29.2612, Review: Translation: Chesterman (2017)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-29-2612. Wed Jun 20 2018. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 29.2612, Review: Translation: Chesterman (2017)

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Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2018 10:37:36
From: Elena Gheorghita [for.elena at gmail.com]
Subject: Reflections on Translation Theory

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-2592.html

AUTHOR: Andrew  Chesterman
TITLE: Reflections on Translation Theory
SUBTITLE: Selected papers 1993 - 2014
SERIES TITLE: Benjamins Translation Library 132
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: Elena Gheorghita, State University of Moldova

SUMMARY

The book under review is a collection of selected papers by Andrew Chesterman,
originally published in various journals and collected volumes between 1993
and 2014. It aims “to stimulate research and training in translation and
interpreting studies”.

The author himself grouped papers into nine thematic sections, each
accompanied by a small introduction, which serves as a reader’s guide. The
papers cover some relevant topics in translation theory and research: types of
theory and hypotheses, causality and explanation, norms, strategies and
universals, as well as translation sociology and ethics. There are also
critical reviews of of Skopos theory (Paper 6), Catford’s theory (Paper 7),
and Kundera’s views on literary translation (Paper 22). Special emphasis is
placed on conceptual analysis and research methodology.

The papers are mostly reproduced unchanged, with the original source indicated
in a footnote. For some papers, abstracts and keywords have been added, as
well as some additional context, in the introduction to the section. If
changes have been made, they are indicated either in the introductory
footnotes or in square brackets in the text. At the end of the volume there is
a common list of references.

EVALUATION

Having taken this book from the shelf, or seeing it advertised in an online
store, the reader will expect, as the title suggests, a sound collection of
papers on translation theory. The title, in my view, may mislead the
inexperienced, but the purpose of the book was achieved as it will certainly
stimulate translation research and will help beginners stay on the right path.
The volume skillfully combines the author’s own ideas on translation theory,
critical reviews of influential theories authored by other scholars, and
methodological discussions. It may quite rightfully be called essential
reading both for beginners and for more experienced researchers, as well as
for graduate and post-graduate students, as it brings together essential
recent writings on translation by one of the leading international experts in
translation studies (most of the papers have been published after 2000). The
methodological discussions, which draw on work in the philosophy of science,
are particularly relevant to beginner researches, but more experienced
colleagues will also appreciate the opportunity to have it available in one
volume. The collection in general will interest any scholar, but particularly
the one who is concerned with the increasing fragmentation of translation
studies and the future of the discipline.

The papers, as already said above, are grouped into nine thematic sections,
each being accompanied by a short introduction that puts papers into context.
These introductions are quite useful as they help the reader gain a better
understanding of the reasons behind the paper, and eventual changes made to
it.

The opening section deals with some general issues in translation studies: the
notion of theory in a wide sense, meaning what a theory in general and a
theory of translation in particular could be.
Paper 1 is based on a lecture for doctoral students. It outlines five notions
of what has been taken to constitute a “theory”, the most fundamental of these
being the hypothesis. In the final part of the paper a very interesting
suggestion is made: translation itself can be seen as a theory of how a source
text can be translated, in all the five senses outlined by the author: myth,
metaphor, model, hypothesis and structured research programme.

Paper 2, written jointly with Rosemary Arrojo, talks about the extent to which
translation studies scholars from different academic or philosophical
backgrounds might find it possible to agree on fundamentals in translation
studies. For that the authors propose thirty “theses” that have to do with the
definition of translation, what it is like and why, and what consequences
translations have. The theses are followed by two “codas”, where both authors
comment on the shared ground and provide additional details on certain points.

Paper 3 is about the notion of progress in translation studies. As Chesterman
recognizes in the section introduction, the paper appears in the collection in
a slightly revised version, with some cuts concerning topics discussed in more
detail further in the volume. The paper explains that the notion of progress
in translations studies depends greatly on the way the researcher views this
discipline. I believe this will come in handy to those who need to get a
better understanding of the current state of affairs in translation studies.

Paper 4 (slightly revised and shortened) brings up Chesterman’s concern about
the possible excessive fragmentation of translation studies. The paper
proposes that in order to prevent this development we could focus on bridge
concepts, such as causality. This might promote the ideal of consilience.

Section II, entitled “Descriptive and Prescriptive”, brings together four
papers dealing with aspects of the relation between descriptive and
prescriptive approaches in translation studies.
Paper 5 is about prescriptivism. It shares some ground with the previous
section as here Chesterman talks of the relation between translation research
and translation practice, as well as causality and the study of effects, which
receive additional attention further in the volume (particularly in papers
9-12).

Paper 6 is a critical review of Skopos theory. One of the key points is the
unclear empirical and ontological status of the theory: should it be viewed as
descriptive or as prescriptive?  Chesterman recognizes the pedagogical merits
of the theory, but quite rightfully says that empirically and productively the
theory has been somewhat disappointing.

