study of translations by taking a comprehensive review of various theoretical approaches .... translation, since it centres on only the classics, falls short of providing an ... procedure of commutation: we may systematically introduce changes into the ..... skopos then replaces equivalence as the standard of judging translations.
Towards A Comprehensive Model of Translation Evaluation I The present paper seeks to evolve a frame of reference for a study of translations by taking a comprehensive review of various theoretical approaches in Translation Studies.
The review takes i nto account major
approaches to translation in the past as well as those which developed after the emergence of linguistics as a science thereby making Translation Studies an interdisciplinary branch of knowledge.
II
For the ancient and medieval theorists of translation, the issue in translation was one of isolating formal unit.
Cicero, Roman statesman,
orator, and writer, states: "If I render word for word, the result will sound uncouth, and if compelled by necessity I alter anything in the order or wording, I shall seem to have departed from the function of a translator" (quoted in Bassnett 1980: 43). Horace, Roman poet and satirist, too, found it difficult to replace individual SL words with individual TL words and cling closely to the SL word order in the TL. He opposes the slavish adherence to each word in its SL sequence:
A theme that is familiar can be made your own property so long as you do not waste your time on a hackneyed
treatment; nor should you try to render your original word for word like a slavish translator, or in imitating another writer, plunge yourself into difficulties from which shame, or the rules you have laid down for yourself, prevent you from extricating yourself. (Ibid: 44)
Both Cicero and Horace were primarily concerne d with enrichment of their language and literature through translation.
They, therefore, defended the
practice of rendering a SL text more freely into the TL. Later, Jerome, a chief preparer of the Vulgate version of the Bible, found the freeer Roman ap proach narrow and introduced the three -term taxonomy: word-for-word, sense-for-sense, and free.
For him, sense-for-
sense translation became a faithful middle ground between the faithful translation Cicero and Horace censured and the free imitations they d efended. Renaissance translators favoured this mode which proceeds sententially, taking as its criterial segments whole sentences rather than individual words. They made numerous sense-for-sense translations of classical texts. John Dryden, English poet, dramatist, and critic, adopted Jerome's three-term taxonomy by substituting his own terms: metaphrase, paraphrase, and imitation. He opposed metaphrase, or turning an author word by word, and line by line, from one language into another.
He equally
condemned 'imitation' for doing something totally different from the original author, wandering too far and too freely from the words and sense of the SL text.
He chose 'paraphrase' as the more balanced path. Dryden's prefatory
essay to the Ovid's Epistles of 1680 and his other prefaces establish certain rules of translation. As almost obvious prerequisites the translator must:
1. be a poet; and 2. be master of both the language of the original and his own. In his work he should:
3. understand the characteristics that individuate his author; 4. conform his genius to that of the original; 5. keep the sense "sacred and inviolable" and be literal where gracefulness can be maintained; 6. make his author appear as "charming" as possible without vio lating his real character; 7. be attentive to the verse qualities of both the original and the English poem; and 8.
make the author speak the contemporary English he would have
spoken.
There were restrictions too:
9. Do not improve the original. 10. Do not follow it so closely that the spirit is lost. (Dryden in T. R. Steiner 1975: 28)
Dryden thus advocated the principle of fidelity to the sense or spirit of the original granting freedom to replace the original poetic form by an analogous form from the target culture. The German Romantics, however, attacked the strategy of assimilating the foreign authors to the TL cultural system and insisted upon retaining the strangeness or foreignness of the SL text. Instead of Dryden's middle ground of common sense, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher, proposed 'the mystical interlinear literalism'.
In his notes to Westostlicher Divan (1819), Goethe postulates
that every literature must pass through three phases o f translation.
But as
these phases are recurrent, all may be found taking place simultaneously in the same literature though with respect to different foreign languages or genres. The three modes are as follows:
(a)
The first mode acquaints us with for eign cultures and does so by a transference 'in our own sense'.
It is best performed in plain, modest
prose....
(b)
The second mode is that of appropriation through the surrogate.
