Transcript Polysystem Theory Even-Zohar, Itamar (1990) Polysystem Studies, Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, and Durham: Duke University Press. Special issue.

Polysystem Theory
Even-Zohar, Itamar (1990) Polysystem Studies, Tel Aviv: The Porter
Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, and Durham: Duke University Press.
Special issue of Poetics Today, 11(1).
Developed in the 1970s by the Israeli scholar Itamar Even-Zohar,
who borrowed idea the from Russian formalists (1920s)
 see Gideon Toury
What is a system?
Often defined simply as a complex of interacting elements,
separated from its environment by a boundary.
Other definitions characterize a system as a structured
whole with internal connections between the elements being
more intensive and qualitatively different from those with
elements outside the system.
(Hermans 1999: 164)
Even-Zohar’s definition of system
System:
“the network of relations that can be hypothesized for a
certain set of assumed observables (“occurrences” /
“phenomena”)” (Even-Zohar 1990:27)
Literary System:
“the network of relations that is hypothesized to obtain
between a number of activities called “literary” and
consequently these activities themselves observed via that
network” (ibid:28)
Components of literary system
Even-Zohar’s definition of polysystem
“a multiple system , a system of various 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 1979: 290)
Translation as a polysystem?
Translated literature as a system?
Position of translated literature within the polysystem is not
fixed:


primary (innovative role in the literary system)
secondary
Normal position of translated literature is secondary
Implications for translational behaviour:

translated literature is primary: translation will be
source-oriented

translated literature is secondary: translation will be
target-oriented
Assessment of Even-Zohar’s theory
(+)




Pioneer in conceiving translations as a group, a system
Describing and explaining, rather than prescribing
Interest in historical and social context
Highlights potentially important role of translations
(-)





Abstract, not based on data or case studies
Rigid, overgeneralizing, oversimplifying
Over-reliance on the 1920s’ Formalist model
Difficult to define ‘weak/strong’ literature
‘Normal’ position of translation questionnable
Descriptive Translation studies
Gideon Toury
Toury, Gideon (1995) Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond,
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Developing the discipline:

Translation Studies as an empirical science

Holmes’ map of the discipline

Pure (descriptive/theoretical) and applied branches
Norms - definition
The translation of general values or ideas shared by a community – as to
what is right and wrong, adequate and inadequate – into performance
instructions appropriate for and applicable to particular situations,
specifying what is prescribed and forbidden as well as what is tolerated
and permitted in a certain behavioural
dimension.
(Toury 1995: 55)
Tripartite model:



Competence represents the inventory of all the options that are available to
translators in a given context.
Performance is the subset of options that they actually select in real life.
Norms is a further subset of these: they are the options that translators in a
given socio-historical context select on a regular basis.
Continuum:
Absolute rule ------------------------ Norm -------------------------Pure idiosyncrasy
Norms - characteristics

Vary according to and within socio-culture

Between idiosyncrasies and absolute rules

Acquired through socialization

Varying levels of strength

Basis for evaluation in society BUT category of descriptive
analysis

Imply sanctions

Give rise to regularity of behaviour
Types of norm

Initial Norm: adequacy vs. acceptability

Preliminary Norms:
- Translation policy
- Directness of translation

Operational Norms:
- Matricial
- Textual-linguistic
Reconstructing Translational Norms
Textual source: the translated texts themselves to find
out regularities of behaviour
Extratextual source: theoretical and critical formulations
and pronouncements on translation in general and on
specific translations (statements made by translators,
publishers, reviewers, and other actors involved in the
translation process)
Laws of Translational Behaviour
Law of growing standardization: when ST patterns are totally
ignored or modified in translation, thus resulting in a TT which
accommodates more to the target language and culture.
“In translation, textual relations obtaining in the original are often
modified, sometimes to the point of being totally ignored, in
favour of [more] habitual options offered by a target repertoire.”
(Toury 1995:268)
Law of interference: interference from St to TT happens almost
by default (tolerance of interference)
“The more peripheral this status [of translation in a given
subculture], the more translation will accommodate itself to
established models and repertoires.”
(Toury 1995:271)
Assessment of Toury’s model
(+)

Methodology providing robust foundations for future descriptive


work
Abandonment of one-to-one notions of correspondence as well as
the possibility of literary/linguistic equivalence
Integration of the original text and translate text into the web of
intersecting cultural systems
(-)




NOT fully objective or replicable model
Ambivalence towards the notion of equivalence and confusion in
the terms adequacy/acceptability
Need to give a role to translator’s agency
Laws are unlikely to be found