Translation Studies

TRANSLATION STUDIES Chapter 1 Main issues of translation studies Translation studies is a relatively new academic research area that has expanded in recent years, especially in the last five decades. While translation was formerly studied as a language-learning methodology or as a part of comparative literature, translation workshops and contrastive linguistic courses, the new discipline belongs to the work of James Holmes. His seminal paper “The name and nature of translation studies” is generally accepted as the founding statement for the field. Holmes draws attention to the limitations imposed by the fact that translation research was dispersed across older disciplines. He also stresses the need to forge “other communication channels”, cutting across the traditional disciplines, to reach all scholars working in the field, from whatever background. Holmes puts forward an overall framework, describing what translation studies covers. The same framework has been presented by Gideon Toury. It describes two main branches of translation studies: Pure and Applied. The objectives of the PURE areas of research are: 1 The description of the phenomena of translation (descriptive translation theory). 2 The establishment of general principles to explain and predict such phenomena (translation theory). The descriptive branch of “pure” research in Holmes (Descriptive translation studies) has three possible ways: examination of the product, the function and the process. The theoretical branch is divided into general and partial theories. The term general is referring to those writings that describe every type of translation and include generalizations that can be relevant for translation as a whole. Partial or restricted theories are: • Medium-restricted theories • Area-restricted theories • Rank-restricted theories • Text-type-restricted theories • Time-restricted theories • Problem-restricted theories The APPLIED branch of Holmes’s framework concerns: 1 Translator training (teaching methods, testing techniques, etc.) 2 Translation aids (dictionaries, grammars, information technology) 3 Translation criticism (evaluation of translation including the marking of student translation) Despite this categorization, Holmes himself admits that several different restrictions can apply at any one time and that the theoretical, descriptive and applied areas do influence one another. Toury states that the main merit of the divisions is that they allow a clarification and a division between the various areas of translation studies which in the past have often been confused. Pym points out that Holmes’s map omits any mention of the individuality of the style, decisionmaking processes and working practices of human translators involved in the translation process.

Chapter 2 Translation theory before the twentieth century Up until the second half of the twentieth century, translation theory was locked in what George Steiner calls a sterile debate over the triad of literal, free, and faithful translation This can be called the pre-linguistic period of translation (according to Newmark), in this period we have an important debate about the translation between: - Word for word (literal translation) - Sense for sense (free translation) This distinction between literal and free goes back to Cicero and St. Jerome. Cicero in De optimo genere oratorum, indicates a main difference between the interpreter and the orator. The former is seen as the literal, the latter tried to produce a speech that moved the listeners. In the Roman times the word for word translation was exactly what it said, so, the replacement of each individual word of the source text (Greek) with its equivalent in Latin. St Jerome, one of the most important translators, cites the authority of Cicero’s approach to justify his own Latin translation of the Greek Septuagint Old Testament. ...I render not wordfor-word, but sense-for-sense. Jerome disparaged the word for word translation because it cloaking the sense of the original while the sense for sense translation allowed the sense or content of the source language to be translated. The same type of concern has occurred in other rich and ancient translation tradition such as in China and the Arab world where it seems that sense for sense translation has been largely adopted. Martin Luther For over a thousand years after St. Jerome, issues of free and literal translation were linked to the translation of the Bible and other religious and philosophical texts. The Roman Catholic Church was concerned about the correct established meaning of the Bible to be transmitted. There are several examples of translations that were judged heretical, banned or censored. The French humanist Etienne Dolet was burned at the stake for a “rien du tout”. But non-literal or non-accepted translations had become a powerful weapon against the Church. M. Luther had been criticized by the Church for the addition of the word “allein” (alone/only) making “the work of law” redundant in his own translation of Paul’s words in Roman, because there was no equivalent Latin word in the source text. Luther follows St Jerome to reject the word for word translation strategy Flora Amos She notes that early translator often differed considerably in the meaning they gave such as “faithfulness”, “accuracy” and even the word “translation” itself. Louis Kelly Looks in detail at the history of translation theory tracing the difference of meaning of terms “truth” and “spirit” through the centuries. John Dryden English poet and translator would have enormous impact on subsequent translation theory and practice. He reduces all translation in 3 categories: 1 Metaphrase (word by word and line by line) which corresponds to literal translation 2 Paraphrase (words are not strictly followed as their sense) which corresponds to faithful or sense-for-sense translation 3 Imitation (forsaking to word and sense) very free translation, adaptation. Schleiermacher Friedrich Schleiermacher is recognized as the founder of modern protestant theology and of modern hermeneutics. He points out a romantic approach to interpretation based not on absolute truth but on individual’s inner feeling and understanding According to Schleiermacher there are two different type of text:

1 Commercial texts 2 Scholarly and artistic texts Schleiermacher sees the latter on a higher creative plane. His strategy is to move the reader toward the writer giving the reader the impression that he receives the work in his own language. The translator must valorize the foreign and transfer that into the TL. Schleiermacher’s respect for the foreign text was to have considerable influence over scholars in modern times. Chapter 3 Equivalence and equivalent effect After the period of “fight” between free Vs literal we can talk about the meaning of a particular issue like for example “equivalence” Roman Jakobson in his opera “On linguistic aspects of translation” divided translation in 3 categories: - intralingual (an interpretation of verbal signs by other signs in the same language) - interlingual (classic translation) - intersemiotic (or transmutation because it translate in non verbal signs like music and paint) Jakobson examines interlingual translation and stress the attention on the key issues of this type of translation: linguistic meaning and equivalence. He follows the idea (Saussure) that the signifier and the signified, together, form the linguistic sign, but the sign is arbitrary. For the message to be “equivalent” in source and target language, the code units will be different since they belong to two different sign systems (languages) which partition reality differently. Ex. house: Is feminine in Romances languages and neuter in German. Jakobson approach the problem of the equivalence with the famous definition: “Equivalence in difference is the cardinal problem in language and the pivotal concern of linguistics”. Only in poetry Jakobson talk about “untranslatable” and requires a creative transposition. The question on meaning, equivalence and translatability became a prominent issue of translation studies in the ‘60s and will be tackled by one of the most important figure in translation studies, the American Eugene Nida. Nida He moves translation into a more scientific era by incorporating recent work in linguistics. Hi is linked to the theory of “generative transformational grammar” by Chomsky. The most important idea of Nida is that a word hasn’t meaning without the context. Nida presents a series of techniques as an aid for the translator in determining the meaning of different linguistic items, i.e. hierarchical structuring (superordinate and hyponyms), componential analysis or semantic structure analysis. NIDA: The old terms such as “literal ore free translation” or “faithful translation” are discarded by Nida, in favour of two basic orientations or types of equivalence (formal and dynamic equivalence). Formal equivalence: Focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content. Dynamic equivalence: Is based in what that Nida calls “the principle of equivalent effect”, where the relationship between receptor and message should be the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message. The message has to be tailored to the receptor’s linguistic needs and cultural expectation and aims at complete naturalness (the closest natural equivalent to the source language message) of expression. For Nida the success of the translation depends of: 1 Making sense 2 Conveying the spirit and manner of the original 3 Having a natural and easy form of expression 4 Producing a similar response

Chomsky Chomsky’s generative transformational model analyzes sentences into series of related levels governed by rules. The structure relation is a universal feature of human language. The most basic of such structures are Kernel sentences, which are simple, active, declarative sentences that require the minimum of transformation. Kernel is to be obtained from the source language surface by a reductive process of back-transformation (Nida). This involves analysis using generative–transformational grammar’s four types of functional class: - events - objects - abstract - relational Kernels are the level at which the message is transferred into the receptor language before being transformed into the surface structure in 3 stages: literal transfer, minimal transfer and literary transfer. Newmark Newmark points out that the equivalent effect is “illusory” and the gap between emphasis on source and the target language always remains as the overriding problem in translation studies. He suggests narrowing the gap replacing the old terms with those of “semantic” and “communicative” translation. Semantic translation differs from literal in that it respects context while literal translation (word-for-word) even in its weaker form remains very closely to the ST lexis and syntax. Thus the literal translation is not only the best, it is the only valid method in semantic and communicative translation. . Koller Koller examines more closely the concept of equivalence and its linked term correspondence: the correspondence is considered within the field of contrastive linguistics and its parameters are those of Saussure’s langue, while equivalence relates to Saussure’s parole. He describes five different types of equivalence: 1 Denotative equivalence 2 Connotative equivalence 3 Text normative equivalence 4 Pragmatic equivalence (Nida dynamic equivalence) 5 Formal equivalence Chapter 4 The translation shift approach Since the 1950s there has been a variety of linguistic approaches to the analysis of translation that have proposed detailed lists or taxonomies in an effort to categorize the translation process. Vinay and Darbelnet: they carried out a comparative stylistic analysis of French and English. The two general translation strategies identified by Vinay and Darbelnet are: direct translation and oblique translation which hark back to literal vs. free. The two strategies include 7 procedures of which direct translation covers three: • Borrowing • Calque • Literal translation In those cases where literal translation is not possible Vinay and Darbelnet propose the strategy of oblique translation. The latter covers a further four procedures: • Transposition • Modulation • Equivalence • Adaptation. These seven procedures are operated on 3 levels: 1 The lexicon 2 Syntactic structures 3 The message