The
translator absorbs the sense of the foreign work but does so in orde r to substitute for it a construct drawn from his own tongue and cultural milieu. A native garb is imposed on the alien form.
(c)
The highest and last mode will seek to achieve perfect identity between the original text and that of the translation. Th is identity signifies that the new text does not exist 'instead of the other but in its place'. This third mode requires that the translator abandon the specific genius of his own nation, and it produces a novel tertium datum. As a result, this type of translation will meet with great resistance from the general public. But it is the noblest.... (Goethe in George Steiner 1975: 257 -258)
The entire traditional discourse on translation from Cicero to Goethe is centred on the difficulty of 'translating w ell' and of being 'faithful'. It mainly discusses the translation of poetry, the ancient Greek or Roman classics, and the Bible.
As Mary Snell -Hornby writes: "For 2,000 years,
translation theory (some call it 'traditional', others now dismiss it as 'pre scientific') was primarily concerned with outstanding works of art" (Snell Hornby in Bassnett and Lefevere 1990: 79).
The traditional approach to
translation, since it centres on only the classics, falls short of providing an appropriate framework for the analysis of the totality of target texts of a particular genre in a given culture.
It was only after the emergence of
linguistics as an interdisciplinary branch of knowledge that Translation Studies underwent a change from traditional to scientific and started providing a more complex focus on the subject.
III
An example of these changes in Translation Studies is seen in the groundwork done by the Russian Formalist Circle in the 1920s and subsequently by the Prague Linguistic Circle which led to a more theoretical study of translation around the 1950s. It was Roman Jakobson, U. S. linguist and scholar, born in Russia, who first distinguished three types of translation in linguistic terms by adopting Pierce's theory of signs and meaning:
(a) Intralingual translation, or rewording (an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs in the same language)
(b) Interlingual translation or translation proper (an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language)
(c) Intersemiotic translation or transmutation
(an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal signsystems) (Jakobson in Bassnett 1980: 14)
This view of translation as 'an interpretation of verbal signs' inaugurated an era of linguistic theories of translation which saw translation as a linguistic process
involving
L[ANGUAGE]
to
the a
transfer
of
T[ARGET]
a
message
from
L[ANGUAGE]
a
or
S[OURCE]
R[ECEPTOR]
L[ANGUAGE]. J. C. Catford, in his well-known book A Linguistic Theory of Translation (1965), attempts to describe translation in terms of the contextual view of language proposed by J. R. Firth (1957) and the scale and category grammar proposed by Halliday et al. (1961, 64). He defines translation in terms of equivalence relations.
He asserts: "The central problem of
translation-practice is that of finding TL translation equivalents. A central task of translation theory is that of defining the nature and conditions of translation equivalence" (1965: 21). between textual equivalence
Accordingly, he makes a distinction
and formal correspondence.
A textual
translation equivalent is 'any TL form (text or portion of text) which is observed to be the equivalent of a given SL form (text or portion of text)'. A formal correspondent, on the other hand , is 'any TL category (unit, class, structure, element of structure, etc) which can be said to occupy, as nearly as possible , the 'same' place in the 'economy' of the TL as the given SL
category occupies in the SL'. Equivalent forms can be matched by app lying a procedure of commutation: we may systematically introduce changes into the SL text and observe what changes if any occur in the TL text as a consequence. Translation Equivalence is, according to Catford, an empirical phenomenon which can be discov ered by comparing SL and TL texts. Catford sees language as a set of systems operating at different levels.
This view allows him to define some broad types or categories of
translation in terms of the extent, levels, and ranks of translation: (a) Categories in terms of Extent i. Full Translation The entire text is submitted to the translation process and every part of the SL text is replaced by TL text material. ii. Partial Translation Some part or parts of the SL text are left untranslated. They are simply transferred to and incorporated in the TL text. (b) Categories in terms of Level i. Total Translation All the linguistic levels of the SL text (phonology, graphology, grammar and lexis) are replaced by TL material. ii. Restricted Translation SL textual material is replaced by equivalent TL textual material at only one level. (c) Categories in terms of Rank
i. Rank-bound Translation A deliberate attempt is made to consistently select TL equivalents at the same rank in the hierarchy of grammatical units, for example at the rank of morpheme, word, group, clause or sentence. ii. Unbounded Translation Equivalences shift freely up and down the rank scale, but tend to be at the higher ranks--sometimes between larger units than the sentence.
