Douglas Robinson's book Translation and Empire mainly focuses on the imperial use of translation throughout the colonization period and the resistance against this use of translation by certain scholars (such as Niranjana and Rafael) via offering alternative ways to translate. Robinson tries to show how translation studies and post-colonial studies can affect and at the same time feed one another. Because analysing how the act of translation was used by the imperial power can help post-colonial theorists shape their translation strategies against the empire while these new strategies will definitely nourish the field of translation studies.
"The old assumptions about translation, that is purely linguistic and largely impersonal process for achieving semantic equivalence between texts, still dominate thinking about translation in many parts of the international translation-studies community." [Robinson: 12] The eternal dualism (word-for-word vs. sense-for-sense) in translation studies lies of course at the heart of the issue since translation has been defined with these terms through the ages and no other way has been thought through much. However, postcolonialists try to strengthen the political aspects of translation other than the concepts of meaning, equivalence, accuracy, and technique [Robinson: 8] with which translation has been studied for years and challenge the dualism. Because as Cheyfitz suggests "Our imperialism historically has functioned (and continues to function) by substituting for the difficult politics of translation another politics of translation that represses these difficulties." [Robinson: 68] In other words, challenging power relations (mostly inequalities) in translation has been deliberately supressed by the "powerful" -which can be named differently according to where you stand: patron, colonialist etc.-, and postcolonial theorists try to position and these inequalities/assymetries in the act of translation.
Robinson's questions throughout the book are quiet important to keep in mind while choosing your strategy prior to or during translation; because they are actually shaking the throne of such terms as adecuacy, effect, and equivalence. Especially questions like this one "How does one rephrase an American English text in Mexican Spanish so that it will make anything like the same sense to a member of a poor third-world country that it makes to a member of one of the richest countries on earth?" [Robinson: 28]. It actually shows us that dynamic equivalence as suggested by Nida will not be the first and easiest solution since it is hardly possible to create the same effect in two distinct cultures. Or the sense-for-sense translation as suggested by many translation studies scholars throughout the ages since then it reveals another basic question which is; what is sense at all? Then there is the issue of diaspora and exile -or perhaps self-exile as suggested by Aijaz Ahmad. Diaspora has come to represent difference, alienness and mixedness, the fact that most or all of the peoples on earth came from somewhere and now live elsewhere. [Robinson: 29] As these postcolonial theorists, many people in the colonized land and many of those who are in the diaspora actually "belong too many places" [Ahmad: 127]. So in this situation of excess of belongings then the question becomes what is foreign actually?
Postcolonial translation studies take shape around these problems. And the approaches to these problems differ according to the ideological background of the translator and experiences s/he has gone through during the colonialization hence these approaches are not universal. Being not universal is the "inherent" concept of poststructuralism, anyway.
Niranjana's suggestion of retranslation is one of these approaches taken form around a nativist idea. She suggests a nearly impossible going back to past by highly disregarding the fact that after all that the culture has gone through it has changed drastically. Actually Niranjana's idea is quite nostalgic and contradictory in itself, since it is impossible in a post-structuralist thinking to assume the past as the "pure", "good" and "uncorrupted" as the post-structuralists' world is a morally complex one in which good and evil are always mixed [Robinson: 90]. Thus most probably her suggestion of a foreignized translation (retranslation) similar to Venuti's will not serve to go back to her presumed "good" state in time.
While Rafael mentions translation's role to create a feel of solidarity between the indiviuals in the culture by creating a mistranslation, Samia Mehrez suggests a perspective -namely hybridization- different from both Niranjana's and Rafael's. Because it is important for her to communicate with power-holders while still to be able to communicate with her family and friends.
As Robinson mentioned in the conclusion and all these different strategies showed postcolonial translation theory is still a new field of study; thus both being a new field of study and people's having different experiences on colonial times bring a productivity in this field. And since all these strategies propose some kind of resistence to colonial powers, all of them are ideologically motivated and suggest embracing the difference by different methods.

REFERENCES
Aijaz Ahmad, 1992. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. New York: Verso Books.
Robinson, Douglas, 1997. Translation and Empire: Postcolonial Theories Explained. Manchaster: St. Jerome Publishing.