A list of five steps that the translator has to use is: 1 Identify the units of translation 2 Examine the source language text, evaluating the descriptive, affective and intellectual content of the units 3 Reconstruct the metalinguistic context of the message 4 Evaluate the stylistic effects 5 Produce and revise the target text Catford: He creates the term “shift” in the area of translation. Catford makes an important distinction between formal correspondence and textual equivalence. He considers two kind of shift: Shift of level: something which is expressed by grammar in one language and lexis in another. Most of Catford’s analysis is given over the category shifts. These are subdivided into four kinds: structural shifts, class shifts, unit shifts and intra-system shifts); Jirì Levy (Czechoslovakia): He gives an important attention to the expressive function or style of text. (Attention to poetry) Van Leuven-Zwart: His model is intended for the description of integral translation of fictional texts and comprises two different models: 1 Comparative model: Involves a detailed comparison of ST and TT and a classification of all the microstructural shifts. This model is as follows: 1. Division in comprehensible textual units called Transemes, i.e. “she sat up quickly” is classed as a transeme, as its corresponding Spanish “se enderezò”. 2. define the Architranseme (core sense of the ST transeme). In the above example the Architranseme is “to sit up”. 3. establish the relationship between the two transemes. 2 Descriptive model: Is a macrostructural model, designed for the analysis of translated literature. It is based on concepts borrowed from narratology and stylistics. Chapter 5 Functional theories of translation Text Types Katharina Reiss created 3 main kinds of categories which classify the texts: Informative, Expressive (Aesthetic), Operative (Persuasive), there is also another fourth category: Audiomedial texts such as visual and spoken multimedia instruments. Each kind of text we know can be classify on a certain type of the 3 we have just talked about, for example a Poem is clearly an Expressive text while an Electoral Speech is an Operative one etc…some texts can also be classified as hybrids of two categories, such as a Sermon which is either Informative and Operative. Katharina Reiss suggests specific translation methods according to text type. As we have different kinds of texts we also have various ways to translate them from a ST into a TT, it is clear that

• • •

The TT way The TT The TT among

of an Informative Text should transmit all the information in a simple and clear of an Expressive Text should preserve the artistic form of the Source Text of an Operative Text should try a good method to create an equivalent effect the Target Text readers

During the translation of these texts the translator must keep on mind that there is a wide range of elements which should be considered, these elements are Intralinguistic (lexis, grammar…) and Extralinguistic (time, place, receiver…). Translational Action The translational action is a model proposed by Holz-Manttari which has the aim of provides students, scholars and translators in general with a set of guidelines suitable for a wide range of situations. Interlingual translation is described as “translational action from a source text” and as a communicative process involving a series of roles and players:

• • • • •

The The The The The

initiator: the company or individual who needs the translation commissioner: who contact the translator ST writer: who wrote the original text TT user: the person who will receive the TT text (libraries or shops) TT receiver: who finally read the book for personal interest or study

As we have just told the Translational Model aim to create a TT which is suitable and clear for the TT reader, this kind of result is supposed to be achieved by adapting the text to the target context and not by totally following the ST. Even if this model has taken account of the different important elements in translating a ST it has the imperfection not to consider the great amount of cultural differences among cultures. The Skopos Theory The Skopos Theory were introduced by Hans J. Vermeer with the collaboration of Katharina Reiss, this theory predates the Manttari’s Translational Action model and can be considered to be part of this same theory. The theory is mainly based on 6 basic rules:

1. A Translatum (or Target text) is determined by its Skopos (or purpose) 2. A TT is an offer of information in a target culture and TL concerning an offer of information in a source culture and SL. 3. A TT doesn’t initiate an offer of information in a clearly reversible way 4. A TT must be internally coherent 5. A TT must be internally coherent with the ST 6. The five rules above are ordered hierarchically with the Skopos rule predominating. In this model, the ST is dethroned and the translation is judged not by equivalence of meaning but by its adequacy to the functional goal of the TT situation as defined by the commission... This theory has been discussed by some other theorists whose judge the Vermeer’s Work as not-functional for the literary texts where there’s not a clear purpose and the structure is too complex to be adapted in a such simple way, in addition they note as the Skopos theory doesn’t pay sufficient attention to the linguistic level of the ST concentrating excessively on the purpose. Nord and the Translation-oriented text analysis Christiane Nord presents a more detailed functional model incorporating elements of text analysis. The first distinction is between two basic types of translation product: documentary translation and instrumental translation. Documentary translation: In this kind of translation the TT reader knows that the text he’s reading has been translated from another language\culture, these are the cases of a text which the author wants to preserve as “exoticizing” or to maintain some cultural specific lexical items.