A major problem with Catford's theory of translation is that it posits an extralinguistic domain of objects, persons, emotions, memories, history, etc. (situation in Halliday). Translation Equivalence "occurs when an SL and a TL text or item are relatable to (at l east some of) the same features of this domain, that is when ST and TT have approximately the same referents.
Susan Bassnett finds
this reliance on an essentially referential
theory of meaning too narrow (1980: 6). Yet another weakness of Catford is that his model never goes beyond the sentence to incorporate the text as a unit of meaning. And finally, his model is of a very limited use in evaluating translations (Paranjape 1977: 33). Another theorist to apply linguistic theory to the entire concept of translation itself is Eugene Nida.
In his essay "Science of Translation"
(1969), Nida makes use of the distinction between the surface and the kernel level that Chomsky makes in Syntactic Structures (1957). He differentiates
between two types of theories of translation: those based on surface structure and those based on kernel structure.
SURFACE STRUCTURE APPROACH
Surface structure theories "think of translating merely in terms of certain more or less complex techniques of comparative linguistics.. ." (Nida 1975: 79). They derive from careful and systematic analyses of speech (or parole) in any pair of languages, and lead to the establishment of more or less elaborate sets of rules for matching roughly corresponding structures. The surface structure approach seems to work relatively well for pairs of well-established and closely related languages.
Nida praises one such
attempt made by Vinay and Darbelnet (1958) who "have produced an excellent comparison of English and French, based essentially on t he analysis of the surface structures" (ibid.: 98). receptor
languages
having
quite
However, in the case of source and
different
grammatical
and
semantic
structures, the surface structure approach is of limited value. Realizing this, Nida adopts a kernel structure approach.
KERNEL STRUCTURE APPROACH
This approach conceives of translation in terms of a set of procedures involving what Nida calls KERNEL structures which underlie
surface sturctures. Nida argues that "instead of going directly from one s et of surface structures to another, the competent translator actually goes through
a
seemingly
roundabout
process
of
analysis,
transfer,
and
restructuring" (ibid.: 79). That is to say, the source text is first reduced to kernels, using just the four cate gories of Object, Event, Abstraction, and Relation; then the meaning is transferred from the SL to the TL on a structurally simple level; and finally the stylistically and semantically equivalent expression in the TL is generated by forward transformation. Nida represents such a set of related procedures in the following diagram.
SOURCE LANGUAGE
RECEPTOR LANGUAGE
TEXT
TRANSLATION
ANALYSIS
RESTRUCTURING
TRANSFER
This approach has been dealt with at great length in the author's later work The Theory and Practice of Translation (1974). Nida believes that the surface structure approach, which is a single -stage procedure, is
inadequate. The second one, though it appears much more complicated and cumbersome than the first, "reflects much better the real nature of linguistic structures, and therefore reflects much more accurately what happens in good translation and represents a much more efficient method for the mastery of translation technique than the first system" (1974: 34). Nida's description of the process in terms of analysis, transfer and restructuring is as follows: Analysis consists of the following three steps: 1. determining the meaningful relationships between the words and combinations of words; 2. the referential meaning of the words and special combinations of words (the idioms); and 3.
the connotative meaning i.e., how the users of the language
react,
whether
positively
or
negatively,
to
the
words
and
combinations of them.
Transfer includes the following priorities: 1. At all costs, the content of the message must be transferred with as little loss or distortion as possible.
It is the referential,
conceptual burden of the message that has the highest priority. 2.
