set out five principles of the process of translation in order
of importance. He was condemned by the theological faculty of Sorbonne in 1546, apparently for
adding, in his translation of one of Plato’s dialogues, the phrase rien du tout (‘nothing at all’) in a
passage about what existed after death. This led to the accusation that Dolet did not believe in
immortality and he was burned at the stake.

 1631 – 1700 John Dryden

John Dryden (1631-1700) - English poet and translator. In the preface to his translation of Ovid’s
Epistles in 1680, Dryden reduces all translation to three categories: (1) metaphrase, or ‘word by
word and line by line’ translation, which corresponds to literal translation; (2) paraphrase: ‘[where
the author’s] words are not so strictly followed as his sense’ and which this more or less
corresponds to faithful or sense-for-sense translation; and (2) imitation, a free adaptation (see
‘literal translation’ in Cicero and word-for-word and sense-for-sense translation in St Jerome) .
  1747 – 1813 Alexander Tytler

Alexander Tytler (Lord Woodhouselee) (1747-1813) - Scottish historian and professor. His treaty
‘Essay on the principles of translation’ (1790) constitutes one of the first comprehensive and
systematic studies of translation. Tytler defines a ‘good translation’ as being oriented towards the
target language reader and set out three general ‘laws’ or rules that should guide a good
translation: (1) it should fully represent the ideas of the original, (2) it should render the style of
the original and (3) should have the ease of the original composition.

 1768 – 1834 Friedrich Schleiermacher

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) - German theologian and philosopher. In his seminal lecture
Über die verschiedenen Methoden des Übersetzens [‘On the different methods of translating’]
(1813) he expounded a Romantic approach to interpretation based not on absolute truth but on
the individual’s inner feeling and understanding. He distinguished two types of translator:
Dolmetscher and Übersetzer. Schleiermacher considers there to be only two paths open for the
‘true’ translation: to move the writer to the reader or to move the reader to the writer,
Schleiermacher’s preferred approach. In order to achieve this, the translator must adopt an
‘alienating’, rather than a ‘naturalizing’ method. Schleiermacher’s influence has been considerable
(see Venuti and Walter Benjamin and hermeneutics).

Dolmetscher and Übersetzer- According to Schleiermacher, a ‘Dolmetscher’ works on commercial

texts, whereas an ‘Übersetzer’ works on scholarly and artistic texts.

‘alienating’ or ‘foreignizing’ is described by Schleiermacher as a method of translation in which the

value of the foreign is emphasised by “bending” TL word-usage to try to ensure faithfulness to the
ST

‘naturalizing’ – The second method of translation described by Schleiermacher, by which the

foreign text is brought in line with the typical patterns of the TL.

 1923 Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) – literary critic and essayist, philosopher and translator. Benjamin
saw language as magical and its mission to reveal spiritual content. In his seminal essay ‘The Task
of the Translator’ (1923), he suggests that translation serves to ‘express the central reciprocal
relationship between languages’, not by seeking to be the same as the original but by bringing
together the two different languages in a ‘pure’ and higher language. The strategy to achieve this
is through literalism which allows the pure language to shine through.

PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES IN TRANSLATION

Walter Benjamin -1923 // George Steiner – 1975 // Deconstruction – 1960 to present date //

‘Abusive fidelity’ – 1985

  1958 Vinay and Darbelnet

Jean Paul Vinay (1910-1999) and Jean Darbelnet (1904-1990) – In their Stylistique comparée du
français et de l’anglais (1958, Comparative Stylistics of French and English, 1995) they carried out a
comparative stylistic analysis of French and English, noting differences between the languages and
translation shifts and identifying different translation ‘strategies’ and ‘procedures’. Vinay and
Darbelnet described two different strategies for translation: Direct and Oblique translation. They
also classified the procedures that occur in the process of translation and the constraints of
‘servitude’ and ‘option’.

Direct and Oblique translation: According to Vinay and Darbelnet, direct translation occurs when
two languages show close correspondence in terms of lexis and structure. Oblique translation
applies when restructuring is involved. (compare with literal translation and free translation in
Cicero).

