Translation Studies

Lecture: 1

The Name and Nature of Translation Studies

Instructor: Amjad Ali
Lecturer English
Mphil English (Translation Studies)
OBJECTIVES OF THE LECTURE
• Course Description
• Course Objectives and Aims
• Course Outcomes/Contents/Texts
• Main issues in Translation
• What is Translation Studies?
• Development of Translation Studies
• Contrastive Ling. & Comparative Literature
• The Holmes-Toury Map
Course Description:
• Translation Studies is an academic discipline that explores the practice, process
and product of translation from both linguistic and cultural viewpoints. Interest
in translation is practically as old as human civilization and there is a vast body of
literature on the subject dating back at least to the antiquity. With the advent of
globalization, however, this discipline has come into a dynamic interaction with
such subjects as history, literature, linguistics, semantics, media studies, corpus
linguistics and so on. Its nature is, therefore, interdisciplinary and it seeks to
synthesize insights emerging from different disciplines with reference to the
theory and practice of translation.
• The course is geared towards an imparting intimate knowledge of the subject by
exploring the role of translation in intercultural and intracultural relations and
to find out how it is used to make communication possible and efficient. The
course also focuses on the relationship between translation and other aspects of
language use such as language patterning, textual organization and the
semiotics of verbal and non-verbal communication.
Course Objectives/Aims:
The course aims to:
• To elucidate the importance of translation.
• To understand the history of translation along with major
theoretical debates.
• To understand the interplay of source text and target text.
• To develop a considerably sound and proficient command of
translation.
• To conceptualize the intricacies and technicalities of
translation with reference to the questions of globalization,
identity, dominance and hegemony. 
• To cultivate a deep understanding of cultural and linguistic
dimensions of translation.
Course Outcomes

• Upon the successful completion of this program the scholars are

expected to:
• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge and understanding of various
areas of translation theory
• Explore different theoretical debates and approaches in order to
appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of the subject.
• Analyse and describe, coherently and independently, translated
text
• Appreciate the complexities of translation in order to deepen and
broaden their linguistic and communicative competence.
• Undertake an independent in-depth investigation in an area of
their choice
Course Contents:
 
• What is translation? Definition and scope
– Linguistic approaches to definition
– Philosophical approaches to definition
– Cultural approaches to definition
– Communicative approaches to definition
• Translation methods and skills
• A brief look at the history of translation with special focus on the
20th and 21st centuries
• Translation in the era of information technology: machine
translation and corpus-based translation
• Postcolonial theories of translation
• Translation, ideology, and politics
Course Contents/Core Texts:
 
• Self-translation
• The question of equivalence
• Kinds of translation: word-for-word, sense-for-sense
• Translating idioms, metaphors and fixed expressions.
• Translation, genre and register (brief discussion on translating
different kinds of text e.g. legal, medical, scientific, business,
technical, political, literary, etc.)
• Major techniques and strategies of translation e.g.
foreignization, domestication, etc.
• Translation and pedagogy
• Research issues in translation
Main issues in translation studies

This study sets out to examine: what exactly is understood by

this fast growing field; and briefly describes the history of the
development and aims of the discipline.

• The concept of translation

The term "translation" itself has several meanings: it can
refer to the general subject field, the product (the text that
has been translated) or the process (the act of producing
the translation, known as translating).
• The process of translation between two different written languages involves
the translator changing an original written text (the source text or ST) in the
original verbal language (the source language or SL) into a written text (the
target text or TT) in a different verbal language (the target language or TL).

