Os Estudos de Tradução no século XXI
A virada antropológica
Profª. Dr. Christiane Stallaert, Universidade de Leuven/Universidade de Antuérpia

Minicurso, Pós-graduação em Letras Universidade Federal do Pará, setembro 2013

•          Introdução aos Estudos de Tradução

–        As ‘viradas’ teóricas e metodológicas

–        Antropologia e Tradução

–        Introdução a Sociologia da Tradução

•          Estudos de caso

–        Etnografia multisituada de conceitos em movimento. O caso do ‘casticismo’ ibérico

–        Traduzir em paises multilingües

•          O caso da Bélgica

•          O caso da Espanha: País Basco e Andaluzia

–        Traduzir a voz do perpetrador: Inquisição e Nazismo

Os estudos de tradução

I. The Turns of Translation Studies, Snell-Hornby, 2006

–        The linguistic tradition (origins…)

–        The pragmatic turn (1970s)

–        The cultural turn (1980s)

–        The ‘interdiscipline’ (1990s)

–        TS at the turn of the millenium:The U-turns: back to square one?

II. C.Stallaert: ‘A virada antropológica’

–        1492 / 1942 / 1992

–        ‘TRANS’

Europa / Bélgica / Flandres

Instituto Superior de Tradutores e Interpretes Universidade de Antuérpia (1961- 2013) From Translation to Translation Studies:

1. The linguistic tradition:

•         Translation training = language training

–        Linguistic competence most important

–        No much attention to cultural competence

•         (historically) connected with bible studies

•         Importance of ‘fidelity’ to ‘source text’

•         Ideal of the ‘translator’s invisibility’ (L. Venuti)

–        Eurocentric translation concept

•      Based on a series of assumptions

•      Cfr. Maria Tymoczko, ‘Reconceptualizing Translation Theory’,  in: Theo Hermans, Translating Others, Volume I, 13-32

Eurocentric translation concept:

•         Assumption of monolingualism:

–        reflects an Anglo-American model of linguistic (in)competence, equating nation with language and national identity with linguistic provinciality (p.16-17)

–        translators are necessary as mediators in interlingual and intercultural situations; they mediate between two linguistic and cultural groups

•         The process of translation is a sort of ‘black box’:

–        an individual translator decodes a given message to be translated and recodes the same message in a second language

–        concept of translation as decoding/encoding process by a single translator

•         Assumption of professionality:

–        Translators are generally educated in their art and they have professional standing: often they learn their craft in a formal way, connected with schooling or training that instructs the translator in language competence, standards of textuality, norms of transposition and so forth

•         Assumption of equivalence:

–        identity relationship between source text and translation (rather than a similarity relationship which entails difference)

2.The pragmatic turn (1970s):

•         Influenced by the pragmatic turn in linguistics,cfr. ‘Pragmatics’:

–        Speech-act theory (Dell Hymes, Gumperz,…)

•         Very close to the field of intercultural communication

–        Cfr. Edward Hall: verbal vs nonverbal communication

•         Interdisciplinarity: Study of language enriched by insights from anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology

–        Cfr. ‘Flemish school’: Jan Blommaert (anthropologist) & Jef Verschueren (linguist)

•         Encouraged the emancipation of TS both from linguistics and from comparative literature

–        Change of paradigm into the world of communication, text and discourse

–        Holistic notion of the text as part of the world around

From comparative literature to translation studies: the Leuven Conference, 1976:

•         André Lefevere (1945-1996)

–        Professor in the Department of Germanic Studies of the University of Texas in Austin

–        he theorized translation as a form of rewriting produced and read with a set of ideological and political constraints within the target language cultural system.

•         José Lambert (1941- )

–        Department of Roman Languages, KULeuven

–        CETRA (Center for Translation Studies), KULeuven, 1989

–        http://www.kuleuven.be/cetra/index/

–        Guest professor at UFSC

•         Theo Hermans

–        Department of Germanic Studies at University College of London

–        Founding member of IATIS

International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies:

•          IATIS: http://www.iatis.org/

•          Executive Council and Founding Members

–        ANNIE BRISSET, IATIS President (Ottawa)

–        MONA BAKER, IATIS Co-Vicepresident (Manchester)

–        THEO HERMANS, Chair of IATIS Executive Council (London)

–        JAN BLOMMAERT, IATIS Executive Council Member (Ghent)

–        Journal: The Translator

Special Issues of The Translator (selection):

•         Volume 16, Number 2, 2010. Special Issue: Translation and Violent Conflict

•         Volume 15, Number 2, 2009: Special Issue. Chinese Discourses on Translation

•         Volume 15, Number 1, 2009: Special Issue. Nation and Translation in the Middle East

•         Volume 13, Number 2, 2007: Special Issue. Translation and Ideology: Encounters and Clashes

•         Volume 12, Number 2, 2006: Special Issue. Translation, Travel, Migration

•         Volume 11, Number 2, 2005: Special Issue. Bourdieu and the Sociology of Translation and Interpreting

•         Volume 4, Number 2, 1998: Special Issue, Translation and Minority

3. The cultural turn (1980s):

•         The Manipulation School

–        Low Countries, UK

•         Thec Skopos Theory

–        Germany

•         The model of translatorial action

–        Germany/Finland

•         Deconstruction, or the ‘cannibalistic approach’