It is very important to convey t he connotation, the emotional
flavour and impact of the message. 3. If, in transferring from one language to another the content and connotation of the message, one can also carry over something of
the form, one should do so. But under no circumstances should the form be given priority over other aspects of the message. In restructuring the message transferred from the SL to the RL, problems are considered from the following perspectives: 1. the varieties of language or of styles which may be desirab le, 2.
the essential components and characteristics of these various
styles, and 3. the techniques which may be employed in producing the type of style desired. Besides proposing his own model of the process of translation, Nida introduces his own category of equivalence called dynamic equivalence. Unlike Catford who concentrates only on referential equivalence of the source language and target language words, Nida shifts the entire focus in the process of translation towards the potential users of the translation and their reactions to it. The translation has to be tested, not in terms of the extent of verbal correspondence, but in terms of the amount of dynamic equivalence -how the potential receptors of it react to it. Nida's approach to translation is essentially sociolinguistic with its focus on the role of the receptor. He asserts that translation is concerned, not with matching the receptor language message with the source language message, but with extracting the response of the receptors to the RL essentially like that of the original receptors to the SL. For him, the ultimate test of a translation must be based upon the following three major factors:
(a)
the correctness with which the receptors understand the
message of the original, (b) the ease of comprehension, and (c)
the involvement a person experiences as a result of the
adequacy of the form of translation.
Nida's analysis of translation in terms of deep structure and transformational grammar is inadequate for dealing wi th the process of translation because actual translators do almost certainly not follow such a process of back and forward transformations. His preference for exegesis to hermeneutics in translating makes the use of his model irrelevant in some cases as, for example, the translations of novels, in which translations are often made keeping in view their relevance to the time and place of the translators. Peter Newmark's theory of translation, propounded in his Approaches to Translation (1981), is an advance over Nida's theory of translation. Unlike Nida whose theory is exclusively concerned with Bible translations, Newmark's takes into account a full range of text -types and their corresponding translation criteria, as well as the major variables involved. Newmark bases his theory on Buhler's statement of the functions of language. In the following figure, he adopts Buhler.
Text Continuum
A
B
C
EXPRESSIVE
INFORMATIVE
VOCATIVE
FUNCTION
FUNCTION
FUNCTION
(or
(or coganative,
(or social,
self-expressive,
denotative,
injuctive,
creative,
representational,
emotive,
subjective)
intellectual,
rhetorical, referential,
affective, descriptive,
excitatory,
objective)
conative, dynamic, directive, connotative seductive, stimulative operative, suggestive, imperative, persuasive)
In this scheme, function A is author -centred, B is the extralinguistic information content of the text and C is reader -centred. Adopting Frege's distinctions, Newmark pr epares the following figures of the text functions and translation levels.
(a)
Text Functions
A
B
EXPRESSIVE
(b)
C
INFORMATIVE
VOCATIVE
Translation Levels
X
REFERENTIAL
Y
TEXTUAL
Z
SUBJECTIVE
Newmark contends:
The translator has an instrument consisting of three levels XYZ....
With it he observes a text which exhibits the
three functions of language ABC in varying degrees.... Whilst
the
translator
always
works
continuously checks Y against X.
from
X,
he
Level Z, the partly
conscious and partly unconscious element corresponding to the text writer's A, is always present, but the translator has to reduce its influence to a minimum, until he is left with what appears to him to be an almost gratuito us choice between equally valid units of language, which may be lexical or grammatical; this then becomes a question of stylistics and his version on this level of quot homines,
tot
sententiae
(as
many men,
that
many
versions) may be as good as ten others. (1981: 14)
Newmark's diagram further clarifies the distinction between literary translation and non-literary translation.
In the case of a literary
translation the expressive function A is most important and inevitably the translator's level Z is more influential than in other types of texts. In non literary translation, the informative function B, identical with the translator's referential level X, is real. The table given on the next page shows how the three functions of a text--Expressive, informative and vocative--may affect the work of the translator. For Newmark, comprehension and formulation are the two basic processes of translation.
While comprehension may involve interpretation,
formulation may involve recreation.