• This type corresponds to 'interlingual translation' and is one of the three

categories of translation described by Roman Jakobson
• 1. intralingual translation, or 'rewording': 'an interpretation of verbal signs by
means of other signs of the same language';
• 2 interlingual translation, or 'translation proper': 'an interpretation of verbal
signs by means of verbal signs of some other language';
• 3 intersemiotic translation, or 'transmutation': 'an interpretation of verbal
signs by means of signs of non-verbal sign systems').
What is translation studies?
• Throughout history, written and spoken translations have
played a crucial role in communication, for example in
providing access to important texts for scholarship and
religious purposes. However, as an academic subject
translation has only really begun in the past fifty years.
• In the English-speaking world, this discipline is now known
as 'translation studies', thanks to the efforts of James S.
Holmes. Holmes describes the then nascent discipline as
being concerned with 'the complex of problems clustered
round the phenomenon of translating .and translations'
Mary Snell-HornbyBy
• 1988, Mary Snell- Hornby, in the first edition of her
Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach, was
writing that 'the demand that translation studies
should be viewed as an independent discipline has
come from several quarters in recent years' (Snell-
Hornby 1988). By 1995, the time of the second
edition of her work, Snell-Hornby is able to talk in
the preface of 'the breathtaking development of
translation studies as an independent discipline' and
the 'prolific international discussion' on the subject.
Mona Baker
• in her introduction to The Routledge
Encyclopedia of Translation (1997a), talks
effusively of the richness of the 'exciting new
discipline, perhaps the discipline of the 1990s',
bringing together scholars from a wide variety
of often more traditional disciplines.
The development of TS
• There are two very visible ways in which translation studies has become
more prominent.
• First, there has been a proliferation of specialized translating and
interpreting courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. In the
UK, the first specialized university postgraduate courses in interpreting and
translating were set up in the 1960s. In the academic year 1999/2000,
there were at least twenty postgraduate translation courses in the UK and
several designated 'Centres of Translation.

• Caminade and Pym (1995) list at least 250 university-level bodies in over
sixty countries offering four-year undergraduate degrees and/ or
postgraduate courses in translation. These courses, which attract
thousands of students, are mainly oriented towards training future
professional commercial translators and, interpreters.
Proliferation of conferences, books and
journals on translation
The 1990s also saw a proliferation of conferences, books and journals on translation in
many languages. Long-standing international translation studies journals such as Babel
(the Netherlands), Meta (Canada) have now been joined by, amongst others, Across
Languages and Cultures (Hungary), Literature in Translation (UK), Perspectives (France),
Target (Israel/Belgium), The Translator (UK). Turjuman (Morocco).

• The lists of European publishers such as John Benjamins, Multilingual Matters, Rodopi,
Routledge and St Jerome now contain considerable numbers of books in the field of
translation studies. In addition, there are various professional publications dedicated to
the practice of translation (in the UK these include The Linguist of the Institute of Linguists

• In the year , for instance, international translation conferences were held in a large
number of countries and on a wide variety of key themes, including: -translation and
training translators (Bratislava, Slovakia); -literary translation (Mons, Belgium); -research
models in translation studies (UMIST, Manchester, UK);
• -gender and translation (Norwich, UK);
-translation as/at the crossroads of culture (Lisbon, Portugal);-translation and
globalization (Tangiers, Morocco);-legal translation (Geneva,
Switzerland);translation and meaning (Maastricht, the Netherlands and Lodz,
Poland);the history of translation (Leon, Spain);transadaptation and pedagogical
challenges (Turku, Finland);translation-focused comparative literature (Pretoria,
South Africa and Salvador, Brazil).

• A brief history of the discipline

Writings on the subject of translating go far back in recorded history. The practice
of translation was discussed by, for example, Cicero and Horace (first century BCE)
and St Jerome (fourth century CE). In St Jerome's case, his approach to translating
the Greek Bible into Latin would affect later translations of the Scriptures. Indeed,
the translation of the Bible was to be - for well over a thousand years the
battleground of conflicting ideologies in western Europe.
• However, although the practice of translating is long established, the
study of the field developed into an academic discipline only in the
second half of the twentieth century. Before that, translation had
normally been an element of language learning in modern language
courses. In fact, from the late eighteenth century to the 1960s, language
learning in secondary schools in many countries had come to be
dominated by what was known as the grammar-translation method.

• This method centred on the rote study of the grammatical rules and
structures of the foreign language. These rules were both practised and
tested by the translation of a series of usually unconnected and artificially
constructed sentences exemplifying the structure(s) being studied, an
approach that persists even nowadays in certain countries and contexts.
The direct method or communicative
approach
• However, the grammar translation method fell into increasing
disrepute, particularly in many English-language countries, with the
rise of the direct method or communicative approach to English
language teaching in the 1960s and 1970s. This approach places
stress on students' natural capacity to learn language and attempts
to replicate 'authentic' language learning conditions in the
classroom.
• It often privileges spoken over written forms, at least initially, and
tends to shun the use of the students' mother tongue. This focus led
to the abandoning of translation in language learning. As far as
teaching was concerned, translation then tended to become
restricted to higher-level and university language courses and
professional translator training.
• the translation workshop
In the USA, translation - specifically literary translation - was
promoted in universities in the 1960s by the translation workshop
concept. Based on I. A. Richards's reading workshops and practical
criticism approach that began in the 1920s , these translation
workshops were intended as a platform for the introduction of new
translations into the target culture and for the discussion of the finer
principles of the translation process and of understanding a text.

