TheRoutledgeEncyclopaedia

ofTranslationStudies
P,Q,R,S
Usuf Hussain
http://www.extranslation.com/

Polysystem
MARK SHUTTLEWORTH

 A polysystem

is a system of systems which

interact to bring about a process of
evolution (Even-Zohars model).

In

the literary polysystem, different literary

genres vie for the domination of the center.

Genre

includes not only masterpieces,

but also childrens literature, popular
fiction and translated works.

 Literary

evolution is caused by the

unavoidable competition generated by
the state of heterogeneity (Even-Zohar,
1990:91).

Primary (innovative) against secondary

(conservative) literary models.

A primary

form is accepted into the

center, and becomes conservative.

 Then

a newer model evicts it from the center of

the polysystem.

Discussion
o
o

covers:

Role of translated literature in a literary

polysystem.
Theoretical implications for translation studies.

Translation

is an activity that is dependent on

the relations within a certain cultural system
(Even-Zohar, 1990).

 Translated

literature can occupy a central position

when:
1.

a young literature looks for ready-made

models.

2.

original literature is peripheral.

3.

At time of crisis (New ideas via translation).

.Translated

literature:

. conforms

to already existing models or

.introduces

original elements.

 A new

target-oriented approach associated with

Gideon Toury, with three insights:

1)

translation is a specific instance of the inter-systemic

transfer.

2)

Focus is shifted from equivalence to the translated

text as an entity in a polysystem.

3)

The target text is:

. not

the product of linguistic selections.

.shaped

taste).

by systemic constrains (genre and literary

 A number

of scholars have questioned the

necessity of the primary/secondary
distinction (Lefevere 1983b:194; Gentzler
1993:122).

Gentzler

suggests that the influence of

Russian Formalism is too strong.

The

most significant extension is found in

Toury (1980a), with translationnorms.

Pragmatics
BASIL HATIM

 The

study of the purposes for which

sentences are used, of the real world
conditions under which a sentence may be
appropriately used as an utterance
(Stalnaker 1972:380).

Speechacts:acts

we perform when we
complain, request, or apologize.

An

utterance has a sense, a force and an

effect.

e.g. Shut the door is in a sense an imperative that

carries the force of a request, which could be used

to annoy the hearer.
Austin

(1962) labeled them: locution,

illocutionandperlocution,respectively.

Communication

breakdown is caused more

often by speech act misperception than by
linguistic expression miscomprehension.

e.g. Journalist: what were the contents of the letter you

handed to King Fahad?
Tunisian ministers response (Arabic): this is a matter
solely for the Saudis to consider.
Interpreters Arabic literal rendering: This matter
concerns the Saudis.
This inviting answer misled the English journalist into
more questioning, only to be rebuked by the minister.
(Hatim 1986; Hatim and Mason 1997).

Speech

acts are not necessarily the same in all

languages and cultures.

 Speech

act interpretation depends on their

position within sequences.

This

led to the notion of the illocutionary

structure of a text, determining its
progression and its coherence (Ferrara
1980).

Overall

effect has to be relayed and not a

series of unstructured sequences (i.e. speech
act by speech act).

 In

Text Act, speech act is assessed in terms of its

contribution to the global coherence of the
entire text (Horner 1975).

Entire

text formats began to be considered from

the viewpoint of pragmatics.

For

example, argumentative texts display a

global problem-solving structure, with the
problem section being assertive, and the
solution section directive (illocutionary
value).

 Speech

act indeterminacy resolved by

reference to texts global organization
(Hatim and Mason 1990a).

e.g.

describing a given peace plan as

slightly better than the previous ones
could pragmatically mean only slightly
and therefore negligibly better or
appreciably better.
This can be settled only when we read but there are reasons for hope.

ImpliedMeaning
In

communication, being sincere is a social

obligation (Austin 1962; Searle 1969;
among others).

Grice

concentrated on when interaction may

be intentionally thwarted, leading to
implicature (Grice 1975).

Within

the CooperativePrinciple, he
identified Maxims, that should be adhered
to, if no good reason not to.

Maxims
1.Quantity
Make your contribution as informative as is required;
2. Quality
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence;
3. Relevance
Be relevant;
4. Manner
Be communicatively orderly.

Maxims obeyed, or disturbed by:

flouting

(deliberate non-compliance
with the rules).

Implicature

from flouting determines

translator intervention extent.

Implying

is possible even when a given

maxim is adhered to where nonadherence would be the norm.

 Flouted

here is politeness, which sanctions

flouting Quality as a norm (Leech 1983).

e.g. Dentist: Why didnt you let me give you gas?

o

Young Lady: Because you said it would be five

shillings extra.

Dentist: [shocked] Oh, dont say that. It makes me

feel as if I had hurt you for the sake of five shillings.

Young Lady: Well, so you have (Shaws You Never

Can Tell).

