The Cultural Turn in Translation studies

LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

Before …
Itamar Even-Zohar
Gideon Toury
Hans Vermeer
Katharina Reiß
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

Theories anticipating interest in

● ideological implications of translation
● the power relationships involved as a text is transferred from one context to another
● moving away from source-focused theories of translation
● the shift from source-oriented theories to target-text-oriented theories

> Polysystems theory - primarily concerned with literary translation, focus

on literary history and the fortune of translated texts in the receiving
culture
> Skopos theory - primarily concerned with non-literary translation (Hans
Vermeer, Katharina Reiß (Reiß & Vermeer, 1984) the objective or function of
a translation determines the translation strategies to be employed. Hence
the translator’s subjective takes precedence.
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

Itamar Even-Zohar (1978/2004, 2005)

● Translated literature operates as a system in

selection of STs to translate and in norms of
translation behaviour
● Polysystem = ‘a multiple system, a system of
various systems which intersect with each
other and partly overlap, using concurrently
different options, yet functioning as one
structured whole, whose members are
interdependent’ (Even-Zohar 2005: 3)
Conditions when translation is in primary position in
polysystem
(Munday 2012: 168, following Even-Zohar 1978/2004)
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Toury (1978/1995) - ‘Adequate’ - subscribe to the norms of the source text vs.
‘Acceptable’ translation - norms systems of the target culture are triggered

● Replicable framework and methodology for research:

● Situate TT within target culture system
● Textual analysis of ST-TT pair
● Attempt generalizations about patterns identified

Norms are sociocultural constraints specific to a culture, society and time

Cline of rules<>idiosyncracies of translation constraints and behaviour

(Munday 2016: 177)

‘Skopos’ = aim or purpose (of TT)
● The TT (‘translatum’) must be fit for
purpose = ‘dethroning of ST’ (Vermeer)
● TT judged on functional adequacy:
● Intratextual coherence + intertextual fidelity
● Functionality + loyalty to ST author
intentions (Nord)
● ●
So, skopos needs to be explicitly stated in
the brief/commission
Translational action leads to a “target text” (not
necessarily a verbal one); translation leads to a translatum
(i.e. the resulting translated text), as a particular variety of
target text. (Vermeer 1989)
LM94 - Theory module - l.santini
Reiss’s text-type/genre taxonomy:
● Informative, e.g. encyclopaedia
● Expressive, e.g. novel
● Operative, e.g. advert
Translation method
Informative > ‘plain prose method’
● Expressive > ‘identifying method’
● Operative > ‘adaptive method’
The “functionally equivalent” translation needs to be based on a
“detailed semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic analysis” (Reiss) of
the foreign text. [...] The pragmatic translator doesn’ t simply
analyze the linguistic and cultural features of the foreign text, but
reverbalizes them according to the values of a different language
and culture. (Venuti 2000: 122)
Before …

Lefevere
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

REWRITING and/or ‘refraction’

[T]he same basic process of rewriting is at work in translation,

historiography, anthologization, criticism, and editing […]
Translation is the most obviously recognizable type of
rewriting, and […] it is potentially the most influential because
it is able to project the image of an author and/or those works
beyond the boundaries of their culture of origin
(Lefevere 1992: 9)
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

Patronage consists of at least three components:

an ideological one (literature should not be allowed to
get too far out of step with the other systems in a given
society),
an economic one (the patron assures the writer’s
livelihood) and
a status component (the writer achieves a certain
position in society).
(Lefevere 1982 in Venuti 2000: 236)

Control factors inside and outside the literary system

(Munday 2016: 201)
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

André Lefevere takes up the seminal work of Even-Zohar and Toury and
redefines their concepts of literary system and norm. Lefevere treats translation,
criticism, editing, and historiography as forms of “refraction” or “rewriting.”
Refractions, he writes in the 1982 essay reprinted here, “carry a work of
literature over from one system into another,” and they are determined by such
factors as “patronage,” “poetics,” and “ideology.” This interpretive framework
gives a new legitimacy to the study of literary translations by illuminating their
creation of canons and traditions in the target culture. Lefevere sees that
Romantic notions of authorial originality have marginalized translation studies,
especially in the English-speaking world. (Venuti 2000: 217)
The cultural turn
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

● cultural turn - term coined by Bassnett and Lefevere in

Translation, History and Culture (1990)
● greater emphasis on extra-textual factors, i.e., broader issues of
context, history, norms and convention, and cultural expectations
● foundation in linguistics, comparative literature, and cultural
studies
● the move to broaden the object of study beyond the immediate
frame of the text started long before, with the work of Itamar
Even-Zohar (1978), Gideon Toury (1978) and James Holmes (1978)
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

The cultural turn main arguments

● translation plays a major role in shaping literary systems;

● translation does not take place on a horizontal axis;
● the translator is involved in complex power negotiations
(mediating between cultures, as it were);
● translation is always a rewriting.