Meta-response to Conscious Choices vs Internalized Actions

As Ceyda has mentioned in her paper, Conscious Choices vs Internalized Actions, a Bourdieusian approach to translation seems to be too homogenizing as Bourdieu is more into "internalized rationals" behind the actions thus reducing the translation to a communal/societal level by highly disregarding the indiviual differences between translators. And this results in seeing the translator as the representator of her/his society since s/he realizes what is actually going on around her/his habitus in the text and actually this kind of a perspective really blocks the way for a foreignizing approach to translation and an ideologically oriented translation. And as suggested by Latour, maybe it would be better that social phenomena (in our case, translation) is examined through actor-networks and the associations between them.

Translation not as an individiual but as a social activity

In his paper, “A Bourdieusian Theory of Translation”, Jean-Marc Gouanvic tries to describe the act of translation through field, “habitus”, capital, and “illusio” concepts of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, in a way described as “providing new sets of analytical concepts and explanatory procedures to theorize the social nature of translation practices” by Moira Inghilleri [Inghilleri: 279]. Gouanvic’s aim is to reflect the sociological environment (fields and agents such as publishers, series directors, literary directors and critics) of the act of translation and how this environment is effected by translation and affects the translation.

Unlike Functionalist Approaches to translation that put the commissioner and translation’s purpose in the target culture in the centre of the translation activity and give a role to translator to realize the commissions only -although given the name expert-, Sociological Approaches’ focus is not on the individuals in the field or one specific translation activity, but rather the whole society and despite this idea, Sociological Approaches are less restricted in defining the translator’s choices during the process. According to the Functionalist Approaches as the translator is the expert of translating, s/he has a purpose during the process and translates appropriately for this purpose, thus has a conscious activity throughout the process shaped by her/his commission. However, Sociological Approaches take Bourdiue’s term habitus -embodied dispositions acquired through individuals’ social and biological trajectories and continually shaped and negotiated vis-à-vis fields [Inghiller: 208]- and define the act of translator through her/his habitus. According to Gouanvic, translation as a practice has little to do with conforming to norms through the deliberate use of specific strategies; in other words, it is not a question of consciously choosing from a panoply of available solutions [Gouanvic: 157, my emphasis]. The only freedom of the translator is to choose between translating a text or not and following the original closely or not. The other decisions of the translator actually are not her/his decisions, but they are decisions made unconsciously with the effect of habitus. Besides, the translator places him- or herself at the service of the writer to this capacity[*] in the target language and culture [Gouanvic: 157]. Thus, translator actually has no individualistic role in the process since all s/he does is to make explicit what the author implicit for the target culture. Translator has to understand the author in author’s own habitus and interpret her/him in her/his own habitus, therefore the translator is only a messenger between two cultures because of his/her expertise in both cultures’ habitus and her/his only job is to express the habits and the conventions.

The same approach to translator as a dependent entity in the field of literature is also apparent in the social capital gain. An author gains capital if her/his writing becomes a classic; however, translators’ role in turning these writings into classics are not discussed. Authors achieve these ranks, i.e. being an author of classic, all of a sudden by themselves and translator only “benefit” from this capital which the original text already has had. I think what Gouanvic misses here is examples such as translation of Edgar Allen Poe by Baudelaire, since through his translation Edgar Allen Poe gained his capital in Europe and became a classic in gothic literature.

And finally, the difficulty of translating is defined in the interaction between the original and the translation and keeping the “resemblance in difference” as if any room is made for any extreme. The translator is described as the agent of the writer, transferring the writer’s discourse into the target culture [Gouanvic: 158], so in other words, it has to resemble the writer’s text. And at the same time, the translator translates according to the norms defined by her/his habitus, so in a way the translation has to be different since it is encoded in a totally different environment. Therefore a translation has to resemble the original, but also has to be different from it somehow. The obscurity in Gouanvic’s paper actually lies particularly in this point. How resembling or how different should the translation be in order to be called a translation? The loose boundaries between all the concepts in the text make it ambiguous and confusing. The difference between the writer and the translator, between the translation and adaption, and between the resemblance and difference. They are all represented as binaries, but no clear limits are drawn around them. Thus it creates the question if the borderline between the activities of the writer and the translator are so blurred, how can Gouanvic define the role of the translator, habitus of the translator, and the capital of the translator so easily?

