WHAT IS TRANSLATION STUDIES?

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WHAT IS TRANSLATION STUDIES?

• ITS Power Point 5
• 10 October 2007

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Brief historical overview

• TRANSLATION as an academic subject is only about
  50 years old.
• Before T was mainly used for language teaching
  (thus secondary status in academia)
• 1960s-1970s communicative approach in TEFL
• 1960s-1970s translation workshop (USA)
  comparative literature contrastive analysis

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• 1950s and 1960s more systematic, scientific
  (mainly linguistic) approach to T
• e.g., Vinay and Darbelnet (1958), George Mounin
  (1963) Nida (1964) Catford (1965)
• EUGENE NIDA
• Toward a Science of Translating, 1964

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Eugene Nida (with me and Dr. Hirci) Rome,
Università La Sapienza, 2004
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What name to give to the new, budding discipline?

• Übersetzungswissenschaft used by Wolfram Wills
  (Uni Saarlandes, Saarbrücken), Werner Koller
  (Heidelberg), Otto Kade and Albert Neubert
  (Leipzig School)
• Translatogy?? (FRTranslatologie PT,ES
  Traductologia IT Traduttologia, etc.)

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TRANSLATION STUDIES

• The name and nature of translation studies by
  James S. Holmes (1924-1986), paper given at the
  translation section of the Third International
  Congress of Applied Linguistics, Copenhagen,
  1972,
• founding statement for the field (Gentzler92)

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• Holmes realized as did few others that the
  1950s had heralded a revolution in translation
  studies (van den Broeck, 1988,19943)
• Holmes highlighted the existence of 3 main
  impediments to the further development of the
  discipline
• - scholars and researchers scattered in
  different fields and therefore lack of common
  channels of communication
• - the seemingly trivial matter of the name for
  this field of research van den Broeck,
  1988,199468)
• - lack of any general consensus as to the scope
  and structure of the discipline (ibid.71)

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• Holmes concludes that
• the most appropriate name for the discipline in
  English is TRANSLATION STUDIES (TS), for this
  term would avoid a lot of confusion and
  misunderstanding
• There should be communication channels able to
  reach all scholars in the field, from whatever
  background
• TS can be divided into 2 main research areas
• PURE APPLIED

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• Pure TS has 2 main goals (descriptive and
  theoretical)
• to describe the phenomena of translating and
  translation(s) as they manifest themselves in the
  world of experience (Descriptive Translation
  Studies, DTS)
• to establish general principles by means of
  which these phenomena can be explained and
  predicted. (Translation Theory, TTh)

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Holmess map of TS
Figure 1 Holmes conception of translation
studies (from Toury 1991181) in Mundays book
on p.10. Also available at http//isg.urv.es/libr
ary/papers/holmes_map.doc
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The Holmes Map of Translation Studies (1)

• James S Holmes seminal The Name and Nature of
  Translation Studies (1972) set out to orient the
  scholarly study of translation. It put forward a
  conceptual scheme that identified and
  interrelated many of the things that can be done
  in translation studies, envisaging an entire
  future discipline and effectively stimulating
  work aimed at establishing that discipline.
  Historically, this was a major step forward, none
  the least because it involved a frontal attack on
  the hazy but self-assured categories that had
  long been used to judge translations.

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The Holmes Map of Translation Studies (2)

• Holmes categories were simple, scientifically
  framed, and
• hierarchically arranged Applied was opposed to
  Pure, the latter was
• broken down into Theoretical and Descriptive,
  then Descriptive
• divided in turn into Product Oriented, Process
  Oriented and Function
• Oriented, and so on. Figure 1 (previous slide)
  shows the apocryphal
• graphic form these categories received later
  from, I believe, Gideon
• Toury, who saw it as a legitimate point of
  departure (it is also in Toury
• 1995 10). Many wonderful things found a place in
  this map a few more
• have benefited from the modifications and
  variants proposed since
• (notably Lambert 1991, Snell-Hornby 1991, Toury
  1991, Toury 1995).
• Of course, translation studies cannot be reduced
  to this one map, and
• the map itself has been evolving dynamically,
  along with the lands it
• purports to represent.
• from Intercultural Studies Group, Universitat
  Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain
• http//isg.urv.es/library/papers/holmes_map.doc

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DESCRIPTIVE TS

• DTS focuses on 3 areas of research
• PRODUCT (synchronic diachronic)
• FUNCTION (translation sociology or
  socio-translation studies)
• PROCESS (psychology of translation or
  psycho-translation studies)

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The results of DTS research can then be applied
to Tth to develop

• a general theory of translation (very ambitious)
• partial theories restricted according to
• Medium
• Area
• Rank
• Text type
• Time
• Problem

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APPLIED TS
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APPLIED TS
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APPLIED TS
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APPLIED TS
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Gideon Tourypoints out that

• Theoretical, descriptive and applied areas of TS
  influence one another,
• BUT
• Holmess divisions represent a flexibile
  separation of the various areas of TS, which had
  very often been confused, thus pointing to the
  great potential of the discipline.

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?????????????

• Whats missing in Holmess map?
• Social networks working practices who are the
  players in the T process / the translatorial
  activity (Holz-Mänttäri,1984) (see Robinson,
  Fig. 7, 216)

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TASK 2

• Work in pairs, make notes and be prepared to give
  feedback to the class
• Is translation theory relevant for practising
  translators?

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Munday Introducing TS

• 1. Main issues in TS
• 2. T until mid-20th century
• 3. 1960s some focus on the receiver Nida,
  Newmark, Koller
• 4. Linguistic models Catford
• 5. 1970s-1980s Text-type models and
  skopostheorie (Reiss, Vermeer) text-linguistic
  approach (Nord)
• 6. 1990s discourse-oriented approaches (House,
  Baker, Hatim, Mason)

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• 7. The Manipulation School (Even-Zohar, Toury)
• 8. Other cultural approaches (gender TS and
  post-colonials TS)
• 9. Invisibility and naturalizing (Berman, Venuti)
• 10. Philosophical issueslang and T
• 11. Interdisciplinary approach to TS Mary
  Snell-Hornbys integrated approach

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Think about the following points and be prepared
to actively discuss them in class.

1. Is a graduate or a postgraduate qualification a
   prerequisite for working as a professional
   translator in your country?
2. If someone (individual, company, etc.) needs a
   translation in your country, how do they go about
   obtaining it? Try to trace the phases of the
   process.

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Homework REMEMBER to READ

• FOR 10 OCT.
• IntroChapter 1 and Chapter 2 (The Users View
  The Translators View) from Robinsons Becoming a
  Translator (BAT).
• FOR 11 OCT.
• Introducing TS (Munday) Chapter 2

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BYE BYE