Instrumental translation: Contrary to the previous one, the instrumental translation let the reader know that the text has never been translated. In addition the translator should try to turn the translation suitable for the target culture, context and time. In her last book C. Nord proposes a more flexible version of the model where she highlights “three aspects of functionalist approaches that are particularly useful in translator training: • • • •

the importance of the translation commission the role of ST analysis the functional hierarchy of translation problems.

Analyzing the text, the translator needs to compare the 2 profiles in order to see where they may be different, the main features to pay attention to are: the text function, the sender and receiver, the target time and place, the way the text will be exposed (speech or writing) and the purpose for which the text was written and why needs to be translated. This model is thought to be applicable to all text types and translation situations but actually there are cases in which the use of a fixed model may create some problems Chapter 6 Discourse and register analysis approaches Since the 70s up until to the 90s discourse analysis came to prominence in translation studies. Building on Halliday’s systemic functional grammar it has come to be used in translation analysis. There is a link with the text analysis model of Christiane Nord. However, while text analysis normally concentrates on describing the way in which texts are organized (sentence structure, cohesion, etc.) discourse analysis looks at the way language communicates meaning and social and power relations. The model of discourse analysis that had the greatest influence is Hallidayan’s model of discourse analysis that is based on what he terms systemic functional grammar, is geared to the study of language as communication, seeing meaning in the writer’s linguistic choice systematically relating these choice to a winder sociocultural framework. In this model there is a strong interrelation between the surface-level realizations of the linguistic functions and the sociocultural framework. ORDER: • Genre (the conventional text type associated with a specific communicative function , for example a business letter) is conditioned by the sociocultural environment • Register (comprises three variable elements: field tenor and mode) • Discourse semantic (ideational, interpersonal, textual) • Lexicogrammar ( transitivity, modality, theme-rheme/cohesion) Halliday’s grammar is extremely complex House’s model of translation quality assessment One of the first work that use Hallidayan’s model. The model involves the systematic comparison of the textual profile of the source and target language. According to Juliane House the translation can be categorized into two types: overt and covert translation. An overt translation is a TT that doesn’t purport to be an original. A covert translation is a translation which enjoys the status of an original source text in the target culture. The source language is not linked particularly to the source language culture or audience; both source language and target language address their respective receivers directly. Mona Baker She does incorporate a comparison of nominalization and verbal forms in theme position in a scientific report in Brazilian, Portuguese and English. He gives a number of examples from languages such as Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic. The most important point of ST. Thematic

analysis is that translator should be aware of the relative markedness of the thematic and information structures. Baker considers various aspects of pragmatics in translation. Her definition of pragmatics is as follows: “the study of language in use. It’s the study of meaning manipulated by the participants in a communication situation”. She stresses the attention on coherence and cohesion in translation and gives more attention to implicature (what the speaker means rather than what he says). Hatim and Mason (Camus and “L’entranger” passage) They pay extra attention to the realization in translation of ideational and interpersonal functions and incorporate into their model a semiotic level of discourse. They consider shifts in modality (the interpersonal function). They also concentrate on identifying dynamic and stable elements on the text. These are linked with translation strategy. Works by both Baker and Hatim and Mason bring together a range of ideas from pragmatics and sociolinguistics that are relevant for translation and translation analysis. Baker’s analysis is particularly useful in focusing on the thematic and cohesion structures of a text. Hatim and Mason move behind House’s register analysis and begin to consider the way social and power relations are negotiated and communicated in translation. Chapter 7 System theories In the 1970s another reaction to the old static prescriptive models was polysystem theory, which saw translated literature as a system operating in the larger social, literary and historical systems of the target culture. It was an important move. Polysystem theory was developed in the 1970s by the Israeli scholar Itamar Even-Zohar borrowing ideas from the Russian formalists of the 1920’s. Literary is thus part of the social cultural, literary and historical framework and the key concept is that of the system, in which there is an ongoing dynamic of mutation and struggle for the primary position in the literary canon. Even-Zohar focuses in the relations between all these systems in the overarching concept to which he gives a new term, the Polysystem (Conglomerate of systems which interact to bring about an ongoing, dynamic process of evolution within the polysystem as a whole). The dynamic process of evolution is vital to the polysystem, indicating that the relations between innovatory and conservative systems are in a constant state of flux and competition. Gideon Toury focuses on developing a general theory of translation. He goes on to propose just such a methodology for the branch of Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS). For Toury translations first and foremast occupy a position in the social and literary systems of the target culture, and thus position determines the translation strategies that are employed. The 3 phases methodology for DTS of Toury are: 1 Situate the text within the target culture 2 Compare stand target text for shifts 3 Draw implications for future translating The concept of norms (Toury) The translation of general values or ideas shared by a community into performance instructions appropriate for and applicable to particular situations. He considers translation to be an activity governed by norms and these norms determine the equivalence manifested in actual translation. They appear to exert pressure and to perform some kind of prescriptive function:

The basic initial norm refers to a general choice made by the translators. When the translator subject himself toward the ST, the TT will be adequate; if the target culture norms prevail, then the TT will be acceptable. Other norms described by Toury are: • 1 Preliminary Norms (Factors which determines the selection of the text) • 2 Operational Norms (Describe the presentation and linguistic matter of the target text) Toury also propose the Laws of translation: 1 Law of growing standardization 2 Law of interference (a kind of default) Lambert and Van Gorp (they are in contradiction with Toury and Even-Zohar) They accept that is impossible to summarize all relationship involved in the activity of translation but suggest a systematic scheme that avoids superficial and intuitive commentaries and judgements and convictions. Chapter 8 Varieties of cultural studies The move from translation as text to translation as culture and politics is what Mary SnellHornby terms “the cultural turn”. It is taken up by Bassnett and Lefevere as a metaphor for the range of case studies in their collection. These include studies of changing standards in translation over time, the power exercised in and on the publish industry in pursuit of specific ideologies, feminist writing and translation, translation as appropriation, translation and colonization, and translation as rewriting, including film rewriting. Three main areas have influenced translation studies on the course of 1990s: translation as rewriting, translation and gender, translation and postcolonialism. Lefevere Describes the literary system in which translation functions as being controlled by three main factors: professionals within the literary system, patronage outside the literary system, the dominant poetics. The people involved in such power positions are the ones Lefevere sees as rewriting literature and governing its consumption by the general public. The motivation for such rewriting can be ideological or poetological. He claims that “the same basic process of rewriting is a work in translation, historiography, onthologization, criticism and editing”. Sherry Simon She approaches translation from a gender studies angle. She sees a language of sexism in translation studies, with its image of dominance, fidelity, faithfulness and betrayal Simon points out that the great classics of Russian literature were initially made available in English in translations produced mainly by one woman (ex. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy). The feminist theorists see a parallel between the status of translation, which is often considered derivative and inferior to original writing, and that of women, so often repressed in society and literature. Sherry Simon gives examples of Canadian feminist translator Barbara Godard who seek to emphasize the feminine in the translation project. Simon links, as well, gender and cultural studies to the developments in postcolonialism. She highlights Spivak’s concerns about the translation of the third world’s literature into English. Spivak’s view is often expressed in “translationese” which eliminates the identity of politically less powerful individuals and cultures. Spivak’s critique of western feminism and publishing is most biting when she suggests that feminists from the hegemonic countries should show solidarity with woman in postcolonial contexts by learning the language in which those women speak and write. Brazilian cannibalism