REFERENCES

Gouanvic, Jean-Marc. “A Bourdieusian Theory of Translation, or the Coincidence of Practical Instances” in The Translator. Volume 11, Number 2 (2005). pp. 147-166.

Inghilleri, Moira. “Sociological Approaches” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies ed. by Mona Baker and Gabriel Saldanha. Abington (2009). pp. 279-282.

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[*] “The capacity to ‘[make] public things which everyone felt in a confused sort of way’ and the capacity of ‘publishing the implicit, the tacit’” [Gouanvic: 158].

A methodology suggestion to look at three rewritings of Dracula

The three rewritings of Dracula in Turkish that will be covered in this essay are Niran Elçi's Drakula published by İthaki Yayınları, Zeynep Akkuş' Drakula published by Kamer Yayınları, and Ali Rıza Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da published by Kamer Yayınları. The version accepted as the original writing is the version published by Penguin in 1993.

I will try to form a methodology to follow for this kind of an analysis study. What I will look at through the essay consists of the different parts of the rewritten text, namely the publishing house, the re-writer, the context (i.e. the time and place), genre, number of pages, and pictures; and I will not analyse the texts line by line rather I will look into the context of the rewriting process.

Publishing houses: It would not be surprising at all to look at the publishing houses at first, since publishers are one of the most powerful components of the literary system. Because they hold the authority to publish, to censor, and to distribute the literary texts. They can be well defined as patrons with Andre Lefevere's terminology. In this situation, publishing houses "try to regulate the literary system and the other systems, which together, make up a society, a culture." [Lefevere, 15]. They have to regulate the literary system, because needs and preferences of the market are also defined by them. Thus, while analysing these rewritings a brief look into the publishing houses, their ideologies and preferences will be beneficial to find out the differences in the translations. The reviewer has to have some questions in mind: What kind of novels has this publishing house published so far? How have these novels been published, whether there are any abridgements, adaptation or so? What is the general pricing strategy of the publishing house for these novels?

The question about the pricing is also important; because this will define the reader profile, whether the novels are for professional readers or non-professional readers. For whom have these novels been published? Translations are a way of creating the communities imagined by the patrons. And these "imagined communities fostered by translation produce effects that are commercial, as well as cultural and political" [Venuti, 496] And most probably it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the main aim of the publishers would be creating a bestseller rewriting out of a original writing.

"To translate" and generically to rewrite "is to invent for the foreign text new readerships who are aware that their interest in the translation is shared by other readers" [Venuti, 495] and this interest of the readers will coincide with the interest of the publishers, thus with the market. And naturally the community built will be shaped by the reader profile.

Another important question would be: Why have there been two rewritings of the same original writing published by the same publisher, in our case by Kamer Yayınları?

Other works of the re-writer: Re-writers are another important factor, maybe a more important factor than the publisher, in shaping the text since s/he is the actual creator of the text. What this translator have translated so far? What is her/his approach to translation? What are her/his priorities while rewriting? What is her/his experience with the genre? Because if they are known well and respected, their work will be "propagated as an example for future writers to follow" [Lefevere, 28] and canonized by the system as the proper/accepted version of the original writing. Thus their names may be published on the cover. However, none of the re-writers is mentioned on the cover.

The context in which the rewriting was published: The year in which these rewritings published is also important. The political climate of the time, popularity of the genre in those days, and the novelty brought to the literature of the time by these publications, if there is any, are important criteria for the analysis. And whether the two different Dracula's published by Kamer Yayınları have any effect on the later publication by İthaki is also important. The publication date of Drakula İstanbul'da was 1997 and Zeynep Akkuş' Drakula was published in 1998 while Elçi's translation was published five years later in 2003. So Elçi's translation have the opportunity to enjoy the fame of the Drakula after two published books and the movie.

