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Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies - (PG 261 - 265)
Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies - (PG 261 - 265)
Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies - (PG 261 - 265)
(b) A unitary translation theory is neither of their authors in parentheses): Peter Glass
necessary nor desirable. gold (who translates Boethius ) , Michael
(c) Translation theory is not to be judged on Hamburger (Celan), Edward K. Kaplan
its immediate applicability to practice. On (Baudelaire) , Octavio Paz (William Carlos
the contrary , imposing any criteria of Williams), Margaret Sayers Peden (Sor Juana
unanimity or uniformity and applicability de la Cruz ), Richard Sieburth (HOiderlin) , and
could be nefarious , routinizing usage and Lawrence Venuti (Tarchetti).
discouraging creativity; at its worst,
imposing patterns or standards. Further reading
(d) The horizon of translation theory should be Berman 1 992; Paz 1 97 1 ; Peden 1 982; Robinson
open, and those who study translation 1 99 1 ; Venuti 1 986.
should accommodate bias , change, culture.
Students of translation should observe MARI LYN GADDIS ROSE
usage, even help explain it, but legislating
usage is outside the purview of translation
theory. Indeed, considering that the vast
number of recorded and stabilized world Strate g ies of
languages are outside the Greco-Roman or
Judeo-Christian tradition, we should be translation
extremely wary of guides raisonnis that
derive from Western languages. Strategies of translation involve the basic tasks
of choosing the foreign text to be translated and
The purview of speculative theorizing is never developing a method to translate it. Both of
theless extensive. Yet in a hubris of its own, it these tasks are determined by various factors:
tries simultaneously to be universal and to cultural , economic , political. Yet the many
transcend the universal. Here is found concern different strategies that have emerged since
with the nature (essence or Wesen) of transla antiquity can perhaps be divided into two large
tion (see PURE LANGUAGE); its origins (Sapir categories. A translation project may conform to
1 949; Whorf 1 956); process (Nida and Taber values currently dominating the target-language
1 974); validation (Skinner 1 9 5 3 ; Quine 1 969); culture , taking a conservative and openly
modalities of rhetoric (Foucault 1 97 1 ; Venuti assimilationist approach to the foreign text,
1 986; Berman 1 992). Speculative theorizing, appropriating it to support domestic canons ,
of course, welcomes thinkers whose own publishing trends , political alignments. Alterna
thinking about language or communication tively, a translation project may resist and aim
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relies heavily on the data provided by transla to revise the dominant by drawing on the margi
tion (Sapir 1 949 ; Whorf 1 956; Wittgenstein nal, restoring foreign texts excluded by
1 969; Gadamer 1 97 5 ; Derrida 1 985 ; Lyotard domestic canons, recovering residual values
1 988) and/ or cast doubt on objectivity and such as archaic texts and translation methods,
neutrality (Habermas 1 978). and cultivating emergent ones (for example,
Yet, and not surprisingly , some of the most new cultural forms). Strategies in producing
provocative theorists on the Speculative hor translations inevitably emerge in response to
izon are translators. The internal cause-and domestic cultural situations. But some are
effect between what they translate and how it deliberately domesticating in their handling of
has affected what they think translating is - the foreign text, while others can be described
and what translations are is highly individ
-
as foreignizing, motivated by an impulse to
ual and, undoubtedly, idiosyncratic in the best preserve linguistic and cultural differences by
sense. But, if the acceptability test is bor deviating from prevailing domestic values.
rowed from the empirical-analytic camp, their
success makes both their precepts and exam
Domesticating strategies
ples impressive. A selective list of translators
who give evidence of a coherent speculative Domesticating strategies have been imple
theory would include the following (with one mented at least since ancient Rome, when, as
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Strategies of translation 241
Nietzsche remarked, 'translation was a form of success that greeted the English version of
conquest' and Latin poets like Horace and Italian writer Umberto Eco's novel The Name
Propertius translated Greek texts ' into the of the Rose ( 1 983) drove American publishers
Roman present' : ' they had no time for all those to pursue the translation rights for similar
very personal things and names and whatever foreign texts at the international book fairs
might be considered the costume and mask of (McDowell 1 983). Yet what most contributed
a city, a coast, or a century' (Nietzsche 1974: to the success of the translation was the sheer
1 37). As a result, Latin translators not only familiarity of Eco's narrative to American
deleted culturally specific markers but also readers fond of such popular genres as histori
added allusions to Roman culture and replaced cal romances and murder mysteries. By the
the name of the Greek poet with their own, same token, the Italian novelist Giovanni
passing the translation off as a text originally Guareschi was a best-seller in English transla
written in Latin. tion during the 1950s and 1960s largely
Such strategies find their strongest and because his social satires of Italian village life
most influential advocates in the French and championed Christian Democratic values and
English translation traditions , particularly therefore appealed to American readers absorb
during the early modern period. Here it is ing the anti-Soviet propaganda of the Cold War
evident that domestication involves an adher era. The eponymous hero of Guareschi's first
ence to domestic literary canons both in book in English, The Little World of Don
choosing a foreign text and in developing a Camillo (1950) , is a priest who engages in
translation method. Nicolas Perrot D' ABLAN amusing ideological skirmishes with a Com
COURT (see FRENCH TRADmON ) , a prolific munist mayor and always comes out the victor.