Another important postcolonial movement in translation has come from Brazil from the famous story of the ritual of cannibalization of Portuguese bishop by native Brazilian. It’s based on the metaphor of anthropophagy or cannibalism with the Andrade’s “Manifesto Antropofago”. The metaphor has been used by the strong Brazilian translation studies community to stand for the experience of colonization and translation. Colonizers and their language are devoured, their life force invigorating the devourers but in a new purified and energized form that is appropriate to the needs of the native peoples. It’s important to be aware that postcolonial writings on translation have found their echo in Europe, especially in the Irish context. The Irish context (by Cronin) Cronin himself concentrate on the role of translation in the linguistic and political battle between the Irish and English languages, examining how Irish translators have discussed and presented their work in preface, commentaries and other writings. He uses the metaphor of Translation to draw a parallel with what was happening physically to the Irish (translation at a cultural level) Chapter 9 Translating the foreign: the (in)visibility of translation Venuti: Domestication and Foreignization Lawrence Venuti is a cultural theorist who influenced the nature of the translation. In particular he focused his attention on what he calls “Invisibility of the translator”. Like other cultural theorists Venuti insists that the aim of translation studies must take account of the nature of the sociocultural framework. He contests the Toury’s “scientific” descriptive model that produces “value-free” norms and laws of translation. Venuti argued that in Anglo-American culture the translators tend to translate the texts in a “fluent” way in order to make an easy-readable Target Text and giving the text an illusion of transparency, this kind of behaviour ,nevertheless, hide the original nature of foreign text deleting sometimes important elements. Furthermore Venuti described two different methods to translate a text: Domestication: In this method the translator is hidden, the text is adapted to the target culture minimizing the foreignness of the original text. The final result is a fluent text which gives the reader the illusion that the text has been originally written in his language. Foreignization: Is the Venuti’s favourite way to work on a foreign text, in this case the translator tries to convey the TT reader all the impressions, the forms and the contents the writer wanted to communicate. This method brings out the work of the translator whose strategies are centred create a text which respects the original idea of the text even in a target language. Despite his preference to the foreignization, Venuti highlight that the first method as the second one are not perfect models and that they were created to promote research in translation field. Antoine Berman Berman’s works precedes and influence Venuti’s theories. Berman describes the translation as an “épreuve”, a trial. Berman deplores the general tendency to negate the foreign in translation by the translation strategy of naturalization (the same of Venuti’s later domestication). He identifies twelve “deforming tendencies”. His examination of the forms of deformation is termed “negative analytic”. 1. rationalization 2. clarification 3. expansion

4. ennoblement 5. qualitative impoverishment 6. quantitative impoverishment 7. the destruction of rhythms 8. the destruction of underlying networks of signification 9. the destruction of linguistic patternings 10. the destruction of vernacular networks or their exoticization 11. the destruction of expressions and idioms 12. the effacement of the superimposition of languages The publishing industry Venuti describes how the publishers tend to hide and influence the work of the translator, as the market requires fluent target texts; the publishers drive the translator to a more domesticating translation. Another power element Venuti points out is the literary agent, the agents represent the writers and take a percentage of their profits, they help the translator offering to him the possibility to be published in other countries, but the more requested books are the ones which are easily assimilated in the target culture, so again the translation is modified. Venuti speaks against the Anglo-American publishing, defining it as ethnocentric monolingual people who refuse the foreignness to aggressively preserve their own culture The reception and reviewing of translations The best way, in Venuti and Meg Brown opinion, to examine the reception of a translation is analyzing the reviews of a translated text. As Venuti noted the translation notes are the first overlooked when cuts are requested, the whole text is often considered by the review writers as a text written in their language completely leaving out the translator’s work. Sometimes some Anglo-American review writers talk about a TT as if the text were been written by an English author, making comparisons with other Anglo-American texts. Sometimes the writers of the reviews talk about the translation, judging it as inappropriate or less fluent often without having any knowledge in the field. Chapter 10 Philosophical theories of translation Over the second half of the twentieth century we see an inter-attraction of translation and philosophy. The hermeneutic movement owes its origins to the German Romantics such as Shleiermacher, and, in the twentieth century, to Heidegger. George Steiner’s “After Babel” is the key advance of the hermeneutics in translation. Steiner defines the Hermeneutic Approach as “investigation of what it means to understand a piece of oral or written speech and diagnose the process”. This investigation consists of 4 parts: 1 iniative trust (The translator’s first move is a belief and trust that there is something in the source language that can be understood); 2 aggression (It’s an invasive move. The translator invades, extracts and brings home); 3 incorporation (Importing of the meaning of the foreign text can potentially dislocate or relocate the whole of the native structure). The target culture either ingests and becomes enriched by the foreign text, or it is infected by it and ultimately rejects it 4 compensation (The meaning of source language leaves the original with a dialectically enigmatic residue). Dialectic because there has been a lost for the ST, while the residue is seen as a positive enhancement produced by the act of translation. Ezra Pound’s work was very much influenced by his reading of the literature of the past, including Greek and Latin. In his translations, he sought to escape from the rigid straitjacket of the Victorian/Edwardian English tradition by experimenting with an archaic style which Venuti link to his own foreignizing strategy. He emphasize with his translation and criticism the way that language can energize a text in translation.

