Anthony Pym

Exploring Translation Theories presents a comprehensive analysis of the key traditional and contemporary paradigms of translation theory. The book builds on Western theories of translation, starting with a survey of the classical twentieth-century linguistic approaches before moving on to more recent models such as cultural translation. Each central paradigm and its associated theories are addressed in turn, including equivalence, purpose, description, uncertainty, localisation and cultural translation. Readers are encouraged to explore the various theories and consider their strengths and implications for translation today and in the future. The book closes with a survey of the way translation is used as a model in postmodern cultural studies and sociologies, extending the scope beyond traditional Western notions. Each chapter includes a wealth of material for readers, including key concepts, an introduction outlining the main points, illustrative examples with translations, a chapter summary, and discussion points and exercises. Exploring Translation Theories uses numerous examples from a range of languages, although knowledge of no language other than English is assumed. With a wealth of tasks and activities, it will be ideal both for classroom and self-study use. This comprehensive and highly engaging book is designed for students studying Translation Theory in Translation Studies and Applied Linguistics programmes. A companion website for this book can be found at http://www.tinet.org/~apym/publications/ETT/index.html, with tasks, activities, video summaries and interviews.

Exploring Translation Theories

Birgit Lang

Andrea Rizzi

This book presents a dynamic history of the ways in which translators are trusted and distrusted. Working from this premise, the authors develop an approach to translation that speaks to historians of literature, language, culture, society, science, translation and interpreting. By examining theories of trust from sociological, philosophical, and historical studies, and with reference to interdisciplinarity, the authors outline a methodology for approaching translation history and intercultural mediation from three discrete, concurrent perspectives on trust and translation: the interpersonal, the institutional and the regime-enacted. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of translation studies, as well as historians working on mediation and cultural transfer.

A Trust-Based Approach

What is Translation History?

Translation obviously works on texts that move from one culture to another. But how should translation studies incorporate this basic principle of transfer? Refusing simple answers, this book sees the relation between translation and transfer as a complex phenomenon that must be described on both the semiotic and material levels. Various connected approaches then conceptualise this relationship as being causal, economic, discursive, quantitative, political, historical, ethical and epistemological... and indeed translational. Individual chapters address each of these aspects. The result is a highly suggestive and stimulating vision of translation studies.

An Essay on the Principles of Intercultural Communication

Translation and Text Transfer

Miriam Shlesinger

Zuzana Jettmarova

Translation Studies has recently been searching for connections with Cultural Studies and Sociology. This volume brings together a range of ways in which the disciplines can be related, particularly with respect to research methodologies. The key aspects covered are the agents behind translation, the social histories revealed by translations, the perceived roles and values of translators in social contexts, the hidden power relations structuring publication contexts, and the need to review basic concepts of the way social and cultural systems work. Special importance is placed on Community Interpreting as a field of social complexity, the lessons of which can be applied in many other areas. The volume studies translators and interpreters working in a wide range of contexts, ranging from censorship in East Germany to English translations in Gujarat. Major contributions are made by Agnès Whitfield, Daniel Gagnon, Franz Pöchhacker, Michaela Wolf, Pekka Kujamäki and Rita Kothari, with an extensive introduction on methodology by Anthony Pym.

Sociocultural Aspects of Translating and Interpreting

Zuzana Jettmarová

Starting from the critical notion that we should be asking questions of contemporary importance - and that 'importance' itself must be defined - Anthony Pym sets about undoing many of the currently dominant models of translation history, positing, among much else, that the object of this history should be translators as people, that researchers are subjectively involved in their object, that cultural systems are based on social will, that translators work in intercultural spaces, and that a model of cooperation through negotiation may be applied to the way translators (and researchers!) work between cultures. At the same time, the proposed methodology is eminently constructive, showing how many empirical techniques can be developed and applied: clear illustrations are given of corpus selection, working definitions, deceptive statistics, and the construction of networks and regimes, incorporating elaborate examples drawn from medieval and modernist fields, as well as finding space for notes on practical problems like funding research. Finding its focus in historical debates, this book cannot help but create contemporary debate: its arguments seek not only to revitalize the historical study of translation but also to develop the wider concerns of intercultural studies.