The translator has t o acquire the
technique of transferring smoothly between these two processes. following figure shows Newmark's model of translation. Process of Translation
Comprehension
Formulation
SL text
TL text
Interlinear translation
Effects of Text Functions on Translation
A
B
C
Expressive
Informative
Vocative
The
(1) Typical examples
Literature
Scientific
and
Polemical writing, authoritative
technical reports
publicity, notices,
texts
and texts books
laws and regulations,
propaganda, popular literature (2) 'Ideal' style
Individual
Neutral, Objective Persuasive
or
imperative (3) Text emphasis
(4) Focus
(5) Method
Source
Target Language
Target
Language (SL) (TL)
Language
Writer
Situation
Reader
(1st person)
(3rd perosn)
(2nd person)
'Literal'
Equivalent-effect
Equivalent-effect
translation (6) Unit of translation
translation
recreation
Small
Medium
Large Maximum
Collocation
Sentence
Text
Minimum
word
Collocation
Paragraph
Figurative
Factual
Small
Dependent
(7) Type of language Compelling (8) Loss of Meaning Considerable
on
cultural differences (9) New words and Mandatory if meanings
in SL text
Not permitted
Yes, except
unless reason
in formal texts
given (10) Keywords
Leitmofivs
Theme words
Token
words
(retain)
stylistic markers
(11) Unusual
Reproduce
Give sense
Recreate
Approximately
slightly
metaphors (12) Length in relation
longer
No norm to original
the same
In consonance with his theory of two basic processes of translation, Newmark proposes two methods of translation:
a)
Communicative translation - where the translator attempts to
produce the same effect on the TL readers as was produced by the original on the SL readers; and b) Semantic translation - where the translator attempts, within the bare syntactic and semantic constraints of the TL, to reproduce the precise textual meaning of the author.
Despite this distinction between communi cative translation and semantic translation,
Newmark
warns
against
considering
them
as
watertight
compartments because "all translation must be in some degree both communicative and semantic, social and individual. It is a matter of difference of emphasis" (ibid.: 62). Like Nida, Newmark's approach to translation is pragmatic and discourse-oriented.
Unlike him, however, he considers a wide diversity of
text-types. He also proposes two types of translation: 1. Semantic translation and 2. Communicative translation.
The former focuses primarily upon the
semantic content of the source text and the latter focuses essentially upon the comprehension and response of receptors.
Depending on the text and its
function, the mode of translation has to be decided. Newmark's categories of the function of the text--expressive, informative and vocative --as well as his distinction between semantic translation and communicative translation are undoubtedly useful for the analysis of TL texts.
Yet his definition of
translation as "a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language" (ibid.: 7) shows that his theory, tied to the issue of transferring message, has not encompa ssed a wide range of target texts and an equally great number of socio-cultural dimensions of the target culture. Also, Newmark's notion of communicative translation is not satisfactory because the effect produced by the original on the SL readers is not always accessible to reconstruction. Juliane House (1977) has pointed out that communication models of translation have advanced our theoretical understanding of the process of translation, but they are not very useful for solving the practical problems of describing and assessing translations as finished products. In A Model for Translation Quality Assessment , she draws attention to weaknesses in various models of translation quality assessment (especially those of Nida (1964), Nida and Taber (1969), Miller and Beebe-Center (1958), Carroll (1966), Koller (1974), Reiss (1968, 1971, 1973) etc.). She, therefore, makes an attempt to develop her own model for the analysis and comparison of
source text and translation text 'in which criteria for judgement are made explicit'. She
defines
translation
as
follows:
"Translation
is
the
replacement of a text in the source language by a semantically and pragmatically equivalent text in the target language" (29 -30). For her, the concept of 'equivalence' is the fundamental one: an adequate translation should have semantic-pragmatic equivalence.
She further posits that the
translation text should have a function equivalent to that of its source text. She defines textual function as use of the text in a particular sit uation. To determine textual function and the ensuing comparison of the source text and the translation text's function, she develops her model on the basis of the system of situational dimensions suggested by Crystal and Davy (1969):
A. Dimensions of Language User: 1. GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGIN 2. SOCIAL CLASS 3. TIME
B. Dimensions of Language use: 1. MEDIUM SIMPLE COMPLEX 2. PARTICIPATION
SIMPLE COMPLEX
3.SOCIAL ROLE RELATIONSHIP 4. SOCIAL ATTITUDE 5. PROVINCE
In her model, the function of a source text is established on the basis of the analysis of a text in terms of the above set of extralinguistic,
situational constraints. Such analysis yields a particular textual profile for the source text.