These two strategies cover between them seven translation procedures:

1 Direct translation uses the procedures of Borrowing, Calque and Literal translation.

2 Oblique translation covers the procedures of Transposition, Modulation, Équivalence and

Adaptation.

These categories operate at different levels of language: the lexicon, the syntactic structures and
the message.

‘Servitude’ and ‘option’: In Vinay and Darbelnet’s model, ‘servitude’ refers to the obligatory
transpositions and modulations due to a difference between the two language systems, whereas
‘option’ refers to non-obligatory changes that may be due to the translator’s own style and
preferences, or to a change in emphasis. It is ‘option’, according to Vinay and Darbelnet, that
should be the translator’s main concern.

Translation strategies and procedures In the technical sense a strategy is an overall orientation of
the translator (e.g. towards ‘free’ translation or ‘literal’ translation [see in Cicero], towards the TT
or ST, towards ‘domestication’ or ‘foreignization’ [see Venuti]) whereas a procedure is a specific
technique or method used by the translator at a certain point in a text (e.g. The borrowing of a
word from the SL, the addition of an explanation or a footnote in the TT).

 1959 Roman Jakobson

Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) — Russian-American structural linguist. In his paper ‘On linguistic
aspects of translation’ (1959/2004), he describes three categories of translation: intralingual,
interlingual and intersemiotic. Working from the relationship between signifier and signified set
out by Saussure, he examines the problem of equivalence in meaning between words of different
languages.

Intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic translation: Three categories of translation described by

Jakobson (1959/2004):
‘Intralingual’ translation, or ‘rewording’, is an interpretation of verbal signs by other signs in the
same language. For example, a rewording of an expression in Spanish from a Spanish source text.

‘Interlingual’ translation, or ‘translation proper’ is ‘an interpretation of verbal signs by means of

some other language’. For example, a translation of a text from Arabic to Mandarin.

‘Intersemiotic’ translation is the ‘interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non verbal-
signs systems’. For example, a book adapted as a film.

Equivalence in meaning – for Jakobson, a key issue in translation is equivalence in meaning

between ‘code-units’ of different languages or ‘sign systems’. Because each language is a different
system, full equivalence between code units in ST and TT is not usually possible (e.g., be in English,
sein in German, etc., breaks down into ser and estar in Spanish and is absent in Russian and
Arabic). Such cross-linguistic systemic differences do not mean that a message is necessarily
untranslatable into another verbal language, just that some adjustment needs to be made using
translation procedures (see ’Translation strategies and procedures’ in Vinay and Darbelnet).
Equivalence is a recurrent, important and at times controversial concept in modern translation
theory (see also Formal and dynamic equivalence and Equivalent effect in Nida and Equivalence in
Koller).

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) – Swiss linguist whose seminal work led to the establishment
of semiology and structural linguistics. His Course in General linguistics (published posthumously
in 1916) analyses language as a formal system of signs. It is divided into two components: langue,
which refers to the abstract system internalized by a given speech community, and parole, the
individual acts of speech that put language into practice. The linguistic sign is composed of the
signifier and the signified.

THE QUESTION OF EQUIVALENCE

Roman Jakobson – 1959 // Eugene Nida – 1964 // Peter Newmark – 1981 // Werner Koller – 1979

 1964 Eugene Nida

Eugene Nida (1914-2011) American Baptist minister, linguist and translator, he had enormous
experience organizing the translation of the Bible into indigenous languages. He applied analytical
concepts from Noam Chomsky’s generative-transformational grammar in his ‘scientific’ approach
towards translation theory and lexical meaning (Nida 1964, Nida and Taber 1969/1974). Nida
described two types of equivalence in translation: formal and dynamic equivalence. For Nida, the
success of a translation depended above all on achieving an equivalent effect.

Lexical meaning – Nida analyses three types of meaning:

(1) linguistic meaning (the relationship between different words, for example, his return may
mean when he returned.

(2) referential or denotative meaning, which is the dictionary meaning of a word.

(3) connotative or emotive meaning, the associations a word may have. So, he went to France and
he swanned off to France may have the same referential meaning but the connotative meaning is
different, the latter suggesting a negative view of what he has done.