Benjamin Walter Benjamin’s 1923 essay, translated into English as “The task of the translator” was originally an introduction to his own German translation of Baudelaire’s “Tableaux Parisiens”. Central to Benjamin’s paper is the notion that a translation does not exist to give an understanding of the meaning or information content of the original, but also giving the original a sort of continued life. In this expansive and creative way translation provide the creation of a “Pure and higher language”. Deconstruction: the movement owes its origins to the 1960s in France and its leading figure is the French philosopher Jaques Derrida. The terminology employed by Derrida is complex and shifting, like the meaning it dismantles. The term “différance” is perhaps the most significant; it plays on the two meanings of the verb différer (defer and differ), neither of which encompasses its meaning. Deconstruction begins to dismantle some of the key premisses of linguistics, starting with Saussure’s clear division of signified and signifier and the stability of linguistic sign. Différance suggests a location at some uncertain point in space and time between differ and defer. Derrida redefines Benjamin’s pure language as différance and deconstruct the distinction between source and target text because the original and translation owe a debt to each other. Chapter 11 Translation studies as an interdiscipline Interdiscipline challenges the current conventional way of thinking by promoting and responding to new links between different types of knowledge and technologies. But the relation between translation studies and other discipline is not fixed. In her book “Translation studies: An Integrated Approach” Mary Snell Horby attempts to integrate a wide variety of different linguistic and literary concepts in an overarching and integrated approach. In more recent years, translation studies have gone beyond purely linguistic approaches to develop its own models, such as Toury’s descriptive translation studies. Much research in translation studies makes use of techniques and concepts from a range of background A combination of linguistics analysis and critical theory has been made by Keith Harvey that with his Theory of contact examines the way gay man and lesbian work within appropriate prevailing straight and homophobic discourse from a range of communities. The new studies such as Harvey’s, represents an important step and produces very interesting results by combining a linguistic toolkit and a cultural studies approach. For the moment the kinds of interdisciplinary approach seem to be one way of bridging the gap between linguistics and cultural studies. The role of changing technologies The tools at the disposal of the translator and the theorist are altering. One of the reasons for this is the growth in the new technologies, which inevitably determine new areas of study. Corpus linguistics already facilitates the study of features of translated language. The availability and exchange of information facilitate communication among scholars. Finally the internet is also changing the status and visibility of translators. At present, however, application to the practice of translation remains somewhat problematic

SYNOPSIS OF THE BOOK Trainee translators have available to them a wealth of literature to help them consider these matters, but this material varies in quality, uses a wide range of different terminology, has differing priorities, and is often hard to find.

Munday's book is an introductory guide to this literature, aimed primarily at students studying translation theory as part of a practical course in translation. Pp. 15-16 give an outline of the different chapters of the book, which I have drawn on in the summary that follows. The first chapter gives an overview of the field, based largely on Holmes (1988/2000). Chapter 2 "Translation theory before the twentieth century", concentrates on Cicero, St. Jerome, Luther, Dryden and Schleiermacher. The next four chapters deal with what Munday calls "linguisticoriented theories". Chapter 3 "Equivalence and equivalent effect" looks at Nida's distinction between "formal equivalence" and "dynamic equivalence", as well as the semantic framework proposed in Nida & Taber (1969). We are also introduced to the distinction between semantic and communicative translation put forward by Newmark (1988), and the analysis of different types of equivalence in Koller (1979/89). (Semantic translation stays closer to the original text, and is recommended when the distinctive style of the original author is thought to be worth preserving. It may involve unusual forms of expression in the target text. Communicative translation can depart further from the original, and the result may look no different from any non-translated text in the target language. Serious works of literature where the author has a notable personal style may be translated semantically; "popular" fiction is more likely to be translated communicatively). Chapter 4 "The translation shift approach" focuses on attempts to classify the linguistic changes or "shifts" that translators make, including the work of Vinay & Darbelnet (1958, 1995), Catford (1965) and Leuven-Zwart (1989, 1990). Chapter 5 "Functional theories of translation" outlines text-type and skopos theories (Reiss 1981/2000; Vermeer 1989/2000), and Nord's text-linguistic approach (Nord 1988; 1991). ("Skopos", the Greek word for "aim" or "purpose", is used for the purpose of a translation and of the action of translating, and takes into account how the translation is commissioned). In Chapter 6 "Discourse and register analysis approaches", Munday summarises the work of House (1997) on translation quality, as well as the discourseoriented work of Baker (1991) and Hatim and Mason (1990), who draw on Halliday's systemic-functional linguistics. The remainder of the book is devoted to "cultural studies" approaches to translation. Chapter 7 "Systems theories" discusses the place of translated literature within the cultural and literary system of the target language (TL), following Even-Zohar (1971/2000). Toury's "descriptive translation studies (1995), which grew out of this work, is then outlined, highlighting Toury's notion of translation norms, and his proposal that translated texts tend to have specific characteristics such as greater standardisation and less variation in style than their source texts. (Translation norms are sociocultural constraints which affect the way that translation is viewed and carried out in different cultures, societies and times). This chapter then summarises the development of this work by Chesterman (1997), and looks briefly at the Manipulation School (Hermans 1985). Chapter 8 "Varieties of cultural studies" examines Lefevere (1992), who treats translation as "rewriting" and identifies ideological pressures on translated texts. This chapter also looks at the writing of Simon (1996) on gender in translation, and at postcolonial translation theories which stress the part that translation has played in the colonisation process and the image of the colonised (cf. Bassnett and Trivedi 1999). Chapter 9 "Translating the foreign: the (in)visibility of translation"