The cultural turn and some of
the scholars who took its
arguments further within and
beyond the 1990s
LM94 - Theory module - l.santini
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
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

The cultural turn => a massive intellectual phenomenon, happening across the
humanities
● Linguistics => the rise of discourse analysis
the growth of interest in corpus linguistics,
● Literary studies => cultural questions took over from formalist approaches to
textual study, from post-structuralism onwards, through the last decades of the
20th century, i.e., feminism, gender criticism, deconstruction, post-colonialism,
hybridity theory
● Literary studies adopted methods from cultural studies
● History => more emphasis on cultural and social history, expansion of once
marginal areas, e.g., the history of medicine, of the family, of science etc.
● Cultural geography
● Classics => the relationship between ancient cultures and contemporary ones.
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

Lorna Hardwick, scholar of ancient Greek and author of a book on intercultural

translation, suggests that the act of translating words

‘involves translating or transplanting into the receiving culture the cultural

framework within which an ancient text is embedded’ (Hardwick, 2000: 22).

Hardwick’s claims:
● translation as an instrument of change.
● the translator of ancient texts is to produce a text and seek to articulate in
some way the cultural framework within which that text is embedded
● translation enables contemporary readers to construct lost civilisations
● translation is the portal through which the past can be accessed
 LM94 - Theory module - l.santini

The feminist engagement with translation has been concentrated on four areas (Flotow 1997; Simon
1996).
● Uncovering female translators and their role in history. Women, by and large, were not meant to
participate in public discourse but sometimes they could translate, as a form of secondary speaking.
Some women even felt more comfortable translating than writing in their own name (Stark 1999).
● Tracing the historical and ideological construction of translation and its correlation with traditional
gender constructions, i.e., the association of translation with submission, reproduction, loyalty and
femininity, always in opposition to the creative primacy of original speech and writing (Chamberlain
1988/1992; Johnson 1985).
● translating gendered language and a) the translator’s responsibility when confronted with gender
bias in texts (Levine 1991); b) subsequently attention shifted from ethical to technical questions, as
translators struggled to cope with the explosion of experimental writing by feminist authors seeking
to forge a language of their own.
● Practicing feminist translation and criticism. For Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood (1991), translation
can only be a demonstrative rewriting in the feminine, a political act that makes language speak for
women.
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In the 1988 essay reprinted here, Lori Chamberlain focuses on the gender metaphors that
have recurred in leading translation theorists since the seventeenth century, demonstrating
the enormous extent to which a patriarchal model of authority has underwritten the
subordinate status of translation. Chamberlain suggests how a feminist concern with
gender identities might be productive for translation studies, particularly in historical
research that recovers forgotten translating women, but also in translation projects that are
sensitive to ideologically coded foreign writing, whether feminist or masculinist. The
experimental strategies devised by translators like Suzanne Jill Levine (1991) and Barbara
Godard (1986) aim to challenge “the process by which translation complies with gender
constructs. (Venuti 2000: 219)
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Thinking through Translation with

Familiar metaphors of translation Metaphors - edited by James St. André
● TRANSLATION IS A BRIDGE. Thinking through Translation with Metaphors explores a wide
range of metaphorical figures used to describe the translation
● TRANSLATION IS FOLLOWING IN ANOTHER’S FOOTSTEPS. process, from Aristotle to the present.
● TRANSLATION IS PERFORMING A MUSICAL SCORE.
● TRANSLATION IS CHANGING CLOTHES.
● TRANSLATION IS PAINTING A PORTRAIT.
● TRANSLATION IS ENGAGING IN SLAVE LABOUR ON
ANOTHER MAN’S LAND
● etc.

What do these metaphorical models reveal about how we conceptualize translation? Metaphorical language
has been central to translation studies at all periods of time and in various cultures. Metaphors have played a
key role in shaping the way in which we understand translation, determining what facets of the translation
process are deemed to be important [...] and aiding in the training of successive generations of translators and
theorists. (André 2010)
References
André, James St, (ed.) Thinking through translation with metaphors. London & NY: Routledge, 2010.
Bassnett, Susan and André Lefevere (eds). (1990). Translation, History and Culture, London & NY: Pinter.
Bassnett, S. (2007). ‘Culture and Translation’, in Kuhiwczak P. & K. Littau (eds), A companion to translation studies, Clevedon
(UK): Multilingual Matters.
Even-Zohar, Itamar (2012) ‘The position of translated literature within the literary polysystem’, in Lawrence Venuti (ed.) (2012) The
Translation Studies Reader, 3rd edition, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 162–7.
Even-Zohar, Itamar (2005) ‘Polysystem theory revised’, in Itamar Even-Zohar Papers in Culture Research, Tel Aviv: The Porter Chair
of Semiotics, Tel Aviv University, pp. 38–49.
Toury, Gideon (1995/2012) Descriptive Translation Studies – and Beyond, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Flotow, Luise von (1997). Translation and Gender: Translating in the ‘era of feminism’, Manchester and Ottawa: St. Jerome and
University of Ottawa Press.
Lefevere, A. (1992). Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, London & NY: Routledge.
Munday, Jeremy. (2009). The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies, London & NY: Routledge.
Munday, J. (2016). Introducing Translation Studies. Theories and Applications. London & NY: Routledge.
Simon, Sherry (1996). Gender in Translation: Cultural identity and the politics of transmission, London & NY: Routledge.
Venuti, Lawrence. (ed.). (2000). The Translation Studies Reader. London & NY: Routledge.