Method in Translation History

If civilizations are to cooperate as well as clash, our mediators must solve problems using serious thought about relations between Self and Other. Translation Studies has thus returned to questions of ethics. But this is no return to any prescriptive linguistics of equivalence. As the articles in this volume show, ethics is now a broadly contextual question, dependent on practice in specific cultural locations and situational determinants. It concerns people, perhaps more than texts. It involves representing dynamics, seeking specific goals, challenging established norms, and bringing theory closer to historical practice. The contributions to this volume study a wide range of translational activity, questioning global copyright regimes, denouncing exploitation within the translation profession, defending a Bible translation in terms of mutlilateral loyalty, and delving into the dynamics of popular genres, the culture bubbles of talk shows, the horrors of disaster relief in Turkey, military interpreters in the Balkans, and urgent political pleas from a Greek prison. The theoretical approaches range from empirical text analysis to applications of fuzzy logic, passing through a proposed Translator's Oath and converging in a common concern with cross-cultural alterity

Special Issue of The Translator

The Return to Ethics

Exploring Translation Theories presents a comprehensive analysis of the core contemporary paradigms of Western translation theory. The book covers theories of equivalence, purpose, description, uncertainty, localization, and cultural translation. This second edition adds coverage on new translation technologies, volunteer translators, non-lineal logic, mediation, Asian languages, and research on translators’ cognitive processes. Readers are encouraged to explore the various theories and consider their strengths, weaknesses, and implications for translation practice. The book concludes with a survey of the way translation is used as a model in postmodern cultural studies and sociologies, extending its scope beyond traditional Western notions. Features in each chapter include: An introduction outlining the main points, key concepts and illustrative examples. Examples drawn from a range of languages, although knowledge of no language other than English is assumed. Discussion points and suggested classroom activities. A chapter summary. This comprehensive and engaging book is ideal both for self-study and as a textbook for Translation theory courses within Translation Studies, Comparative Literature and Applied Linguistics.

Claudio Sfreddo

Andy L. J. Chan

François Grin

Based on thorough and extensive research, this book examines in detail traditional status signals in the translation profession. It provides case studies of eight European and non-European countries, with further chapters on sociological and economic modelling, and goes on to identify a number of policy options and make recommendations on rectifying problem areas.

The Status of the Translation Profession in the European Union

Daniel Simeoni

To go beyond the work of a leading intellectual is rarely an unambiguous tribute. However, when Gideon Toury founded Descriptive Translation Studies as a research-based discipline, he laid down precisely that intellectual challenge: not just to describe translation, but to explain it through reference to wider relations. That call offers at once a common base, an open and multidirectional ambition, and many good reasons for unambiguous tribute. The authors brought together in this volume include key players in Translation Studies who have responded to Toury's challenge in one way or another. Their diverse contributions address issues such as the sociology of translators, contemporary changes in intercultural relations, the fundamental problem of defining translations, the nature of explanation, and case studies including pseudotranslation in Renaissance Italy, Sherlock Holmes in Turkey, and the coffee-and-sugar economy in Brazil. All acknowledge Translation Studies as a research-based space for conceptual coherence and creativity; all seek to explain as well as describe. In this sense, we believe that Toury's call has been answered beyond expectations.

Investigations in Homage to Gideon Toury

Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies

For the discourse of localization, translation is often "just a language problem". For translation theorists, localization introduces fancy words but nothing essentially new. Both views are probably right, but only to an extent. This book sets up a dialogue across those differences. Is there anything that translation theory can gain from localization? Can localization theory learn anything from the history and complexity of translation? To address those questions, both terms are placed within a more general frame, that of text transfer. Texts are distributed in time and space; localization and translation respond differently to those movements; their relative virtues are thus brought out on common ground. Anthony Pym here reviews not only key problems in translation theory, but also critical concepts such as cultural resistance, variable transaction costs, segmentation of the labour market, and the dehumanization of technical discourse. The book closes with a plea for the humanizing virtues of translation, over and above the efficiencies of localization.

Anthony Pym

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