Poly-system Theories

Theories of Translation Studies

Poly-system Theories

 Developed in the 1970s by the Israeli scholar Itmar Even-Zohar.

 He borrowed ideas from the Russian Formalists of the 1920s who worked on literary historiography.
 A literary work is a part of literary system which itself is defined as “a system of functions of the literary
order which are in continual relationship with each other”.
 Literature is part of the social, cultural literary and historical framework and the key concept is that of the
“System”.
 Poly-system: offers a general model for understanding, analyzing and describing the functioning and
evolution of literary system, its specific application to the study of translated literature.
Contributors

 Shuttleworth & Cowie

 Toury
Shuttleworth & Cowie

 “the poly-system is conceived as a heterogeneous, hierarchized conglomerate (or system) of systems which
interact to bring about an ongoing dynamic process of evolution within the poly-system as a whole”.
 Translated literature operates as a system at two levels:
 1. in the way the TL selects works for translation
 2. in the way translation norms, behaviour, policies are influenced by other co-systems.
Primary Position

 Three cases how translated literature becomes important .

 1. when young literature is being established and looks initially to older literature for ready-made models
 2. when a literature is peripheral or weak and import literary types that it lacks.( this can happen when a
smaller nation is dominated by the culture of a larger one).
 3. when there is a critical turning point in literary history at which established models are no longer
considered sufficient, or when ther is a vacuum in the literature of the country where no type holds sway, it is
easier for foreign models to assume primacy.
Secondary Position

 It is a peripheral system within the poly-system: a conservative element, preserving conventional forms and
conforming to the literary norms of the target system.
Implications for translators

 If it is primary
 Translator does not follow target literature models, and produces a TT that is a close match in terms of adequacy,
reproducing the textual relations of the ST.
 If it is secondary
 Translators tend to use existing target culture models for the TT.
Toury

 Translation first and foremost occupies a position in the social and literary systems of the target culture.
 This position determines the translation strategies that are employed.
 Four aspects of this theory:
 1. abandonment of one –to-one notion of correspondence as well as the possibility of literary/ linguistic equivalence
 2. involvement of the literary tendencies within the target cultural system in the production of any translated text.
 3. destabilization of the notion of an original message with a fixed identity.
 4. the integration of both the original text and the translated text in the semiotic web of intersecting cultural systems.
Determining translation strategies

Translation
behavior

Generalization

Norms

Hypothesis
Norms

 Options that translators in a given socio-historical context select on a given regular basis.
 Gathered from the examination of text and from the explicit statements made about them by translators,
publishers, reviewers and other participants in the translation act.
Two Laws for translation

 The Law of growing standardization: textual relations in the ST are modified in favor of options offered by
the target repertoire.
 The law of interference: ST linguistic features being copied in the TT negatively/positively - tolerance