Front and back covers of the rewritings: Cover of the novel gives a clue about what is expected inside. If the commentary writings on the cover satisfies anticipation of readers, s/he buys it. So the blurbs are important. Generally the back covers are the place to print these blurbs. Elçi's Drakula and Akkuş' Drakula have blurbs. The former one has a direct quotation from the book while the latter has a promotional writing, the reason for which is promoting the first translation of Drakula in Turkish. And it also has supported the promotion by mentioning the movie, Dracula.

Another significant detail about the covers are the pictures. On Elçi's Drakula the only picture on the cover belongs to the Dracula himself. Seyfi's cover picture has Drakula in front of a city setting which is consistent by the name, Drakula İstanbul'da. Akkuş' cover, on the other hand, has Dracula and a woman bit on the neck by him. The way woman is exposed quite sexually with her dress and the way her breasts are shown may be appealing to some readers.

The genre in which the rewriting was classified: All three publishing houses classified the book as a horror book.

Number of pages and other parts of the rewritings: "Contemporary canons of accuracy are based on an adequacy to the foreign text: an accurate translation of a novel must not only reproduce the basic elements of narrative form, but should do so in roughly the same number of pages" [Venuti, 484]. When the first thing to look at is the number of pages of the three rewritings without paying attention to the names or cover pictures of them, it is easy , and maybe wrong, to assume Elçi's and Akkuş' rewriting, with pictures, are "translations" of Stoker's Dracula while Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da is an adaptation most probably for children.

Number of pages are one of the elements that shows our biases in our perception of translation. Because generally we tend to focus on the exactness of the rewritten text and closeness to the original. So the closer the number of pages to the original, the closer the translation to the original is. The others are more likely to be called adaptations.

While Kamer Yayınları has contents page for both rewritings, İthaki Yayınları prefers not to put a contents page on a novel.

Finally, the pictures inside the books create a difference. Akkuş' Drakula has pictures directly taken from the movie which is consistent with its promotion on the blurb. Seyfi's Drakula İstanbul'da has pictures looking more like sketches which supports the children's book anticipation. Elçi's Drakula has no pictures in it.

REFERENCES

Lefevere, Andre 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London: Routledge.

Venuti, Lawrence 2004. "Translation, Community, Utopia" in Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti, Lawrence. pp. 482-503.

Politics in Rewriting

As mentioned by Douglas Robinson in the introduction of his analysing of Lefevere’s book Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, translation studies has experienced a social turn over the last decades by including rich social processes into the field and this turn actually has turned translation studies into a field where politics is discussed, produced, and reproduced. System theorists, foreignists, and post-colonialist theorists are given as examples of those following this kind of an approach to translation.

Being one of the system theorists Andre Lefevere touches upon the role of the ideology, power and culture in “translation”, or rather in rewriting as defined by him. Rewriting includes translations, criticisms, historiographies, anthologizing, and editing; that is what is written over the original writing. Thus he made two distinct categories in literature: one being the original writing and the other is the rewriting.

In spite of the “power” of rewritings in literature (i.e. reaching more people than original writings, being produced as a service of a certain ideology), they tend to be treated more like ‘“ancillary” in kind’ [Lefevere, 4] by the professional readers. Non-professional readers, on the other hand, will probably tend to choose rewritings over the originals. This can be explained by the power relations between the professional and non-professional readers, similar to the relations between the patron and the rewriter. Power of professionals comes from the easier access to economic resources, to language, to transportation opportunities in order to get the original. And this will also give them the chance to manipulate the rewritings of these texts, since the rewriters of them will most probably be among the professional readers of the texts in the first place. This manipulation is a way to create, maintain and change the cultural system [Robinson, 28] requested by the patron in order to preserve the stability of the social system as a whole. Patrons in power want to control the literary production because their power is based on it [Lefevere, 17].