Formal and dynamic equivalence and equivalent effect These concepts represent two general
orientations proposed by Nida (1964). Formal equivalence is focused on the message of the ST,
which produces a TT which follows the content and the linguistic structures as closely as possible.
In dynamic equivalence, the message of the ST is transferred in such a way that the effect on the
receptor is as similar as possible to the effect on the ST reader (known as the principle of
equivalent effect). This requires the translator to adjust the text to the target culture. This move
towards a receptor-oriented approach represented a radical departure from ‘free’ and ‘literal’
translation (see Cicero). In Nida and Taber (1969/74), ‘formal correspondence’ is used in place of
‘formal equivalence’ and ‘functional equivalence’ in place of ‘dynamic equivalence’. (See also
Equivalence in meaning in Jakobson and Equivalence in Koller)

Noam Chomsky American linguist and cognitive scientist. His generative-transformational

grammar of the 1950s-60s considers language to be a body of knowledge innate and universal to
all. Sentences and structures are analysed as a series of related levels governed by rules that move
from deep structure through transformational rules to a surface structure.

 1971 Katherina Reiss

Katharina Reiss — German linguist and translation scholar whose work views the text rather than
the word or sentence as the level at which communication is achieved and equivalence (see
Equivalence in Nida and Koller) must be sought. Based on Karl Bühler’s earlier categorization of
the three functions of language, Reiss formulated a functional model of genre and text type which
describes three types of text: informative, expressive and operative. Each of these text types
requires a different type of translation method and the translation of the predominant function of
the ST should be the determining factor guiding the translation.

TEXT TYPE AND GENRE

See:

Katherina Reiss – 1971 // Mary Snell-Hornby -1988 // Mary Snell Hornby

Mary Snell-Hornby — Austrian-based scholar and translator whose work, Translation Studies: An
Integrated Approach (1988/95), reviews and attempts to integrate a wide variety of different
linguistic and literary concepts in an overarching ‘integrated approach’ to translation based on text
types.
  1972 James S. Holmes

James S. Holmes (1924-86) – Dutch-based scholar who named and defined the field of translation
studies as a distinctive discipline. Holmes put forward an overall framework, describing what
translation studies should cover, comprising two branches:

1.the ‘pure’ branch, subdivided into a ‘descriptive’ branch (which deals with the description of
what happens in translation and is known as Descriptive Translation Studies [see Descriptive
translation Studies and Gideon Toury]), and the ‘theoretical’ branch (which deals with the
establishment of general principles to explain and predict translation phenomena)

2.an ‘applied’ branch (which refers to translator training, tools and criticism)

TRANSLATION STUDIES AS A DISCIPLINE

See: James S. Holmes - 1972

 1975 George Steiner

George Steiner – literary critic, essayist and academic. In his influential book After Babel (1975)
Steiner approaches translation from the point of view of hermeneutics. Steiner proposes a
totalising model, which he terms hermeneutic motion.

Hermeneutics – Term derived from the Greek verb hermeneuein meaning to interpret. Originally
used to refer to the interpretation of the Bible, the German Romantics of the eighteenth and
nineteenth century widened its use to refer to the theory, methodology and processes involved in
interpreting all types of text with the aim of discovering its meaning. It focuses on how the
recovery of meaning is influenced by the fact that texts are distant in time and culture. In
translation, it was George Steiner who advanced the application of hermeneutics.

Hermeneutic motion - Based on hermeneutic theories, and on a conception of translation not as a

science but as an ‘exact art’, George Steiner proposes the model of hermeneutic motion to
recover ST meaning and transfer it to the TT. It comprises four stages: (1) trust (in which the
translator believes there is meaning in the ST); (2) aggression (in which the translator ‘enters’ the
text, extracts the meaning and takes it away); (3) incorporation (in which the meaning is brought
into the TT); and (4) compensation (which compensates for the loss of the ST).

 1977 Juliane House

Juliane House – House’s model of translation quality assessment starts from a criticism of ‘Skopos’
theory and other approaches oriented towards the target audience because of their neglect of the
ST (see ‘Skopos’ Theory and Hans J. Vermeer). This leads to the classification of two different types
of TT: overt translation and covert translation.

