WHAT IS TRANSLATION STUDIES?

1. WHAT IS TRANSLATION STUDIES? RZ

2. 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 RZ

3. 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 RZ

4. 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?? (FR:Translatologie; PT,ES: Traductologia; IT: Traduttologia, etc.) RZ

5. 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” (Gentzler:92) RZ

6. “[Holmes] realized as did few others that the 1950s had heralded a revolution in translation studies” (van den Broeck, 1988,1994:3) • 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, 1988,1994:68) - “lack of any general consensus as to the scope and structure of the discipline” (ibid.:71) RZ

7. 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’ RZ

8. 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) RZ

9. Holmes’s map of TS Figure 1 Holmes’ conception of translation studies (from Munday p.10.) RZ

10. 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. RZ

11. 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. RZ

12. 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) RZ

13. 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 RZ

14. APPLIED TS RZ

15. APPLIED TS RZ

16. APPLIED TS RZ

17. APPLIED TS RZ

18. Gideon Tourypoints out that : Theoretical, descriptive and applied areas of TS influence one another, BUT Holmes’s 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. RZ

19. TASK 2 Work in pairs, make notes and be prepared to give feedback to the class: Is translation theory relevant for practising translators? RZ

20. Think about the following points and be prepared to actively discuss them in class. • Is a graduate or a postgraduate qualification a prerequisite for working as a professional translator in your country? • 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. RZ

21. BYE BYE RZ