Paper 7 revisits another well-known translation theory – Catford’s – which is
purely descriptive. Some of the strengths and weaknesses of tying a
translation theory to a linguistic theory are discussed, as well as the issues
of building a deductive theory relying mainly on invented examples. Chesterman
admits that Catford is among those who have influenced his own thinking about
translation and suggests that Catford is still an important source of ideas
and insights, well-worth critical re-reading, which he has done in this
article quite appealingly.

Paper 8 is concerned with the way theory can affect practice. Three possible
channels are proposed: prescriptive teaching, tacit or implicit theory and
descriptive theory, each of them raising problems, Prescriptive theory is
mentioned only briefly. More attention is given to implicit theory, but the
main focus is on the descriptive paradox itself, which arises when the act of
describing affects the phenomenon described, so that the description itself no
longer fits. Chesterman ultimately is not entirely convinced that theory does
influence practice, but we must not forget that even physics recognizes the
observer effect.

 The papers in Section III pick up several tracks concerning ways to analyse
various causes and explanations, as well as the notion of progress in
translation studies, bringing us back to Paper 3. Ideas about hypotheses are
taken up in more detail later in Section VI of this volume, but at this point
the following must be said. A. Chesterman’s thinking about explanatory
hypotheses appears to be influenced by K. Popper. He views translation studies
as an empirical discipline and argues for the importance of causal
explanations and falsifiable hypotheses. I must mention that Chesterman’s
present views seem less restricted and more open to the importance of other
kinds of explanations and hypotheses. Paper 18 is a confirmation of that.

Gideon Toury’s influence is also evident in the papers of this section. He
sees norms as explanatory hypotheses, and his “laws” of translation have both
explanatory and predictive significance (for example, given such conditions,
translators will tend to do so and so and translations will have such and such
features). One can test such hypotheses empirically in experimental settings,
and such hypotheses are also falsifiable if “tend” is defined explicitly
(Chesterman returns to this problem in Section VII, entitled “Universals”). It
is also interesting to note that Chesterman himself tells the reader about the
reservations he has with regard to the content of Paper 9 of this collection.

Paper 10 is a slightly later essay on causality. Again the reader is informed
that much counter-evidence for the retranslation hypothesis has been
uncovered, so one must bear that in mind while reading.

Paper 11 is an attempt to explore a semiotic approach to causality and
explanation with special reference to Greimas’ modalities. The version
published in this volume omits the first section of the original, as its
material is covered by Papers 3, 9 and 10 in this volume. Translation as cause
and as effect provides plenty of opportunities for an enthusiastic researcher.

Paper 12 on explanation is a synthesis of Chesterman’s thinking on this topic.
The essay analyses different notions of explanation in the light of some work
in the philosophy of science. It is particularly useful as the goals of
translation studies are no longer limited to descriptive hypotheses, so it is
quite interesting to read not just about the notion itself, but also to see
what is meant by explanatory power and how an explanation can emerge from
description.

Section IV is dedicated to norms. The study of norms is rather tricky ground.
It has both terminological and methodological issues. Beginning researchers
will find this section particularly useful as it might prevent a wrong choice
of research question, and it may also suggest an interesting path of research:
how does a norm differ from a tendency or a value, how do we know that we have
found a norm, how can a hypothesis about norm be tested?

Paper 13 discusses laws, norms and strategies in translation studies.
Generally speaking, translation studies can be viewed as normative science.
Here, Chesterman suggests that translation studies should be normative,
norm-describing and norm-refining, and that there are two broad types of norms
relevant to it: professional norms and expectancy norms. A very useful
methodological discussion of the way those norms are achieved follows, as well
as suggestions of further research. 

Paper 14, according to Chesterman’s comment, is a response to conference
debate. It discusses the concept norm, brings up evidence that may be used by
researchers to prove that a norm has been revealed, and proposes ways to test
hypotheses about the norm. 

Section V is entitled “Similarities and Differences”. As Chesterman quite
rightfully points out in another article, not included in the volume
(Chesterman 2007), translation studies have traditionally been more interested
in differences between source and target texts, than in similarities between
them.

Paper 15 in a way prepares ground for some discussion of differences. It is an
essay on the concept of similarity, inspired by works in philosophy,
psychology and pragmatics. Here the main distinction is drawn between the
kinds of similarity: divergent, the one that stems from the concept of
oneness, and convergent, that starts from separateness. A. Pym has applied it
in discussion of translation equivalence (Pym 2007).

Paper 16 aimed to bring in clarity about translation strategies, a term used
by various scholars to describe different kinds of textual procedures used by
translators. Chesterman even proposed a terminological and conceptual
solution, which takes into account the main distinctions discussed and also
shows links between this conceptual field and typology of translation and
equivalence. Chesterman quite rightfully criticizes the term “strategy”, but
tends to stay with it out of habit.