For House, this textual profile of the source text "is...the
norm against which the quality of the translation text is to be measured" (1977: 50). From this, it follows that "the degree to which its textual profile does not match the source text's profile is the degree to which that translation text is inadequate in quality" (ibid.: 50).
In evaluating the relative match
between ST and TT, she makes a distinction between dimensional mismatches or covertly erroneous errors, and non-dimensional mismatches or overtly erroneous errors. The final qualitative judgement of TT consists of a listing of both covertly and overtly erroneous errors, and of a statement of the resulting mismatches of each of the two functional components. House's study of eight German and English textual pairs (STs and TTs) in terms of her model of translation quality assessment leads her to distinguish between two basic types of translation: overt translation and covert translation. The former is made of source culture -linked STs.
By
making an important modification in her provisional model, she claims that the achievement of functional equivalence, which is possible in cases of covert translation, is impossible in cases of overt translation. Nevertheless, the application of a cultural filtre may be needed in translating and evaluating covert translations. House implements her model of translation quality assessment with a small sample of texts translated from and into English and German, languages which stand on almost equal cu ltural and linguistic footing.
Again, the aim of her model is to test 'the relative match' of the ST and the TT. Her model, therefore, lacks appropriateness in the situation in which the SL and the TL (eg English and Marathi) are culturally different fro m each other and in which TTs may not always aim at functional equivalence with STs as such. The foregoing discussion of translation theories from Jakobson to Julian House certainly brings out the contribution made by linguistics oriented theories to Translation Studies. At the same time, it also points to a major drawback inherent in them.
While they do provide useful insights
drawn from linguistics, they tend to ignore the dimension of culture in translation process.
IV
In contrast to the linguistics-oriented theories of translation, Mary Snell-Hornby's article "Linguistic Transcoding or Cultural Transfer? A Critique of Translation Theory in Germany" included in Translation, History and Culture
(1990) is significant because it introduces a new Ge rman
translation theory to the English -speaking world. The four important aspects of this theory are:
a) Translation is a cultural rather than linguistic transfer; b) Translation is not a process of transcoding but an act of communication;
c) The function of the target text (prospective translation) is more important than prescriptions of the source text (retrospective translation); and d) The text is an integral part of the world and not an isolated specimen of language. (Snell-Hornby in Bassnett and Lefevere 1990: 81-82)
As Snell-Hornby points out, the major theoretical contribution in this new cultural approach to translation has been made by Hans J. Vermeer. His Skopostheorie, based on the function of the translated text, is presented in Reiss and Vermeer (1984).
For Vermeer, translation is
essentially 'a crosscultural transfer'. He describes his concept of translation as follows:
Translation is not the transcoding of words or sentences from one language to another, but a complex form of action, whereby someone provides information on a text (source language material) in a new situation and under changed functional, cultural and linguistic conditions, preserving formal aspects as closely as possible. (ibid.: 82)
The dominating feature of Vermeer's approach, Snell-Hornby says, is the function of the target text, which may well differ from the original function of the source text. Vermeer differetiates between two types of function of the translated text:(a)
Functionskonstanz (unchanged function) and (b)
Funktionsveranderung (changed function, whereby the text is adapted to meet specified needs in the target culture). Snell-Hornby finds a new orientation in Vermeer's approach, "something very important, which was largely ignored in both t he traditional and the linguistic approach to translation: 'the' translation per se does not exist, and neither does the 'perfect translation'" (ibid.: 82). Each translation is directly dependent on its prescribed function, which must be made clear from the start. It is always relative to the given situation. This element in Vermeer's Skopostheorie makes his approach essentially dynamic. Vermeer himself describes his approach as follows:
As we cannot say that a given text is a pragmatic text, is a piece of propoganda, but only that it is intended to be one, is understood, translated or interpreted as such, we have to choose a more dynamic wording and say that the decision depends on the aim of the translation. (ibid.: 83)
This functional approach to translation insures against treating the TT as an entity in itself, divorced from the circumstances of its production and reception.