This power is also based on the consumption of these rewritings by the culture/society. Making such a deduction would not be wrong since the stability of the system both in economical and ideological terms depends on the reading of these rewritings by non-professional readers. As a result, these texts should be congenial to the public. While appearing to be produced for the public taste, these rewritings serve to a bigger objective, the maintenance of the system. It is part of the “naturalization” process, the process of making the artificial (seem) natural, the imagined (seem) real [Robinson, 27]. This is actually quite similar to the situation criticized by Spivak in translation of Third World literature into English, or into other powerful languages of the West. While taking Third World to the majority, the First World, there is nothing noble about the law of the majority [Spivak, 371]. Although the objective seems to recognize and/or promote Third World literature in West, it is merely the easiest way of being “democratic” with minorities [ibid, 371].

Since Lefevere wants to analyze the systemic functioning of power, but does not want his analysis to be (mis)taken for an indictment [Robinson, 31], he makes a decision on not to take part in this political process. However, when power relations, hence the politics, come to the scene of the literary production, the rewritings will differ dramatically from the original writings as they will be shaped according to a certain ideology. Thus, even not making an indictment will be a political choice.

REFERENCES

Robinson, Douglas 1997. What is Translation?. The Kent State University Press. pp. 25-42.
Lefevere, Andre 1992. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London: Routledge.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 1992. “The Politics of Translation” in Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti, Lawrence. pp. 369-388.

Planning the Translation

Toury’s two papers, which are quite complementary to each other, mentions the ways by which translation and culture are affecting each other in terms of planning, that is, how culture planning affects translations and how translation planning affects culture. His general method of analyse is to give the description of past translational activities within these framework and explanations/observations on the cultural processes of the time. However, the problem is that Toury does not mention his perspective of the situation.

He defines planning as “any act of (more or less deliberate) intervention in a current state of affairs within a social group, i.e., making decisions for others to follow.” [Toury 1996, 151] and adds that it “[...], very often is performed for the very sake of attaining power rather than as bona fide attempt to introduce ‘desirable’ changes.” [Toury 1996, 152] Thus, he gives this power to translation and translators as well in the process of “invention of a culture, or cultural sector” [Toury 1996, 152]. He manages this by including pseudo-translations and genuine translations to the limits within the concept of translation. Because “[...] success of culture planning is often a result of certain flexibility whereas rigidity may well lead to failure.” [Toury 1996, 153] So by bringing the flexibility into the field of translation, he can count pseudo-translations as a type of translation. With the help of pseudo-translations, AGENTS OF CHANGE include translation into the general system, to the centre of the system.
The main deficient in Toury’s paper is the reactions of translators to have this kind of a pseudo power and to be taken into the centre rather than paving the way to the centre, and his side to the situation. Because I think that the so-called power in this situation is not in the hands of the translator most of the time, it is up to the market like in the example of the author who seeks a change and cannot dare to use his/her name, it is up to the ones who control the society, culture, and thus become planners like in the example of author’s fear of censorship. While Toury mentions the power of words and translation, somehow he includes the idea that “the presumed non-domestic origin of translations makes them less menacing” [Toury 1995, 42] and contradicts with himself. Besides, translation is never seemed less menacing than the “original” as it can be easily deduced form the Turkish and Kurdish translators brought to justice because of the Article 301.

However, he also gives translators the power by positioning translation differently from its previously inferior position to an equal position to the “original” text by defining his concept of norms and how they can help a translator to define his/her way in the process, i.e. whether s/he follows the “norms of the source text, [...] the pursuit of adequate translation” or “target norms and practices” thus an acceptable translation [Toury 1995, 56-7] And he gives the translator freedom to defence the end-product of the translation process, without disregarding the source text, better than most of the previous theories. This perspective will be more liberalizing than the above mentioned power given to the translators and writers as well in terms of translation decisions.

REFERENCES

Toury, Gideon 1996. “Translation as a Means of Planning and the Planning of Translation” in Translations: (Re)shaping of Literature and Culture ed. Paker, Saliha. 2002, pp.148-163.
Toury, Gideon 1996. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. 1995, pp.7-86.

