Polysystem Theory and Descriptive Translation Studies

Polysystem Theory (Even-Zohar)

• Literature, including translations, operates within a larger cultural and historical system ("polysystem").
• Translated literature can occupy primary or secondary positions within this system.
• Primary position: Associated with innovation and shaping the literary center; often exemplified by young literatures adopting external models (e.g., Finnish literature at critical turning points).
• Secondary position: Plays a peripheral, conservative role, conforming to target culture norms.
• Advantages: Integrates literature with sociocultural forces; moves beyond isolated text analysis.
• Criticism: Overgeneralization and reliance on outdated models.

Descriptive Translation Studies (Toury)

• Focus: Translations as cultural products influenced by target culture norms and contexts.
• Methodology: Analyze target culture system, analyze textual segment comparisons (ST-TT), generalize patterns.
• Translation Norms:
  • Initial Norm: Deciding if source or target culture norms take precedence.
  • Preliminary Norms: Translation policy, directness.
  • Operational Norms: Presentation adjustments (e.g., omissions, additions), linguistic adaptations.
• Laws in Translation:
  • Law of Growing Standardization: Simplifies source-target relations to align with target language norms.
  • Law of Interference: Source language patterns influence the target language, positively or negatively.

Chesterman's Translation Norms

• Product/Expectancy Norms: Readers' expectations, influenced by cultural/economic factors, guide translation evaluation.
• Professional Norms:
  • Accountability Norm: Ethical responsibility.
  • Communication Norm: Ensuring clarity.
  • Relation Norm: Appropriate source-target relations reflect context and audience needs.

Hallidayan Model of Discourse (SFL)

• Key Idea: Language choices reflect socio-cultural functions.
• Framework:
  • Sociocultural Environment: Genre, conventions, context (field, tenor, mode).
  • Register: Links social context to language via field (subject matter), tenor (relationship), and mode (medium).
  • Metafunctions: Ideational (world representation), interpersonal (social relationships), textual (cohesion & coherence).

House's Model for Translation Quality Assessment

• Core Concepts: Focuses on source text-target text register analysis.

Baker's Analysis (Textual & Pragmatic Levels)

• Focus Areas: Textual features (thematic structure, cohesion) and pragmatic elements (coherence, presupposition, implicature).
• Key Points: Adjusting thematic patterns to genre conventions (e.g., nominalization in abstracts), handling cohesion shifts carefully, and addressing cultural differences in implications and presuppositions.

Hatim and Mason: Context and Discourse

• Emphasis: Ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions.
• Key Analyses: Examine transitivity shifts (e.g. active/passive roles), highlighting sociocultural & power dynamics.

The Cultural Turn in Translation Studies (Bassnett & Lefevere)

• Translation and Culture: Focus on how translation interacts with culture, history, and ideology.
• Translation as Rewriting (Lefevere): Translation reshapes how literature is perceived; Influenced by professionals, patronage, and rewriting motivations (ideological, poetological).
• Patronage: Involves ideological, economic, and status factors; can be differentiated or undifferentiated.
• Key Concepts: Dominant Poetics, Classic Status, Ideology and Poetics in Translation.

Translation & Gender (Sherry Simon)

• Critique of Traditional Translation Studies: Translation as derivative.

Language, Identity, and Translation

• Queer Translation (Harvey): Focuses on examining camp talk and identity markers in LGBTQ+ discourse; examines how markers disappear or become pejorative in translation, reflecting cultural attitudes.
• Language reflects and constructs identity, cultural contexts shape translation.

The Cultural and Political Agenda of Translation (Venuti)

• Value-Driven Nature of Translation: Translation norms shaped by sociocultural, ideological, and institutional factors (e.g., government censorship/promotion).

Invisibility of Translators

• Translators are often invisible due to idiomatic translations creating an illusion of transparency and readers' preferences.

Domestication & Foreignization

• Domestication: Adapts the foreign text to target culture, prioritizing fluency.
• Foreignization: Highlights foreignness to make translator visible.
• Ethical Implications: Both strategies impact attitudes toward foreign cultures.

Investigating Translation Practices

• Analyze linguistic comparisons, gather translator/publisher perspectives, and examine trends in translations.

Postcolonial Translation Theory

• Cultural Studies & Translation: Examines effects of colonization on power dynamics.
• Gayatri Spivak's Contribution: Critiques western feminism's use of hegemonic languages in translating "Third World" literature.
• Tejaswini Niranjana's Critique: Translation perpetuates colonial narratives through rewriting.
• Power relations and resistance in translation.

Hermeneutic Motion (Steiner)

• Hermeneutic process comprising four interrelated movements (trust, engagement, reciprocity).
• Critical of prior "static" models, emphasizing the translator's responsibility to maintain equity and faithfulness in meaning and cultural preservation in translation.