• comparative literature
Running parallel to this approach was that of comparative literature,
where literature is studied and compared transnationally and
transculturally, necessitating the reading of some literature in
translation. This would later link into the growth of courses of the
cultural studies type.
CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS
• Another area in which translation became the subject of research was contrastive
analysis. This is the study of two languages in contrast in an attempt to identify
general and specific differences between them. Translations and translated examples
provided much of the data in these studies (e.g. Di Pietro 1971, James 1980

• The contrastive approach heavily influenced other studies, such as Vinay and
Darbelnet's (1958) and Catford's (1965), which overtly stated their aim of assisting
translation research. Although useful, contrastive analysis does not, however,
incorporate sociocultural and pragmatic factors, nor the role of translation as a
communicative act.

• Nevertheless, the continued application of a linguistic approach in general, and

specific linguistic models such as generative grammar or functional grammar has
demonstrated an inherent and gut link with translation. The more systematic, and
mostly linguistic-oriented, approach to the study of translation began to emerge in the
1950s and 1960s.
Linguistic-oriented Approach To The Study
Of Translation: Examples
•
Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet (1958) produced a contrastive approach that
categorized what they saw happening in the practice of translation between
French and English; Alfred Malblanc (1963) did the same for translation between
French and German; Georges Mounin's (1963) examined linguistic issues of
translation; Eugene Nida (1964a) incorporated elements of Chomsky's
generative grammar as a theoretical underpinning of his books, which were
initially designed to be practical manuals for Bible translators

• This more systematic and 'scientific' approach in many ways began to mark out
the territory of the academic investigation of translation. The word 'science' was
used by Nida in the title of his 1964 book (Towards a Science of Translating,
1964a); the German equivalent was taken up by Wolfram Wilss, by Koller in and
by the Leipzig school, where scholars such as Kade and Neubert became active.
The Holmes l Toury 'mapA
The Holmes l Toury 'mapA
• seminal paper in the development of the field as a distinct discipline
was James S. Holmes's 'The name and nature of translation studies'
(Holmes 1988b/2000). In his Contemporary Translation Theories,
Gentzler (1993: 92) describes Holmes's paper as 'generally accepted
as the founding statement for the field'.

• Holmes draws attention to the limitations imposed at the time by

the fact that translation research was dispersed across older
disciplines. He also stresses the need to forge 'other communication
channels, cutting across the traditional disciplines to reach all
scholars working in the field, from whatever background'
(1988bl2000: 173).
• Crucially, Holmes puts forward an overall framework,
describing what translation studies covers. This framework
has subsequently been presented by the leading Israeli
translation scholar Gideon Toury as in figure 1.1. In
Holmes's explanations of this framework, the objectives of
the 'pure' areas of research are:

• the description of the phenomena of translation

(descriptive translation theory); 2 the establishment of
general principles to explain and predict such phenomena
(translation theory).
The 'theoretical' branch is divided into
general and partial theories
• The 'theoretical' branch is divided into general and partial
theories. By 'general', Holmes is referring to those writings that
seek to describe or account for every type of translation and to
make generalizations that will be relevant for translation as a
whole.

• 'Partial' theoretical studies are restricted according to the

parameters discussed below. The other branch of 'pure'
research in Holmes's map is descriptive. Descriptive translation
studies (DTS) has three possible foci: examination of (1) the
product, (2) the function and (3) the process:
• Function-oriented DTS: Holmes means the
description of the 'function of translations’ in
the recipient sociocultural situation: it is a
study of contexts rather than texts' . Issues
that may be researched include which books
were translated when and where, and what
influences they exerted. This area, which
Holmes terms 'socio-translation
studies‘/Cultural TS
• 2. Product-oriented DTS examines existing translations
2. Product-oriented DTS examines existing translations.
This can involve the description or analysis of a single ST-
TT pair or a comparative analysis of several TTs of the
same ST. These smaller-scale studies can build up into a
larger body of translation analysis looking at a specific
period, language or text/discourse type. Larger-scale
studies can be either diachronic (following development
over time) or synchronic (at a single point or period in
time).
• Process-oriented DTS is concerned with the psychology of
translation, i.e. it is concerned with trying to find out what
happens in the mind of a translator. Despite some later work on
think-aloud protocols (where recordings are made of
translators' verbalization of the translation process as they
translate), this is an area of research which has still not yet
been systematically analyzed.