follows Berman (1985/2000) and Venuti (1995) in analysing the foreign element in translation and exploring the contention that translation is often considered a derivative and second-rate activity, and that the most common method of literary translation is to "naturalise" the text so that it makes for comfortable reading in the target language. Munday argues that this method should not be taken for granted. In Chapter 10 "Philosophical theories of translation" the book introduces a selection of philosophical issues concerned with language and translation, including Steiner's (1998) "hermeneutic motion" and Derrida (1995) and deconstructionism. Finally chapter 11 "Translation studies as an interdiscipline" starts from Snell-Hornby (1995) and looks at recent work that tries to integrate the linguistic and cultural approaches. The author also discusses the relationship between the internet and translation. Each chapter contains: - one or more case studies which apply the concepts of that chapter to a particular text. - a set of "discussion and research points" as activities for students. - a list of key concepts and key literature at the beginning. - a summary at the end. EVALUATION In my opinion, this book is a brave and largely successful attempt to synthesise a wide range of disparate material. Most of the important contributions to translation studies are represented here, though the book leaves out some work that perhaps should have been included. To mention three in particular: many people think that Gutt (1991/2000) is an important and original study, which says useful things about different types of translation and which is linked to a specific linguistic framework, relevance theory. Gutt is mentioned briefly in passing, but with no attempt to discuss his ideas in detail. Secondly, there is an interesting line of research, mostly in French, which develops some ideas of Vinay & Darbelnet (1958). Munday limits his discussion of Vinay & Darbelnet to their classification of translation shifts, ignoring the bulk of their book which proposes that there are underlying differences between French and English textual practices. Other writers on translation who have pursued this idea include Guillemin-Flescher (1981), Ballard (1995, 1998), Van Hoof (1989) and Delisle (1995) (although Delisle's earlier work on discourse analysis (1982) is alluded to, I think that his later work is more important in a book like this). A third body of work under-reported here is that of Peter Newmark, who has said many profound things about translation. Students should be made aware of his recent collections of provocative insights (1993, 1998), not least because they are more readable than most writing about translation. I accept that Newmark is hard to summarise, but he has much more to offer than just the distinction between semantic and communicative translation outlined in chapter 3 - which in any case is refined and elaborated in his more recent books. As a textbook this volume is admirably designed, and its weaknesses mostly stem from the field that it covers and are not the fault of the writer. Munday criticises much of the work he outlines in the earlier chapters because it relies on notions such as "equivalent communicative effect" which are slippery and very hard to define; or because the principles discussed in these chapters sometimes do not take into account different types of text (translating a poem is different in many ways from translating a software manual). But at no

point in the book does he mention any work which tries to define "equivalent communicative effect" precisely (perhaps there is none worth mentioning), and his section on text-types in chapter 5 is very brief - indeed, it questions "whether text types can really be differentiated" (p. 76). This is too dismissive: translators have to operate with some notion of the type of text which they are about to translate, so a principled attempt to classify texts in a translationally-relevant way can help them do this in a more informed way. What's more, many of the contributions which are discussed in the chapters on "cultural studies approaches" focus exclusively on literary translation - a "text-type" limitation if ever there was one. On the other hand, as a linguist who is sceptical about cultural studies I was pleased to find some of the topics covered in these chapters genuinely enlightening. Should serious literature be translated in a way which loses its foreign flavour, or should readers of translated literature be encouraged to read versions which are not "naturalised", even though they will be more difficult? My son, a literature student, has recently read English translations of novels by Balzac, Kafka, Marquez and Grass, trying to remember each time that the version he was reading was not as definitive as the original. Maybe published translations of novels ought to come with a health warning, indicating the approach to translation that was adopted. The book covers a wide area, and some topics are only sketched rapidly. The work of Nida in chapter 3, and the discourse-based approaches in chapter 6, will be hard for some students to grasp for this reason. On the other hand, Munday makes great efforts to encourage further reading of the original sources, giving references which are quite easy to access. As a survey of some of the basic material in translation studies this book is generally excellent, and I think that students and teachers of translation will welcome it with enthusiasm.