A text is produced for specific recipients in a
specific context. Translation is no longer the mere transformation of a t ext from one language to another, but rather the production of a target text that can function within a different context for recipients from a different culture. In Vermeer's functional view of translation, any notion of equivalence between a source text and a target text is subordinate to the skopos, or
purpose which the target text is intended to fulfil. Adequacy with regard to skopos then replaces equivalence as the standard of judging translations. Snell-Hornby herself points out two drawbacks of t his approach. It focuses only on specialised or general language and on pragmatic rather than on literary texts.
This was because the functional approach was
developed for texts such as user instructions, advertising pamphlets, scientific articles, for professional or for laymen, and so on. When Vermeer was proposing a new functional approach to translation in Germany, Itamar Even-Zohar, a Scholar from Tel Aviv, was making a similar attempt to establish a new paradigm for the study of literary translation. Adopting the notion of system from the Russsian Formalists, he came to formulate what he termed the polysystem theory. According to Even-Zohar's model, a given national literature can be viewed as a 'polysystem', i.e. as a heterogeneous, hierarchi zed and dynamic 'conglomorate of systems' characterized by internal oppositions and continual shifts.
This polysystem is part of a larger socio -cultural
polysystem which itself comprises other polysystems besides the literary, such as for example the arti stic, the religious or the political. Even-Zohar conceives of translated literature as a system in its own right because, he claims, translated works do correlate in at least two ways:
a)
in the way they are selected by the target literature, the princ iples of selection never being uncorrelable with the home co -systems...; and
b) in the way they adopt specific norms, behaviours, and policies which are a result of their relations with the other co -systems. (Even-Zohar in Holmes et al. 1978: 118)
Thus, the system of translated literature does not function in isolation.
It
fully participates in the history of the literary polysystem, as an integral part of it, related with all the other co -systems. Even-Zohar's theory of the polysystem further sees 't ranslated literature as one system among many in the constant struggle for the dominant position'. Whether it will form part of the polysystem's prestigious centre or remain a peripheral phenomenon depends upon the specific circumstances operating in the polysystem. While a peripheral position is of course normal, Even-Zohar identifies three sets of circumstances in which it can occupy a more central position:
a) when a polysystem has not yet been crystallized, that is to say, when a literature is "young", in the process of being established; b) when a literature is either "pheripheral" or "weak", or both; and c) when there are turning points, crises, or literary vacuums in a literature. (ibid.: 121)
Translated literature can play a variety of rol es in the target polysystem.
Translated literature occupying a central position is mostly
innovative and introduces original elements into the polysystem; translated literature constituting a peripheral position, on the other hand, is highly conservative and conforms to already existing norms and models. The former introduces features into the home literature which did not exist there before; whereas the latter becomes a means to preserve traditional taste. Translated literature may not always depend on central or peripheral relation to the literary polysystem. Like any other literary form it comprises its own stratified polysystem. Hence it is possible that within the sub-system of translated literature one section of translated literature may assume a primary position, another may remain secondary. Even-Zohar's
work
effected
a
shift
away
from
earlier
preoccupation with the nature of EQUIVALENCE between source and target text and towards a historical and social understanding of the way translated works function collectively, as a syb -system within the target polysystem. Taking his inspiration from the work of Even -Zohar, Gideon Toury, another Israeli scholar, developed a new target -oriented approach to the study of translations. This approach regar ds translations as facts of the culture which hosts them, assuming that whatever their function and identity, these are constituted within that same culture. In Toury's words:
Translations are facts of target culture; on occasion facts of
a
special
status,
sometimes
even
constituting
identifiable (sub)systems of their own, but of the target culture in any event. (1995: 29)
Instead of viewing translated texts as isolated phenomena, they are rather thought of as manifestations of general translation 'proc edures' which are determined by the conditions currently prevalent in the target polysystem. Toury views translation as basically a norm -governed type of behaviour. Being a translator involves fulfilling a function specified by the TL community, rather than simply transferring phrases and sentences from the SL to the TL. Toury discusses three types of translational norms: initial norms, preliminary norms and operational norms. The initial norm in translation involves a basic choice between adhering to the norms realized in the source text (which reflect the norms of the source language and culture) and adhering to the norms prevalent in the target culture and language.