A different systemic look into translation

“Translation is no longer a phenomenon whose nature and borders are given once and for all, but an activity dependent on the relations within a certain cultural system.” [Even-Zohar 51]

System, according to Even-Zohar, is the relations between the signs/elements, and accordingly, the polysystem is the relations between different systems, “which intersect with each other and partly overlap, using concurrently different options, yet functioning as one structured whole, whose members are interdependent”. [Even-Zohar 11] These systems are in a dynamic process and there is the continuum of relations in the hierarchy they happen to be a part of. Once the important/powerful/dominant system may be the less of all these features one day. Thus analysing a system synchronically will not help us see this evolution of systems. One also should look at the diachronic dimensions which are “operating on the synchronic axis,” [Even-Zohar, 11] at any given moment. Because Even-Zohar suggests that “a system consists of both synchrony and diachrony, [...] and each of these is separately a system.” [Even-Zohar, 11]

Contrary to Saussure who suggests diachronic relations will not help one to understand the current state of the system, thus need not to be studied at all, Even-Zohar claims that both synchronic and diachronic changes have an effect on the system. This idea is especially important in terms of translation studies because it will eventually affect the choices of the translator according to the time and space. As the polysystem is not homogeneous in itself, more than one diachronic level interferes with synchronic state of time. And this gives the translators the opportunity to analyze the needs of the time better, because this will change the main effort of the translator. The new movements in the literature will inevitably affect the movements in translation, and vice versa. “The fact that certain features tend, in certain periods, to cluster around certain statuses does not mean that these features are "essentially" pertinent to some status.” [Even-Zohar, 16]

Polysystem theory by Even-Zohar sees literature and translation as systems both intra- and inter-related to each other and part of a polysystem which is culture, thus brings a new perspective, which includes the relationships between culture, ideology, society, history, and power, into the translation studies. These features were also included to translation theory by Vermeer in his Skopostheorie, however, his inclusion did not go beyond the target-oriented perspective, for which he was criticized for being a traitor to the source text [Nord 121], and was only restricted with the context defined by the commissioner. This target-oriented approach is not a part of polysystem theory. The main difference between these two approaches is that while Skopostheorie sees translator as a cultural and linguistic expert, i.e. an expert in intercultural communication [Nord 118], polysystem theory puts translator in a position that s/he is the expert of the whole polysystem. I mean the expert of the relationships between the literatures of these two cultures, translation approaches and their status, whether they are canonized or not and whether they are primary or secondary, in the given cultures. So the missions of the translator changes in these two theories. And Vermeer’s translator does not have any effect on the target culture other than the only one translation created by her/him, while Even-Zohar’s translator affects the polysystem, i.e. the culture, since “translation actively participates in shaping the center of the polysystem” [Even-Zohar 46]. And even the anti-universalism claim of Nord does not help exceed the boundaries drawn for translation in the functionalist theories let alone affecting the culture, because cultural relativism defined by Nord is a static state, and is only apparent in the texts.

Consequently, polysystem theory breaks new grounds in the translation studies as making it a part of a larger study and not looking it as a field of study independent from the cultural and literary context.

REFERENCES
Even-Zohar, Itamar 1990. "Polysystem Theory". Poetics Today 11:1, 1990, pp. 9-26.
Even-Zohar, Itamar 1990. "The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem." Poetics Today 11:1, pp. 45-51.
Nord, Christiane 1997. Translating as a Purposeful Activity. St Jerome Publishing.

a faitfhul also target-oriented translation?

Ceyda mostly focuses on the comparision of Reiss' functional equivalence with Vermeer's skopos theory.
This comparision is mostly based on the initial orientation in the translation process. Reiss is claimed to be source-oriented while Vermeer is thought as target-oriented. However, I think it is actually more complicated than it looks. Although it is easier to label Reiss as a source-oriented scholar since she tries to reach the ultimate equivalent TT, Vermeer's situation would be more complicated. As stated by Ceyda in her response "[T]he skopos theory of Vermeer not only breaks the limits brought by source-orientedness [...], but also gains the target text an autonomous character, bestowing the target-text with its own textual potentials."[1]Thus it is always important to keep the role of the commissioner and the expert in the translation process in mind. Because skopos of a text is determined by these two agents in the process and as a consequence, although according to Vermeer the ideal is to create the target-oriented text, a decision on the source-orientedness can perfectly be made by these agents.
Besides, the idea of target-oriented translation does not challenge the idea of faithfulness as one expected. I mean, Vermeer does not mention any kind of equivalence as Reiss; however, he gives the impression that the translation should be dependent on the soource text as much as possible.
"True translation, with an adequate skopos, does not mean that the translator must adapt to the customs and usage of the target culture, only that he can so adapt." [234]
In conclusion, Vermeer takes a step forward a more different, and maybe also novel for its time, approach to translation, but he is still stuck with the traditional European binarisms which limit a potential broader perspective with a narrow one.