Paper 17 postulates what Chesterman calls a “rhetorical salience threshold”,
which may be set at different levels in different languages. Using data from
Finnish and English the author provides evidence suggesting that these two
languages have different salience thresholds, the English one appearing to be
lower.

Most of A. Chesterman’s thinking about translation has concerned conceptual
analysis in various ways. However, as we have already said, he is also
interested in research methodology and particularly in the role played by
different kinds of hypotheses, and the development from descriptive to
explanatory hypotheses, brought up in Section VI of the collection under
review.
Paper 18 offers a detailed discussion of various kinds of interpretive
hypothesis.
Paper 19 examines the literal translation hypothesis and discusses its
significance for translation theory.

Papers included in Section VII talk of universals. Paper 20 relates the search
for translation universals to other kinds of generalization. It overlaps to a
certain extent with Paper 23.
Paper 21 is a conceptual analysis of the so-called unique items hypothesis,
proposed as a translation universal, claiming that translations tend to
contain fewer “unique items” than comparable non-translated texts. Drawing on
some earlier work on transfer, contrastive and error analysis, this article
offers a critical analysis of the concept, and raises a number of
methodological issues concerning research on the topic.

Paper 22 is quite different. It focuses on M. Kundera’s view of what we might
call stylistic universals, expressed in Kindera’s essay “Une phrase”.
Chesterman doubts Kundera’s argument that literary translators must stick to
every detail of the author’s style, which is based on a dubious assumption
about the universal effect of stylistic features.

Section VIII includes three papers, related to the so-called sociological turn
in translation studies. Translation sociology is obviously relevant for
research with a direct social impact, such as issues of quality, reception
studies of various kind, as well as issues concerning language and translation
policy.

Paper 24 introduces some of the main research trends that have lead to the
sociological turn in translation studies and sketches three main areas for
future research: the sociology of translation in terms of national and
international publication flows, sociological research on translators
themselves, and the sociology of the translation process. The reader, however,
must be aware that there has been a good deal of work on translation sociology
since this paper was first published. For instance, there are several entries
in the Benjamins “Handbook of Translation Studies”.

Paper 25 presents a revised version of James Holmes’ well-known map of
translation studies. This version is centred not on texts, but on people, i.e.
translators. It also draws reader’s attention to translation policy (a branch
of Holmes’ map, which researchers often overlook). This subfield has
experienced a veritable boom in recent years (see for instance Gonzales Nunez
2016).
Paper 26 returns to one of Gideon Toury’s thoughts on the difference between
translation acts and events. Chesterman extends Toury’s analysis of kinds of
translation problem in order to shed light on different translation process
models, making an interesting distinction between what he labels in the paper
virtual, reverse-engineered and actual processes of translation acts or
events. 
What the beginner researchers may also find interesting is the discussion to
which various models are predictive and testable.

The final Section of the collection is dedicated to translation ethics. Paper
27 comes from the special issue of “The Translator” on translation ethics. It
describes four models of translation ethics, which actually all have problems:
they are incompatible in several respects and have different ranges of
application. A. Chesterman proposes a fifth model: an ethic of professional
commitment, and comes up with an interesting idea of an official oath that
could be in the centre of such model. 

Paper 28 presents and discusses a tricky ethical problem posed by the German
translation of a Finnish novel, written by an author known for absurd humour
and satirical social criticism. The case illustrates the complex ways in which
a potential reader’s reactions can affect a translator’s decision. By the end
of the paper Chesterman introduces a rather interesting notion “telos”
(p.368), which could be a way to conceptualize the ultimate goal of a
translator, the source of personal motivation, values and priorities. This
notion indeed deserves the attention of translation scholars, as it reflects
the ongoing shift towards the study of translators as people, who sometimes
have to make difficult decisions.

All in all, the volume is logically structured and orderly. The collection
indeed inspires and will inspire critical and in-depth thinking. The author
does not impose anything on the readers, but constantly keeps them informed of
why a particular definition, for example, is preferred and alerts readers of
potential weaknesses in his own thinking as well as in the thinking of those
who have influenced his ideas about translation. The volume is definitely a
valuable and precious contribution to the translation studies literature,
which will inspire generations of researchers.

REFERENCES:

Chesterman, Andrew. 2007 Similarity analysis and the translation profile
Belgian Journal of Linguistics 21: p.53-66  DOI: 10.1075/bjl.21.05che

Pym, Anthony. 2007 Natural and directional equivalence in theories of
translation. Target 19(2): p. 271-294  DOI: 10.1075/target.19.2.07pym

Gonzalez Nunez, Gabriel. 2016 “On translation policy”. Target 28(1): p. 87-109
DOI: 10.1075/target.28.1.04gon


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Elena Gheorghita is a practicing conference interpreter and assistant
professor at Department of Germanic Linguistics and Intercultural
Communication of Moldova State University. Her research interests lie in the
area of translation studies and translator training, in particular translation
process as strategic game, decision-making in translation, cognitive approach
to translation, translation as means of inclusion.





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