• The results of DTS research can be fed into the theoretical

branch to evolve either a general theory of translation or, more
likely, partial theories of translation 'restricted' according to the
subdivisions in figure 1.1 above.
• Medium-restricted theories subdivide according to translation by machine
and humans, with further subdivisions according to whether the
Machine/computer is working alone or as an aid to the human translator, to
whether the human translation is written or spoken and to whether spoken
translation (interpreting) is consecutive or simultaneous.

• Area-restricted theories are restricted to specific languages or groups of

languages and/or cultures. Holmes notes that language-restricted theories
are closely related to work in contrastive linguistics and stylistics.

• Rank-restricted theories are linguistic theories that have been restricted to a

specific level of the word or sentence. At the time Holmes was writing, there
was already a trend towards text linguistics, i.e. text rank analysis.
• Text-type restricted theories look at specific discourse types or
genres; e.g. literary, business and technical translation. Text-
type approaches came to prominence with the work of Reiss
and Vermeer, amongst others.

• The term time-restricted is self-explanatory, referring to

theories and translations limited according to specific time
frames and periods. The history of translation falls into this
category. Problem-restricted theories can refer to specific
problems such as equivalence - a key issue of the 1960s and
1970s - or to a wider question of whether universals of
translated language exist.
• The 'applied' branch of Holmes's framework
Translator training: teaching methods, testing techniques, curriculum
design; Translation aids: such as dictionaries, grammars and information
technology; translation criticism: the evaluation of translations, including
the marking of student translations and the reviews of published
translations.

• Developments since the 1970s

The surge in translation studies since the 1970s has seen different areas of
Holmes's map come to the fore. Contrastive analysis has fallen by the
wayside. The linguistic-oriented 'science' of translation has continued
strongly in Germany, but the concept of equivalence associated with it has
declined. Germany has seen the rise of theories centred around text types
(Reiss) and text purpose (the skopos theory of Reiss and Vermeer
• The Hallidayan influence of discourse analysis and systemic functional
grammar, which views language as a communicative act in a
sociocultural context, has been prominent over the past decades,
especially in Australia and the UK, and has been applied to translation in
a series of works by scholars such as Bell(1991), Baker (1992) and Hatim
and Mason (1990,1997)

• The late 1970s and the 1980s also saw the rise of a descriptive approach
that had its origins in comparative literature and Russian Formalism. A
pioneering centre has been Tel Aviv, where Itamar Even-Zohar and
Gideon Toury have pursued the idea of the literary polysystem in which,
amongst other things, different literatures and genres, including
translated and non-translated works, compete for dominance
• The polysystemists have worked with a Belgium-based
group including Jose Lambert and the late Andre Lefevere ,
and with the UK-based scholars Susan Bassnett and Theo
Hermans.

• A key volume was the collection of essays edited by

Hermans, The Manipulation of Literature: Studies in
Literary Translation (Hermans 1985a), which gave rise to
the name of the 'Manipulation School'. This dynamic,
culturally oriented approach held sway for much of the
following decade, and linguistics looked very staid.
• The 1990s saw the incorporation of new schools and concepts, with Canadian-
based translation and gender research led by Sherry Simon, the Brazilian
cannibalist school promoted by Else Vieira, postcolonial translation theory,
with the prominent figures of the Bengali scholars Tejaswini Niranjana and
Gayatri Spivak and, in the USA, the cultural-studies-oriented analysis of
Lawrence Venuti, who champions the cause of the translator

• For years, the practice of translation was considered to be derivative and

secondary, an attitude that inevitably devalued any academic study of the
activity. Now, after much neglect and repression, translation studies has
become well established. It is making swift advances worldwide, although not
without a hint of trepidation. Translation and translation studies often continue
to take place within the context of modern language departments, and the
practice of translation is still often denied parity with other academic research.