Translation quality assessment - House bases her model on comparative ST–TT analysis, leading to
the assessment of the quality of the translation, highlighting ‘mismatches’ or ‘errors’. Drawing on
Halliday’s systemic functional grammar, it is centred on a Register analysis of both ST and TT
according to Field, Tenor and Mode.
Overt translation and covert translation - For Juliane House, an ‘overt translation’, such as the
translation of a novel, does not present itself as an original text to the TT audience - its status as a
translation is clear. In ‘covert translation’, for example a user’s manual for a product, a TT has an
equivalent function to the ST in its discourse environment. Both ST and TT address their respective
receivers directly. Anything which might remind the target audience of the origin and discourse
environment of the ST passes through a ‘cultural filter’. According to House, the distinction overt-
covert translation is a cline rather than a pair of binary opposites: a text can be more, or less,
covert/overt. Both concepts can be traced back to Schleiermacher’s alienating and naturalizing
approaches (see Schleiermacher; also compare with Foreignization and Domestication in Venuti).

Michael A. K. Halliday - Halliday’s systemic functional grammar (SFL) is geared to the study of
language as social semiotic. It sees meaning in the writer’s linguistic choices and systematically
relates these choices to a wider sociocultural framework. The sociocultural environment or
‘Context of Culture’ is the highest level, and in part conditions the genre, understood in SFL as the
conventional text type that is associated with a specific communicative function. Genre itself helps
to determine other elements in the systemic framework such as Register, in SFL a technical term
that links the variables of social context to language choice and comprises three elements: (1)
Field: what is being written about, e.g. the price for a delivery of goods; (2) Tenor: who is
communicating and to whom, e.g. a sales representative to a customer; and (3) Mode: the form of
communication, e.g. written or spoken, formal or informal.

TEXT AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

See:

Juliane House – 1977 // Mona Baker – 1992 // Basil Hatim and Ian Mason – 1990 //

Christiane Nord – 1988

 1990 Basil Hatim and Ian Mason

Basil Hatim and Ian Mason – In their Discourse and the Translator (1990) and The Translator as
Communicator (1997), Hatim and Mason apply Halliday’s linguistic model to the analysis of
translation (see Juliane House), paying particular attention to the realization in translation of
ideational (e.g. transitivity) and inter-personal functions (e.g. modality) as well as cohesion (see
Mona Baker). Translation analysis aims to identify marked (prominent or unusual) forms and
‘dynamic’ and ‘stable’ elements in a text. More stable elements may be translated literally while
more dynamic elements require more creative responses on the part of the translator.
  1978 Skopos theory

Skopos theory – The term skopos (from the Greek meaning ‘purpose’) was introduced first by
Hans J. Vermeer (see separate entry for Hans Vermeer) in the 1970s as a technical term for the
purpose of a translation and the action of translating. The skopos is stipulated by the client,
commissioner or initiator and determines the translation method and strategy to be employed in
order to provide a functionally adequate text in the target culture. Skopos theory allows for the
possibility that the same text may be translated in different ways according to the purpose of the
TT. With such a TT orientation, text quality assessment criteria based on close equivalence to the
ST are not necessarily applicable for assessing the TT (see Translation quality assessment in Juliane
House and Equivalence in Nida and Koller). Instead, functional constancy between ST and TT is
sought and the criteria of coherence (intratextual) and fidelity (intertextual) are applied. Skopos’s
consideration of the cultural role of the TT presaged the cultural turn in translation theory (see
separate entry for Cultural turn).

 POLYSYSTEM THEORY

POLYSYSTEM THEORY - Polysystem theory was developed in the 1970s by Itamar Even-Zohar
borrowing ideas from the Russian Formalism of the 1920s. (see separate entry for Itamar Even-
Zohar). Even-Zohar considers the overall literary polysystem to be made up of various component
systems that interact and evolve dynamically in a hierarchy. Each of the component systems might
change its position and influence over time. Even-Zohar emphasizes that translated literature
operates in itself as a system within the overall literary polysystem (1) in the way the TL selects
works for translation and (2) in the way translation norms, behaviour and policies are influenced
by other co-systems. The position occupied by translated literature in the polysystem conditions
the translation strategy. Equivalence is no longer considered to be fixed since it varies according to
extra-textual socio-historical conditions (see concept of Equivalence in Jakobson, Nida, Koller and
Toury).

