Descriptive Approaches to Translation

• General background:
• In the second half of the 20th century, the traditional prescriptive (normative) and source-oriented translation theory was challenged by a descriptive and target-oriented approach to translation.
Restricted translation theories
(vi) Problem-restricted translation theories (特殊
翻译问题)
Broad and basic questions e.g. the limits of variance and invariance in translation the nature of translation equivalence Specific issues e.g. the translation of metaphors the translation of proper names.
Restricted translation theories
(ii) Area-restricted translation theories (翻译范
围) language restriction/restricted to language (Close to comparative linguistics and stylistics) culture restriction/restricted to culture
(i) Medium-restricted translation theories (翻译手
段)
human translation oral translation or interpreting written translation machine translation mixed or machine-aided translation
• Origin:
• literary-oriented school of translation studies: in the late 1970s, Belgium and the Netherlands. • The school’s name: School of Translation Studies (翻译 研究派)，from the titles of several papers presented at the conference in Leuven in 1976: • “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies” (Holmes), • “Translation Studies: the Goal of the Discipline” (Lefevere).
(iii) Rank-restricted translation theories (语言层
Restricted translation theories
(iv) Text-type (or Discourse-type) restricted translation theories (文本类型翻译)
Holmes (1972): Three Branches of Translation Studies
Translation Studies：
Pure Translation Studies 纯翻译研究 (a) Descriptive Translation Studies(DTS) or Translation Description (TD) 描述翻译研究 (b) Theoretical Translation Studies(ThTS) or Translation Theory (TTh） 翻译理论研究 Applied Translation Studies 应用翻译研究
—Covering only one or a few of the various aspects of translation theory Holmes groups partial/restricted theories into six kinds:
Restricted translation theories
1) Descriptive translation studies (DTS)
Product-oriented DTS: describing existing translations, including individual and comparative descriptions Function-oriented DTS: describing the function of translations in the recipient social-cultural situation, e.g. which texts were translated at certain time in a certain place－ socio-translation studies/ translation sociology －it is a study of contexts rather than texts. Process-oriented DTS: investigating the mental processes that take place in translation － psychotranslation studies/ translation psychology
Holmes holds the view that descriptive study of the function of translated texts in the recipient sociocultural situation is much neglected by researchers. By emphasizing the need to take into consideration various active factors in the receiving end, he calls on researchers to study the translated texts in the target culture from a sociological perspective, which is far beyond the traditional comparative analysis of source texts and target texts.
Restricted translation theories
(v) Time-restricted translation theories (不同时
期的翻译) the translation of contemporary texts； the translation of texts from an older period； cross-temporal translation
• J. S. Holmes:
• Dutch translation theorist, founder of Translation Studies school; • His paper “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies”, the manifesto of the founding of the discipline of translation studies. 《翻译研究的名与实》被认为是翻译研究学派的成 立宣言。 • Three branches of Translation Studiesetical, applied. Lecture 4-2-Name and Nature of Translation StudiesHolmes.ppt
2) Theoretical translation studies (ThTS)
To develop principles, theories, and models which will serve to explain and predict what translating and translations are and will be. The theoretical studies includes: General translation theories (翻译总论) Partial/Restricted translation theories (局部翻译理 论)
dealing with the problem of translating specific types/genres of lingual messages such as literary texts/genres of literary texts the Bible and other sacred works scientific texts 文本类型研究的是不同文本翻译中的特殊问题， 考察特定的话语或文本类型，如文学文本、宗教 文本、商业文本、科技文本的翻译等。 文本类型方法风行于20世纪70年代，其中最重要 的学者是赖斯(Reiss)和弗米尔(Vermeer)。
Descriptive Approaches to Translation
（描写学派） —Literary-oriented school of translation studies
• General Introduction
• Prominent Figures:
• James S. Holmes: founder of Translation Studies school and the discipline of translation studies. • Itamar Even-Zohar: Polysystem Theory • Gideon Toury: descriptive translation theory. • Theo Hermans • Susan Bassnett-McGuire • Andre Lefevere: The Manipulation School (manipulation of the source text); translation as rewriting
（翻译范围局限于特定的语言和文化，指任何 两种或多种语言和文化之间的翻译）
Restricted translation theories
级-翻译单位) theories that deal with discourse or texts as wholes, but concern themselves with lower linguistic ranks or levels. encouraging theorists to move beyond sentencerestricted translation theories to more complex task of developing text-rank theories. 传统上，词和词组被认为是翻译的基本单位，以 描写语言学为基础的研究则以句子为单位。 Holmes在撰写这篇文章时已经出现了篇章语言学 (textual linguistics)，即篇章(text)层次的分析。且篇 章语言学变得越来越受欢迎。
• Translated literature was viewed as one subsystem of the literary system and its impact on the evolution of the target literary system was investigated.