RelevanceinTranslation
Gutt

(1991/2000) describes translation in terms

of a general theory of human cognition.

Relevance:

To achieve maximum benefit at

minimum processing cost.

There

are two ways of using language:

descriptive and interpretive.

An

utterance is descriptive if it is true of a

state of affairs, and interpretive if it
represents someone elses thought or utterance.

 Translation

is said to be an instance of interlingual interpretive use (Gutt 1991).

Relevance

deals with not only the content but also

the style.
The

notion of communicative clues is proposed

as a possible solution to inter-linguistic disparity.

e.g., focal effects (such as emphasis) may be achieved by

prosodic stress in some languages; Stress can be replaced
by syntactic means (clefting as in it is X which..).

e.g Arabic news reports tend to vary verbs of saying

(declare when no declaration exists, announce when
no announcement exists, and so on). or noteworthy for
something that is not worth noting at all.

Gutt

further distinguishes between direct and

indirect translation.

Direct:

the translator is free to elaborate or

summarize.

Indirect:

He has to stick to the original contents.

Semiotics
UBALDO STECCONI

 A theory

of how we produce, interpret

and negotiate meaning through signs.

Structuralsemioticsinitiated

by
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), and
interpretivesemiotics elaborated by C.
S. Peirce (1839-1914).

According

to the first, a language is a

set of inter-related systems whose
elements have no validity independently
of the relations of equivalence and

 In

practice, translators compare semiotic

structures on lexical items, sense levels,
narrative structures. etc.

Interpretivesemioticsis

centred on Semiosis.

Semiosis

is an action, an influence which

involves a sign, its object and its interpretant
(Peirce 1931).

Interpretant

is an effect of the sign which says

something more about the object.

 Major

contributions in the structuralist

tradition include Toury (1986), with the
semiotic nature of translating.

Roman

Jackobson extended translation

beyond inter-linguistic translation to
include intra-linguistic and intersemiotic
translation.

translating

has to be conceived as an
irreversible process, and the equivalence
relationships as unidirectional (Toury

Conditions that set translation apart from nontranslation.

Similarity:a

new text similar to existing semiotic

material in the source environment.

Difference:No

T-semiosis without reference to

difference between the source and target
environments.

Mediation:A text

that doesnt mediate between

source and target environments cant be labeled as
translation.

 Two

additional concepts are required for Tsemiosis: eventsandnorms.

Translation

events include translated texts in

the target environment.

These

events are regulated by translation

norms.
One

has to examine the category of events

and the norms for a complete answer
regarding what translation is.

Sociological
Approaches
MOIRA INGHILLERI

 Sociological

perspectives introduced
approaches for investigating translation
activity as a socialphenomenon.

Bourdieus view

of the social
foregrounds social practices, not
individual actions.

Social

theory needs to recognize the

actor-networks and examine the
associations made by actors (Latour).

 Luhmann

(1985) presents a view of

society composed of functional systems
(e.g. laws, fine arts, sciences).

Translation

scholars have explored the

relevance of these theories to translation.

This

includes the relationship between

translator agency, social structure,
historical, social and cognitive processes.

 This

also informs the conceptualization of

empirical research to examine translation
activity, including training within contexts.

Latours theory:

to theorize the translation

process from the perspectives of the actors
involved (Buzelin 2005).

Luhmanns theory:

to conceptualize translation
and to examine the relationship between
training and practice (Hermans, 2007).

 Sociological

perspectives:

expanded the focus of analysis beyond

literary texts to include non-literary.

identified translators positionings as

crucial to translation process and
products.

Strategies
JOHN KEARNS

 Strategy

is a course of action undertaken to

achieve a particular goal in an optimal
way.

In

translation studies, other terms

(procedures, techniques,..) means the same
thing (Chesterman, 2005).

Two

different senses of translation

strategy (Molina and Hurtado Albir, 2002)

A) procedural sense
a

translation strategy: a potentially

conscious procedure for the solution of a
problem which an individual is faced with
when translating a text segment (Lorscher,
1991:76).

B) textual sense
description

procedures.

of the results of procedures not

 local

and global strategies (Jaaskelainen

1993)
Localstrategies relate to the language
structures and lexical items, while global
strategies pertain to textual style.
comprehension

strategies and production

strategies.
Production strategies: syntactic/grammatical,
semantic, and pragmatic (Chesterman, 1997) .

GlobalStrategies
literal/free;

formal/dynamic (Nida), semantic

/communicative (Newmark); documentary
/instrumental (Nord), overt/covert (House), etc.

foreignizing

and domesticating translation strategies

(Venuti 1995a).

A move

from equivalence-based to norm-based

theoretical models with the rise of DTS.

Strategies are ways in which translators seek toconform

tonorms nottoachieveequivalence,
(Chesterman,1997: 88).

Thank you

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