Formalism, a critical movement that was developed in Russia between 1910s and 1930s that
considered that literary works must not be studied in isolation but as part of a constantly mutating
literary system (Yuri Tynyanov). It exerted a strong influence on polysystem theory and on Itamar
Even-Zohar. Other theorists of this movement, such as Roman Jakobson, focused on the analysis
of the poetic language and later influenced structuralism (see Roman Jakobson) .

 Itamar Even-Zohar

Itamar Even-Zohar – Israeli scholar based in Tel Aviv who in the 1970s developed the polysystem
theory of translation which moves away from the isolated study of individual texts towards the
study of translation within the cultural and literary systems in which it functions (See separate
entry for Polysystem theory; see also Toury).
SYSTEMS THEORIES

See:

POLYSYSTEM THEORY -1978 // Itamar Even-Zohar -1978 // DESCRIPTIVE TRANSLATION STUDIES –

1980 // Gideon Toury – 1980 // MANIPULATION SCHOOL – 1985 // Andrew Chesterman - 1997

 1985 The Manipulation School

The Manipulation School – Group of scholars centred in Belgium, Israel and the Netherlands in the
1970s and 1980s who worked in Descriptive Translation Studies (see separate entry). Their key
publication was the collection of papers entitled The Manipulation of Literature: Studies in Literary
Translation (Hermans (ed.) 1985). The group viewed translation primarily as a literary genre which
subjected the ST to a degree of manipulation. Lambert and van Gorp (1985) drew on Even-Zohar’s
and Toury’s early work (see separate entries for Itamar Even-Zohar and Gideon Toury) in their
proposed scheme for the comparison of the ST and TT literary systems and for the description of
relations within them. The Manipulation school subsequently influenced more recent work on
translation and ideology (see separate entry for Translation and Ideology).

 1985 Deconstruction

Deconstruction - Term introduced in the 1960s by Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), drawing on the
work of Martin Heiddeger (1889-1976). Deconstruction dismantles some of the key premises of
linguistics, the terms, systems and concepts which are constructed by language, starting with
Saussure’s clear division of signified and signifier (see Saussure in Jakobson). It challenges the
capacity to define, capture or stabilize meaning and thus undermines the concept of equivalence
of meaning in translation (see Jakobson and Nida).

 1988 CULTURAL TURN

‘Cultural turn’ - a term coined by Mary Snell-Hornby in Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere’s
Translation, History and Culture (1990) to refer to a major new development in translation studies
(see separate entries for Mary Snell-Hornby, Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere) . Rather than
being restricted to a transparent and balanced linguistic transaction, translation was perceived as
a more complex and power-driven process of negotiation between two cultures influenced by
their historical and social circumstances. It drew inspiration from the development of cultural
studies from the 1960s onwards.

 1988 Translation and gender

Translation and gender – As part of the cultural turn in translation studies and partly as a result of
feminist protest movement that developed in Western Europe and North America in the mid-
1960s, some scholars have concentrated on the intersection of gender and translation. For
example, this has involved criticism of the male-dominated metaphorics of les belles infidèles and
has promoted “committed” approaches such as the Canadian feminist translation project which
seeks to make the female visible in translation. Other scholars have concentrated on the
translation of gay writers and texts.
  1990 André Lefevere

André Lefevere (1945–1996): Lefevere was a Belgian translation theorist who worked in
comparative literature departments in Leuven (Belgium) and the USA (University of Texas at
Austin). His work in translation studies, associated with the cultural turn (see separate entry),
developed out of his strong links with polysystem theory and the Manipulation School. For
Lefevere, translation was a powerful form of ‘rewriting’ in which ideology plays a pivotal role.