French translator of Greek and Latin, argued Domesticating translation has frequently
that the elliptical brevity of Tacitus' prose been enlisted in the service of specific domestic
must be rendered freely , with the insertion agendas, imperialist, evangelical, professional.
of explanatory phrases and the deletion of Sir William Jones, president of the Asiatic
digressions, so as 'to avoid offending the Society and an administrator of the East India
delicacy of our language and the correctness Company, translated the Institutes of Hindu
of reason' ( 1 640: preface; translated). The Law (1799) into English to increase the effec
domestic values that such a strategy inscribed tiveness of British colonialism, constructing a
in the foreign text were affiliated with an racist image of the Hindus as unreliable inter
aristocratic literary culture (D' Ablancourt's preters of their native culture (Niranjana 1992).
translation was dedicated to his court patron, For Eugene Nida, domestication assists the
Cardinal Richelieu) but they were also dis Christian missionary: as translation consultant
tinctly nationalist. Under D' Ablancourt's to organizations dedicated to the dissemination
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influence, the English translator Sir John of the Bible, he has supervised numerous trans
DENHAM (see BRmSH TRADmON) rendered lations that 'relate the receptor to modes of
Book 2 of the Aeneid in heroic couplets, behavior relevant within the context of his
asserting that 'if Virgil must needs speak own culture' ( 1 964: 1 59; see also BmLE
English, it were fit he should speak not only as TRANSLATION). The multi-volume English
a man of this Nation, but as a man of this age' version of Freud's texts known as the Standard
( 1 656: A3r). In domesticating foreign texts Edition ( 1 953 -74) assimilated his ideas to the
D' Ablancourt and Denham did not simply positivism dominating the human sciences in
modernize them; both translators were in fact Anglo-American culture and thus facilitated the
maintaining the literary standards of the social acceptance of psychoanalysis in the medical
elite while constructing cultural identities for profession and in academic psychology (Bettel
their nations on the basis of archaic foreign heim 1983; Venuti 1 993b).
cultures (Zuber 1 968; Venuti 1 993a).
Economic considerations sometimes under
Foreignizing strategies
lie a domesticating strategy in translation, but
they are always qualified by current cultural A foreignizing strategy in translation was first
and political developments. The enormous formulated in German culture during the
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242 Strategies of translation.
classical and Romantic periods , perhaps most standards , and ethical norms in the target
decisively by the philosopher and theologian language. Hence, when foreignizing transla
Friedrich SCHLEIERMACHER (see GERMAN tion is revived by twentieth-century German
TRADmON) (Berman 1 992). In an 1 8 1 3 lecture theorists like Rudolf Pannwitz and Walter
'On the Different Methods of Translating ' , Benjamin, it is seen as an instrument of
Schleiermacher argued that 'there are only cultural innovation. For Pannwitz, 'the transla
two. Either the translator leaves the author in tor makes a fundamental error when he
peace, as much as possible, and moves the maintains the state in which his own language
reader toward him. Or he leaves the reader in happens to be instead of allowing his language
peace, as much as possible, and moves the to be strongly affected by the foreign langu
author toward him ' (quoted in Lefevere age' ( 1 9 1 7 : 242; translated ).
1 992b: 149). Schleiermacher acknowledged From its origins in the German tradition,
that most translation was domesticating, an foreignizing translation has meant a close
ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to adherence to the foreign text, a literalism that
target-language cultural values, bringing the resulted in the importation of foreign cultural
author back home. But he much preferred a forms and the development of heterogeneous
foreignizing strategy, an ethnodeviant pressure dialects and discourses. Johann Heinrich
on those values to register the linguistic and Voss's hexameter versions of the Odyssey
cultural difference of the foreign text, sending ( 1 7 8 1 ) and the Iliad ( 1 793) introduced this
the reader abroad. prosodic form into German poetry, eliciting
The French theorist Antoine BERMAN (see Goethe's praise for putting 'rhetorical , rhyth
FRENCH TRADITION) viewed Schleiermacher's mical, metrical advantages at the disposal of
argument as an ethics of translation, concerned the talented and knowledgeable youngster
with making the translated text a site where a (Lefevere 1 992b: 77). Friedrich Holderlin's
cultural other is not erased but manifested - translations of Sophocles' Antigone and
even if this otherness can never be manifested Oedipus Rex ( 1 804) draw on archaic and
in its own terms, only in those of the target nonstandard dialects (Old High German and
language ( 1 985: 87 - 9 1 ). For while foreigniz Swabian) while incorporating diverse religious
ing translation seeks to evoke a sense of the discourses , both dominant (Lutheran ) and
foreign, it necessarily answers to a domestic marginal (Pietistic) (George Steiner 1 975:
situation, where it may be designed to serve a 323 -33; Berman 1 985 : 93 - 1 07). H6lderlin
cultural and political agenda. Schleiermacher exemplifies the risk of incomprehension that is
himself saw this translation strategy as an involved in any foreignizing strategy: in the
important practice in the Prussian nationalist effort to stage an alien reading experience , his
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movement during the Napoleonic Wars: he felt translations so deviated from native literary
that it could enrich the German language by canons as to seem obscure and even unread
developing an elite literature free of the French able to his contemporaries.