[1] http://ceydaelgul.blogspot.com/. Last accessed on October 21, 2009.

REFERENCES

Vermeer, Hans J. (1989). "Skopos and Commission in Translational Action" in Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti, Lawrence. pp. 227-238.

Text Types and Translation

Katharina Reiss' work mainly focuses on different text types, their functions in the culture they were produced in and how these functions can be reflected in the translation of the text.
She defines translation as the functionally equivalent text of the source text in the target culture. So, her idea of translation depends on the function and creation of the equivalent of it in the target culture.
Reiss' way of looking into translation suggests a systemic and verifiable method to carry out translations since she follows a highly strict way. Reiss defines three main functions. Informative, expressive, and operative. She firstly defines these types/functions of the language/text with clear-cut words and ideas; then defines translation based on and in accordance with these functions. For example; communication of the content is the function of a informative text [Reiss 171]. However, she sets the limits of these function so clearly that she overlooks how actually these functions can be related to each other even in only one text. Of course, she does not claim that a text can only one function; however, according to her one of the functions of a text is the one actually the reader/translator should recognize first, and the other(s) is always secondary thus could be dispensible in the process [Reiss 170,177]. So the duty of the translator would become to find out the "main function" of a text.
In a source text more than one function can be co-existed as well as the very same ST can have more than one function in the TT. Reiss's clear-cut division lacks the perspective to see the variations. One text can be both expressive and operative at the same time. When a translator prefers one function over another in this kind of a situation as Reiss would have suggested, it is impossible for her/him not to miss a part of the text. And this will finally conflict with Reiss' idea of equivalence as the TT will not perform the equivalent function as of the ST.
It is also possible to create a link between Nida's term "effect" [Nida 156] and Reiss' "function". Although these two scholars have different perspectives in general, their idea of equivalence coincides with each other. These two terms have a similar elusiveness which melts the whole reader/receptor range in the same pot and assumes that there is only one kind of a reader and one reading or in Reiss' case one dominant reading of a text. So it can be claimed that although this idea of equivalence considers culture as an important part of the translation, it overgeneralizes a culture and tends to ignore the different parts of a culture.

REFERENCES

Nida, Eugene (1964). "Principles of Correspondence" in The Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti Lawrence. p.153-167.

Reiss, Katharina (1971). "Type, Kind and Individuality of Text: Decision Making in Translation" in The Translation Studies Reader ed. Venuti Lawrence. p. 168-179.

On "the Nature of Translation Studies"

