CROTTO, Cecilia

JALIL, Carolina
SAUER ROSAS, Anabella
VALDEZ, Ana Clara

Theo Hermans, Translation in Systems (1999): Lines of approach

CONTEXTUALIZATION
Theo Hermans (1948) Scholar best known by his work in translation studies. In 1985 he
edited the book The Manipulation of Literature which gave rise to the Manipulation School.

[] a geographically scattered collection of

individuals with widely varying interests, who
are, however, broadly in agreement on some
basic assumptions.

All translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose,
Translations studies must redirect their focus to an approach to literary translation which is
descriptive, target- oriented, functional and systemic. (Hermans, 1985)

Lines of approach Translation in Systems printed in 1999 which tackles the task of
explaining the different translation theories by looking at both the descriptive and systemic
approach to translating.
Hermans presents three ideas that coalesced with the Manipulation
group which have not found echoe

John McFarlane Modes of Translation published in 1953.

Lev, Miko and Popoivic They thought along structuralists lines and aimed at a
systematic exploration of translation.
James Holmes He played a crucial role in the emergence of translations studies and
in the formation of the descriptive disciplinary matrix.
o Gideon Toury He came up with the term "translation norms", as hidden rules
followed by the majority discovered by descriptive observation of actual
translation. They are not understood as prescriptive rules but as norms specific to
a context. Therefore, norms change with time and culture.

Diagnostic rather than hortatory McFarlanes phrase from Modes of Translation

The essay seeks to overturn many of the traditional assumptions the descriptive
paradigm would also argue against

Translation:
is disparaged today.
we are too ready to brand an imperfect translation as a travesty.

Problem:
not the incompetence of translators but the way we think about translation and its
feasibility.
our expectations are unreasonable when it comes to translations.
 CROTTO, Cecilia
JALIL, Carolina
SAUER ROSAS, Anabella
VALDEZ, Ana Clara

all translating seems to me an attempt to solve an impossible problem.

(Wilhelm von Humboldt: 1796)
task of combining accuracy of rendering with Grace of expression.

Accuracy:
the search for an equivalent content or sense, covering both substantial and
stylistic meaning.
accuracy does not result in literal translation: what words mean is determined by
the context in which they occur.
any mode of translation based on literalism as a standard for Accuracy is
fundamentally false

Meaning can be:

Referential: it draws on the powers of symbolic reference of the language.
Symbolic reference is not very precise because languages are not exactly parallel.
No precise equivalence between precise symbols can ever be attained.
Emotive: power of words to move. In poems, emotive meaning is more important
than referential meaning.

Language functions on several levels of meaning simultaneously:

Even if translators were able to separate out all the different strands of meaning, there
will be no way of re-combining their equivalents into one coherent unit in another
language.
To deny merit to translation simply because there is not equivalence in all respects at
once is a facile yet much practised perversion of criticism (1953: 87)

Who determines the meaning of a text?

Not a fixed identifiable meaning: different interpretations yield different
meanings. We cannot speak of the meaning. So, we cannot talk of the translation.
The complexity of meaning is such that we cannot derive an absolute standard of
Accuracy for translation from it.
Not an ideal or true translation. Translation cannot produce total accuracy.
Need for some new theory of translation: it should be diagnostic rather than hortatory,
not concerned with the unreal ideas but actualities.

Proposal:
consider translation as a complex act of communication embracing two acts of
speech, each with its own structure of speaker and hearer, meaning and
medium.
analysis of procedure: translation is as translation does (translation as a relative,
historical concept)
translation involves communication and is a question of concrete speech acts
rather than abstract language systems.
 CROTTO, Cecilia
JALIL, Carolina
SAUER ROSAS, Anabella
VALDEZ, Ana Clara

Decisions, Shifts, Metatexts

Ji Lev Die literarische bersetzung (Literary Translation) (1963)

Translation as a Decision Process (1966)

Three concerns:
1. translator as a historical and social agent
2. translation as an expression of differences in poetics between national traditions or
literary periods
3. methods of translation as resulting from certain norms and attitudes towards
translating

Relational approach
- The value of translations is ascribed in relation to two sets of norms
Reproductive
Duality
Aesthetic

- The norms and the value of translations are historically determined by the cultural needs of the
time

Similarities with McFarlanes approach

1. Analytical
2. Multidisciplinary
3. Communicative

Game theory

The act of translating as a series of moves

paradigmatic choices

syntagmatic choices

Levs approach is both functional and structuralist

Frantiek Miko

Concerned with stylistics

Anton Popovi

Aesthetic conventions

Mikos researches into shifts of expression: lying the foundations for the objective
classification of differences between the translation and its original, which in turn will permit us
to determine the aesthetic theory of translation crystallizing from the literary trends of the time
 CROTTO, Cecilia
JALIL, Carolina
SAUER ROSAS, Anabella
VALDEZ, Ana Clara

Translation as metacommunication

Metatext/prototext
Relations with prototext
Polemical/affirmative

Overt/covert

A disciplinary Utopia
James Holmes
Formation of the descriptive disciplinary matrix
Literary translation as metaliterature metapoem
o Distinctive features of verse translation:
Verse as a medium
Interpretation of the original
Determinate in length and subject-matter
Written in a language other than the original
Two-plane model
o Series
o Structure
Systematization of aspects of translation and placement in a historical setting
o Language factors
o Literary tradition or literary intertext
o Socio-cultural situation
1968: Forms of Verse Translation and the Translation of Verse Form
o Form-derivative form
Mimetic
Analogical
o Content-derivative form
Organic
o Extraneous form
1972: The Name and Nature of Translation Studies
o Favours descriptive study
o Declaration of Independence of the discipline
1981: Gideon Toury supplies diagram