influence that was then dominating German Foreignizing entails choosing a foreign
culture, which would thus be able to realize its text and developing a translation method
historical destiny of global domination (Venuti along lines which are excluded by dominant
1 99 1 ). cultural values in the target language. During
Yet in so far as Schleiermacher theorized the eighteenth century , Dr John Nott reformed
translation as the locus of cultural difference, the canon of foreign literatures in English by
not the homogeneity that his imperialist devising translation projects that focused on
nationalism might imply , he was effectively the love lyric instead of the epic or satire , the
recommending a translation practice that most widely translated genres in the period.
would undermine any language-based concept He published versions of Johannes Secundus
of a national culture , or indeed any domestic Nicolaius ( 1 775), Petrarch ( 1 777), Hafiz
agenda. A foreignizing strategy can signify the ( 1 787), Bonefonius ( 1 797), and the first
difference of the foreign text only by assuming book-length collections of Propertius ( 1 782)
an oppositional stance toward the domestic, and Catullus ( 1 795). Nott rejected the
challenging literary canons, professional ' fastidious regard to delicacy ' that might have
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Strategies of translation 243
required him to delete the explicit sexual the same foreign text. In the early 1 960s , for
references in Catullus ' poems , because he felt instance , the American translators Norman
that ' history should not be falsified' ( 1 795: Shapiro and Paul Blackburn were both trans
x ) . His translation provoked a moral panic lating Proven�al troubadour poetry. Consider
among reviewers, who renewed the attack their versions of the first stanza from a poem
decades later when expressing their prefer by Gaucelm Faidit:
ence for George Lamb's bowdlerized Catullus
Us cavaliers si jazia
( 1 82 1 ) .
ab Ia re que plus volia;
soven baizan li dizia:
Domesticating vs. foreignizing strategies - Doussa res, ieu que farai?
que-! joms ve e Ia nueytz vai,
Determining whether a translation project is
ay !
domesticating or foreignizing clearly depends
qu 'ieu aug que li gaita cria:
on a detailed reconstruction of the cultural
' Via! sus ! qu ' ieu vey la jom
formation in which the translation is produced
venir apres !'alba. '
and consumed; what is domestic or foreign
(Mouzat 1 965 : 555)
can be defined only with reference to the
changing hierarchy of values in the target A knight was with his lady fondly lying -
language culture. For example , a foreignizing The one he cherished most - and gently sighing
translation may constitute a historical inter As he kissed her, complained: My love, the day
pretation of the foreign text that is opposed to Soon will arrive , chasing this night away.
prevailing critical opinion. In the Victorian
Alas !
controversy that pitted Francis Newman's
Already I can hear the watchman crying:
Iliad ( 1 856) against Matthew Arnold's Oxford
Begone!
lectures On Translating Homer ( 1 860) , what
Quickly, begone! You may no longer stay,
was foreignizing about Newman's translation
For it is dawn.
was not only that it used archaism to indicate
(Shapiro 1962: 72)
the historical difference of the Greek text, but
that it presented Homer as a popular rather A knight once lay beside and with
than an elite , poet. Newman cast his transla the one he most desired,
tion in ballad metre and constructed an and in between their kisses said,
archaic lexicon from widely read genres like what shall I do, my sweet?
the historical novel; he thought that Sir Walter
Day comes and the knight goes
Scott would have been the ideal translator of
Ai!
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Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker, Taylor & Francis Group, 2001. ProQuest Ebook Central,
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244 Subtitling
different culture at a different period. The concerned, the world is divided into four blocks:
distinction between their strategies is particu
(a) Source-language countries , English
larly evident in their additions to the Proven9al
speaking, with hardly any non-Anglo
text: Shapiro makes his version conform to the
phone imports. Few as they may be ,
familiar image of the yearning courtly lover by
imported films tend to be subtitled rather
adding gently sighing and complained; Black than dubbed. They are often ' art' movies,
bum seeks estranging effects that work only in
aimed at a literate audience.
English by adding the pun on night in Day (b) Dubbing countries , mainly German- ,
comes and the knight goes, as well as the Italian- , Spanish- and French-speaking in
surreal image of the sun sprouting.
and outside Europe. In these countries ,
As this example suggests, foreignizing
nearly all imported films and TV pro
strategies have been implemented in literary
grammes are dubbed.
Copyright © 2001. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved.
Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker, Taylor & Francis Group, 2001. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usherbrookemgh-ebooks/detail.action?docID=179412.
Created from usherbrookemgh-ebooks on 2019-03-19 05:55:55.