"Adherence to source norms determines a
translation's adequacy as compared to the s ource text, subscription to norms originating in the target culture determines its acceptabililty" (ibid.: 56 -57). Preliminary norms concern:
(a) the existence and nature of a translation policy (in terms of the choice of text-types, or even of individual texts, to be imported through translation into a particular culture/language at a particular point in time), and
(b)
the directness of translation, i.e. a particular society's
tolerance or intolerance towards a translation based on a text in an intermediate language rather than on the source language text. And finally, opertational norms concern decisions made during the act of translation itself. There are two types of operational norms:
(a) Matricial norms, which have to do with the degree of fullness of translation, the form of actual distribution, as well as the textual sigmentation, and (b) Textual-linguistic norms, which concern the selection of specific textual material to formulate the target text or replace particular segments of the so urce text.
Two major sources for a reconstruction of translational norms are: textual sources, namely the translated text themselves, and extratextual sources, i.e. the theoretical and critical statements made about translation in general or about specific translations. The Polysystem theory, as elaborated by Even -Zohar and, by extension Toury's theoretical and methodological model based on the concept of norms, assumes that translations never function in isolation from the dominat and/or peripheral literary and cultural environment.
The norms,
value scales and models which are prevalent in a given society at a given moment in time shape translation behaviour and influence the position of
translated literature. The study of literary translation theref ore consists of the study of translation norms, models and traditions in terms of the target culture rather than the source culture. The foregoing review of various approaches to Translation Studies from Cicero to Toury helps us to arrive at certain usef ul generalisations. Approaches from Cicero to Goethe are traditional because they are largely prescriptive as they demand fidelity to the source text. Catford's approach, grounded as it is in linguistics and therefore basically different from the earlier traditional approaches, offers a linguistic model which however never goes beyond the sentential level and provides no definite criteria for evaluating translations.
Communication models of
translation proposed by Nida and Newmark are mainly concerned wi th the process of translation and are equally unsuitable for describing and assessing translations.
House's model of translation quality assessment takes into
consideration STs and TTs
belonging to the same linguistic family and is
therefore inappropriate in the context of English and Marathi.
Vermeer's
Skopostheorie, which views translation as 'a complex form of action', is essentially
dynamic,
but
the
dichotomy
between
Functionskonstanz
(unchanged function) and Funktionsveranderung (changed function) proposed by him is more descriptive than evaluative.
In contrast, the functional
approach proposed by Itamar Even-Zohar and Gideon Toury is more accommodative as it views all translation activity (whether it involves
producing, using or commenting on tran slations) in terms of the norms, value scales and models prevalent in a polysystem.
V
Even-Zohar's concept of polysystem suggests a whole set of dynamic interrelationships cutting across society, culture, literary culture and translation culture and involving stratified systems and subsystems.
This
notion of polysystem also enables us to use what Holmes (1972) has described in his map of Translation Studies as function -oriented approach. Emanating from the notion of polysystem, the function -oriented approach enables us to examine the functional value of the translations of a literary polysystem
in
terms
of
a
set
of
Chandrashekhar Jahagirdar (1992: 8).
parameters
as
described
by
These parameters include: (1)
Dr. The
translator's intention; (2) Liter ary taste; (3) Changing literary compulsions of the polysystem; (4) The institutional role; and (5) Ideological factors. It goes without saying that these parameters do not fall into watertight compartments, nor do they fall into a lumpish totality.
Depending on the
changing dynamics of the literary polysystem and its relationship with the subsystem of translated culture, the degree of their functional relevance would vary from one historical moment to another.
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