James Holmes's article The Name and Nature of Translation Studies mostly focuses on the origins of the name of the field and the features/qualities of the field. What I want to focus mainly is the way he classifies these features and their relevance of the translation studies in general.
Holmes suggestion on the classification of translation studies in three categories has also different sub-categories in themselves. However, such a classification, although it proposes a systematic way to look at the translation studies, is bound to be proven ineffienct. Because Holmes's classification divides the field into too many sub-categories and lacks the uniformity to collect these into one general framework. And the general frame he suggested as general translation theory is too general and lacks the human aspect of translation.
If we are to begin with the general translation theory, we see that what is desired to be achieved here is to reach a one ultimate goal "to develop a full, inclusive theory accomodating so many elements that it can serve to explain and predict all phenomena falling within the terrain of translating and translation"[186]. However, it does not seem to be possible to create a theory that would generate the ideas/choices behind all translation activities. Because translation is not a science as it has not "reached a stage of precision, formalization, and paradigm formation"[183] but a humanly act which bounds to differentiate from time to time and person to person. If thought thoroughly, there are as many translations as translators. The very same text can be translated in various ways by different translators and even the same translator can translate the same text differently in two different times. So at least the prediction part of Holmes's propostion may not be quite right. And this general theory will probably fail in explaining the products of different translation processes.
Under this general theory Holmes describes six partial theories which have the tendency to focus in different methods/choices in translation. Although later in the text he mentions combining more than one partial theories to handle generalizations through these theories, the way he looks at them is very isolated and highlights one feature at a time. And these also can be problematic in themselves. For example, in area-restricted theories, the area, either a culture or a language, to focus on should be chosen very carefully in order not to exclude a detail and/or not to be superficial about the translation theory of a culture/language. One of the areas given as example by Holmes is the Slavic languages. However, Slavic languages are a quite big area in itself, including Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and many other languages. It is difficult to reach conclusive ideas on traditions of translation in these cultures just by looking at the language families. Because all these languages have different backgrounds both in social and political terms, so they all have different traditions in using the language and in communicating. To generalize all of them into one category and study on it will probably leave out some parts and will make the scholar lose track of the hypothesis behind.
Another classification made by Holmes is the applied translation field, which also has sub-divisions. One of these subcategories is translation policy which is a way to "determine what works needs to be translated in a given socio-cultural situation, what the social and economic position of the translator is and should be."[190] This sentence is only one of the sentences which shows that Holmes favoures an approach of target-oriented translation rather than a source-oriented one. However, this text does not go into much detail about the reasons of his preference of target orientedness. It is maybe because this text is not to have been written to defend a certain idea but just to describe the general idea of translation. But it confuses a reader favoring a source-oriented approach instead.

Binarisms in Approaches to Translation

Generally translation theory has been an attempt to explain how one has translated what s/he has translated and why s/he translated it. It is about discussing the different choices and suggesting new ideas on translation.
A chronological review to the translation theories gives one the advantage to see the evolution of the translation studies and appreciate/understand today's perspective more easily and throughly.
Beginning with Etienne Dolet and his How to Translate Well from One Language to Another is a good start to see the binary oppositions, which still are dominant in some terms in the translation theory, since he gives a clear distinction between the good and the bad translations and suggests methods to create good translation. The main idea behind the good translation is being faithful to the source text. Ironically enough, he himself was executed for mistranslating. This is an important proof of the strength and effect of words.
The idea of faithfulness, supported by the same binary opposition, is also apparent in the other texts from John Dryden, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Friedrich Schleirmacher, and Andre Lefevere. Either the opposition is about the quality of translation, good vs. bad, or about the text type, literature vs. commercial texts. But the general approach to evaluate a translation, to appreciate a translation and/or to disapprove of it is to think with a split mind and the texts in the framework of faithfulness.
Only Dryden proposes a third way, what he calls an "imitation", although he does not name it as a translation. Even the inclusion of such a possibility into an essay on translation is a little clue for us to consider the variety existed in the translations.
Lefevere's binarism, however, stems from a bigger opposition, West vs. East. He try to see the process of translation both as a product and as a proces through this opposition.
His article on comparision of Chinese and Western ideas on translation suggests a different systematic method to look at translation. He suggests that translation is not a static action and has to be changeable according to the culture, accoring to the time and according to the people. If we are to quote from him:
"Different cutures have tended to take translation by granted, or rather, different cultures have taken the technique of translating that was current at a given time in their evolution for granted and equated it with the phenomenon of translation as such."
However, the problem in his article is his superficial look at both of the cultures. He generalizes a West and a China in his head and tries to prove the reader what he meant by "different". Although his ideas are an ideal start to consider translation and language; translation and culture at the same time, the way he looks at culture is problematic on its own. Because his definition has its own contradictions in it. Although he consider cultures as not fixed and as bound to change, he considers "the culture" of a time is static in itself. He mentions both Chinese and Western cultures as a big united homogeneos culture without any margins or without any oppositions in them.And he misses the point that there cannot be a pure homogenity in a culture.
Another problematic perspective Lefevere is the way he compares these two cultures. He overlooks the dynamics of these culture. He misses the human part in them and approaches them as if independent from their creators.