Translation Studies Summary (Jeremy Munday)
Chapter 9: The Role of the Translator
Paragraph 1
Invisibility = to describe the translator’s situation and activity in
contemporary British and American cultures
According to Venuti, this invisibility is typically produced because:
1. Translators themselves tend to translate ‘fluently’ into English
2. Of how translated texts are typically read in the target culture
‘Translations are rarely considered a form of literary scholarship’ (Venuti
1998:32).
Domestication = translating in a transparent, fluent, ‘invisible’ style in
order to minimize the foreignness of the TT.
→ Moves the author to the reader.
Foreignization = choosing a foreign text and developing a translation
method along the lines which are excluded by dominant cultural values in
the target language.
→ Moves the reader to the author.
Venuti states that foreignization is a way to counter the unequal and
‘violently’ domesticating cultural values of the English-language world.
‘Domestication’ and ‘foreignization’ are considered to be not binary
opposites, but part of a continuum, and they relate to ethical choices
made by the translator.
Ethical Level domestication foreignization
Discursive Level fluency resistancy
Berman describes translation as an experience/trial in two senses:
1. For the target culture in experiencing the strangeness of the foreign.
2. For the foreign text to being uprooted from its original language
context.
Berman’s negative analytic:
‘The negative analytic is primarily concerned with ethnocentric,
annexationist translations and hypertextual translations, where the play of
deforming forces is freely exercised.’
Deforming tendencies:
, 1. Rationalization: modification of syntactic structures (punctuation,
sentence structure, etc.)
2. Clarification: explicitation which ‘aims to render “clear” what does
not wish to be clear in the original’.
3. Expansion: ‘empty’ explicitation, ‘overtranslation’, and ‘flattening’.
4. Ennoblement: annihilation of the original rhetoric because of the
improvements made by the translator.
5. Qualitative impoverishment: replacement of words/expressions
with TT equivalents that lack the features of the original.
6. Quantitative impoverishment: loss of lexical variation.
7. The destruction of rhythms
8. The destruction of underlying networks of signification:
destruction of seemingly unimportant words that provide underlying
uniformity.
9. The destruction of linguistic patternings
10. The destruction of vernacular networks of their
exoticization
11. The destruction of expressions and idioms
12. The effacement of the superimposition: erasure of traces
of different forms of language.
Berman’s positive analytic
Literal translation: Labour on the letter (of works), on the one hand,
restores the particular signifying process of works (which is more than
their meaning) and, on the other hand, transforms the translating
language.
Paragraph 2
Translators often consider their work to be intuitive, that they must be led
by language and listen to their ear.
Most of the work translator’s work that goes into a translation, becomes
invisible once the new text stands intact.
The creativity of translation is a growing theme and the crossover between
translation studies and creative writing has begun to be explored.
The translator is an intervenient being, who is affected by cultural and
ideological affiliations which show themselves in their translations.
Paragraph 3
A power play is evident in the publishing world in which the translator
have little to know say and have to work for a very modest fee. This often
results in a domesticating translations.
Chapter 9: The Role of the Translator
Paragraph 1
Invisibility = to describe the translator’s situation and activity in
contemporary British and American cultures
According to Venuti, this invisibility is typically produced because:
1. Translators themselves tend to translate ‘fluently’ into English
2. Of how translated texts are typically read in the target culture
‘Translations are rarely considered a form of literary scholarship’ (Venuti
1998:32).
Domestication = translating in a transparent, fluent, ‘invisible’ style in
order to minimize the foreignness of the TT.
→ Moves the author to the reader.
Foreignization = choosing a foreign text and developing a translation
method along the lines which are excluded by dominant cultural values in
the target language.
→ Moves the reader to the author.
Venuti states that foreignization is a way to counter the unequal and
‘violently’ domesticating cultural values of the English-language world.
‘Domestication’ and ‘foreignization’ are considered to be not binary
opposites, but part of a continuum, and they relate to ethical choices
made by the translator.
Ethical Level domestication foreignization
Discursive Level fluency resistancy
Berman describes translation as an experience/trial in two senses:
1. For the target culture in experiencing the strangeness of the foreign.
2. For the foreign text to being uprooted from its original language
context.
Berman’s negative analytic:
‘The negative analytic is primarily concerned with ethnocentric,
annexationist translations and hypertextual translations, where the play of
deforming forces is freely exercised.’
Deforming tendencies:
, 1. Rationalization: modification of syntactic structures (punctuation,
sentence structure, etc.)
2. Clarification: explicitation which ‘aims to render “clear” what does
not wish to be clear in the original’.
3. Expansion: ‘empty’ explicitation, ‘overtranslation’, and ‘flattening’.
4. Ennoblement: annihilation of the original rhetoric because of the
improvements made by the translator.
5. Qualitative impoverishment: replacement of words/expressions
with TT equivalents that lack the features of the original.
6. Quantitative impoverishment: loss of lexical variation.
7. The destruction of rhythms
8. The destruction of underlying networks of signification:
destruction of seemingly unimportant words that provide underlying
uniformity.
9. The destruction of linguistic patternings
10. The destruction of vernacular networks of their
exoticization
11. The destruction of expressions and idioms
12. The effacement of the superimposition: erasure of traces
of different forms of language.
Berman’s positive analytic
Literal translation: Labour on the letter (of works), on the one hand,
restores the particular signifying process of works (which is more than
their meaning) and, on the other hand, transforms the translating
language.
Paragraph 2
Translators often consider their work to be intuitive, that they must be led
by language and listen to their ear.
Most of the work translator’s work that goes into a translation, becomes
invisible once the new text stands intact.
The creativity of translation is a growing theme and the crossover between
translation studies and creative writing has begun to be explored.
The translator is an intervenient being, who is affected by cultural and
ideological affiliations which show themselves in their translations.
Paragraph 3
A power play is evident in the publishing world in which the translator
have little to know say and have to work for a very modest fee. This often
results in a domesticating translations.