‘Translation as rewriting’: This term was coined by Lefevere to describe the power factors that
govern the transformation of literary texts in translation and their reception, acceptance or
rejection. These include issues such as power, ideology, institution and manipulation. Lefevere
points out that the institutions (e.g. the State, publishers, schools and universities) and individuals
in such power positions are the ones that control the consumption of translated literature by the
general public. They are described as: (1) professionals within the literary system, who partly
determine the dominant poetics; and (2) patronage outside the literary system, which partly
determines the ideology.

 1980 Susan Bassnett

Susan Bassnett - professor of Comparative Literature who founded the Centre for Translation and
Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. Her many works include the
foundational text Translation Studies, first published in 1980, and Postcolonial Translation Studies
(1999, edited jointly with Harish Trivedi). She is a leading figure in the Cultural turn (see separate
entry for Cultural turn) . André Lefevere (1945-1996) Belgian translation theorist who worked in
comparative literature departments in Leuven (Belgium) and the USA (University of Texas at
Austin). His work in translation studies, associated with the Cultural turn (see separate entry for
Cultural turn) , developed out of his strong links with Polysystem theory and the Manipulation
School (see separate entries for Polysystem Theory and the Manipulation School) . For Lefevere
translation was a powerful form of ‘rewriting’ in which ideology plays a pivotal role (see
Translation and Ideology).

 1992 Lawrence Venuti

Lawrence Venuti - American translator and translation theorist. Venuti contests Toury’s ‘scientific’
descriptive model with its aim of producing ‘value-free’ norms and laws of translation (see Norms
of translation in Gideon Toury and Andrew Chesterman). Venuti takes into account the value-
driven nature of the social and political institutions that influence translation. In this context, he
analyses the US and UK hegemony in the publishing industry. Venuti introduced the terms
translator’s invisibility and domestication and foreignization to refer to translation practices which
are available to the translator.

The translator’s invisibility - Drawing on his own experiences as translator of experimental Italian
poetry and fiction, Lawrence Venuti introduced the term to describe the translator’s situation and
activity in contemporary British and American cultures where translators are ‘invisible’ because of
fluent translation practices which produce an ‘illusion of transparency’; and because translated
texts are typically read in the target culture as if they were originals. Venuti discusses invisibility in
relation to two types of translation practice: domestication and foreignization.

Domestication – Venuti introduced the term ‘domestication’ and its opposite ‘foreignization’,
drawing on Schleiermacher (see naturalizing and alienating in Schleiermacher). Venuti considers
this strategy dominant in the context of the British and American translation tradition. For Venuti,
it is a type of fluent translation practice which minimises the foreignness of the text and leads to
the translator’s invisibility.

Foreignization – Venuti introduced the term ‘foreignization’ and its opposite ‘domestication’,
drawing on Schleiermacher (see alienating and naturalizing in Schleiermacher).
Foreignization aims to make the receiving culture aware of the linguistic and cultural difference
inherent in the foreign text. This is to be achieved by a non-fluent, estranging translation style.
Foreignization may involve lexical and syntactic borrowing and calques, reflects the SL norms and
reminds the target culture readers that they are dealing with a translation.

 1992 Postcolonial Translation Studies

Postcolonial translation studies – This area developed from the 1990s as part of the cultural turn
in translation studies and as a result of a cross-over from postcolonial studies (see separate entry
on Cultural turn). Both postcolonial studies and translation studies look at the issues of power
relations and control expressed through language and literature in postcolonial societies.
Translation has been seen and studied as an instrument for colonial domination. Thus, scholars
such as Gayatri Spivak look at the ‘politics of translation’ that gives prominence to English and to
the other ‘hegemonic’ languages of the ex-colonizers, and Tejaswini Niranjana describes how
translation has played an active role in the colonization process in India, disseminating an
ideologically motivated image of colonized peoples and imposing the colonizer’s ideological
values. More recent work, such as Paul Bandia’s Translation as Reparation (St Jerome Publishing,
2008) has examined the picture in Africa, where translation occurs not only between indigenous
and colonial languages but also between colonial languages (notably English and French)
themselves. Important concepts are ‘in-betweenness’, ‘the third space’ and ‘hybridity’ (Homi
Bhabha) and the multilingual environment of such societies in which translation is an everyday
occurrence.