Geopolitical Relations and Venuti

1. Geopolitical Relations and Venuti ELAN6101

2. Theory & Literary Translation • More freedom • Can set standards • Possibly apply elsewhere

3. Evolution • Traditional prescriptive approach • Descriptive Translation Studies – Toury • Critical descriptive translation studies – Hermans • Committed approaches - Political commitment – Niranjana, Venuti, Lotbinière-Harwood - Engagement – Tymoczko

4. Venuti’s setting • Translation into English • Literary texts past and present • ‘Anglo-American culture’ • Himself: American Italian translator & academic

5. Unequal power relations (i) • Translation flows 2.4% of British book production 2.96% of American book production 8-12% of French book production 14.4% of German book production 25.4% of Italian book production

6. Flaw in argument • Need to consider raw figures. (Pym 1996)

7. Unequal power relations (ii) • Choice of what is translated. • Stereotypes, or canonical. • No strong data study.

8. Unequal power relations (iii) • Translation strategy: Domesticating Fluency preferred by publishers, readers, & reviewers

9. Implications of domesticating • Ethnocentric – imposes TC values • Violent and unethical • Invisibility of translators • Marginalizing of translation

10. Venuti’s preferred strategy • Foreignizing • Age-old distinction – Cicero, Shleiermacher • But political/ethical; wider perspective

11. Foreignizing • Choice of marginal texts for TC • Source-oriented translation • Use of marginal TL discourses (minoritizing)

12. Example of foreignizing • Zukovsky’s translation of Cavalcanti’s ‘Donna mi prega’ into Brooklynese A foin lass bodders me I gotta tell her Of a fact surely, so unrurly, often Even me brudders dead drunk in dare cellar Feel is dough poorly ‘n yrs.

13. Venuti’s claim re. foreignizing Foreignizing translation in English can be a form of resistance against ethnocentrism and racism, cultural narcissism and imperialism, in the interests of democratic geopolitical relations. Venuti (1995: 20)

14. Critique by Bennett • Venuti needs to make a stronger case for the role of foreignizing and/or minoritizing translation in disturbing the reader, and in doing so in a positive way. Without such an argument, any connection between the translation and its intended effect is purely speculative. This holds a fortiori for the broader aim of democratic geopolitical relations.

15. Critique by Harrison I am obliged to wonder if some of the problems presented by Passion have to do with the determination of the translator, Lawrence Venuti, to use contemporary clichés, and his failure to use 20th century colloquialisms convincingly. Surely 19th century Italian romantics…didn’t get into anything resembling a ‘funk’; nor was a woman of lyrical violence capable of saying, on the eve of her rapture ‘Time flies when you’re having fun’. (quoted in Venuti 1998b:19)

16. Venuti’s response The exaggerated effect I sought worked with this reviewer. Yet she refused to understand it according to the explanation presented in my introduction: there I stated my intention to use clichés and colloquialisms unconvincingly, deviating from the archaic context to mimic the characters’ overheated romanticism. (Venuti 1998b: 19)

17. Translation as engagement: Tymockzo • Translators always committed • Translation as a political tool • No fixed strategy