–        Brasil

The Manipulation School:

•         Theo Hermans, The Manipulation of Literature, 1985

–        Authors included: Gideon Toury, José Lambert, Hendrik van Gorp, Susan Bassnett, André Lefevere

•         Key words: descriptive, target-oriented, functional, systemic

–        Vs: prescriptive, source-text oriented, linguistic, atomistic

•         Moving from text to culture, cfr. G. Toury:

–        not the linguistic features of the source text are the central issue, but the function of the translation in the ‘target culture’

–        ‘culture’: the entire social context involved in the translation, along with the norms, conventions, ideology and values of that society of ‘receptor system’

•         = Starting-point for the sociological approach

Skopos Theory:

•         Katharina Reis and Hans J. Vermeer, ‘Foundations of a General Theory of Translation’, 1984

–        Germersheim school (Germany)

•         Functionalist approach

•         ‘Skopos’ (Greek: aim, purpose)

–        The aim and purpose of a translation is determined by the needs and expectations of the reader in his culture

–        ‘equivalence’ is subordinated to this skopos

•         Concept of culture is central to Skopos theory

–        Vermeer views translation as a cultural transfer rather than a linguistic one, being part of culture

–        Translator should not be only bilingual, but also bicultural

Model of translatorial action:

•         Holz-Mänttäri (native of Hamburg, lived in Finland)

•         Reduction not only of the status of the source text, but of the entire language component (cfr. idem Vermeer, Skopos)

–        Translation is basically action, a form of intercultural communication whereby language is not content or goal but the necessary instrument

–        Translation as a form of communication across cultural barriers

•         Functional approach: message is central, and not the linguistic items

•         This theory has been described in English by Christina Schäffner, 1998

•         This model reflects the real-life job of the professional translator (cfr. translating instructions for use of a washing machine). The process can be described as follows:

–        Translatorial action is not linguistic transcoding, but consists of a whole complex of actions involving team-work among specialists, including the client, or initiator and the translator, who has the role of a professional expert in text-design and as such assumes the responsibility of his/her product (Snell-H 2006:58-59)

Deconstruction or the ‘cannibalistic’ approach:

•         ‘Third World Translation Model’

–        Elaborated during the 1960s, Augusto and Haroldo de Campos (poets and translators) who took up the ‘cannibalistic’ metaphor (1920s Anthropophagy Movement)

•         Anticipates postcolonial theories

–        Cfr. Rosemary Arrojo, ‘Oficina de Tradução’, 1986

•         Questions the traditional translation theories

–        Challenges the hierarchy of power between ‘original’ and translation

–        Questions the sacrality of the source text

–        Translation is no longer an activity that preserves the ‘original’ meaning of an author, but one which sees its task in producing meanings

Borges, Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote
(El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (1941; Ficciones, 1944)

4. The ‘interdiscipline’ (1990s):

•         Importance of the political context

–        1989/1991: End of Cold War; Time of dialogue

–        LatAm: Importance of Columbian quincentennial 1992

•         Interdisciplinary orientation of TS gave rise to the term of ‘interdiscipline’

–        = ??

–        Cultural Studies influence in TS

•         Postcolonial Studies: Subaltern Studies Group (SSG)

•         Cfr. [Edward Said, Orientalism, 1978]; Homi Bhabha; Gayatri Spivak

Some examples: Cultural Studies and Translation, 1992

•         Mary Louise Pratt

–        Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992)

•         Tejaswini Neranjana

–        Siting Translation. History, Post-structuralism, and the Colonial Context (1992)

•         Samia Mehrez

–        Translation and the colonial experience (1992)

5. TS at the turn of the millenium?
(Snell-Hornby)

•         Translation as a pervasive metaphor

–        What is non-translated language?

•         Exporting Translation Studies

–        The translation turn in Cultural Studies and Anthropology

II. Translation and Anthropology:

"The central aim of the anthropological enterprise has always been to understand and comprehend a culture or cultures other than one's own. This inevitably involves either the translation of words, ideas and meanings from one culture to another, or the translation to a set of analytical concepts. Translation is central to 'writing about culture'. However, curiously, the role that translation has played in anthropology has not been systematically addressed by practitioners, even though translation has been so central to data-gathering procedures, and to the search for meanings and understandings, which is the goal of anthropology".

(Rubel y Rosman, Translating Cultures, 2003)

Kate Sturge, ‘Translation Strategies in Ethnography’, in: The Translator, 1997, 3 (1), 21-38:

•         Ethnography always involves translation

–        In its narrowest sense: making words in one language accessible to speakers of another

–        In a broad sense: metaphor of the ethnographer as ‘translator of cultures’ (cfr. Edmund Leach, quoted in Asad, Sturge p.22)

–        Ethnographic translation = a dual translation

–        From the oral to the written form

–        From one language to another

–        basic dilemmas of translation are shared by ethnographers, hence:

–        recent work in translation theory could be applied to ethnographic texts

The ‘turns’ in Anthropology:

•         Ethnographic turn (Malinowski):

–        ‘participant observation’

–        importance of linguistic competence of the ethnographer

•         Textual turn:

–        Interpretive, semiotic approach

–        Textualization of culture: studying culture as if it were a literary tekst; ethnography as ‘reading’

–        Clifford Geertz, The interpretation of cultures (1973)

–        Influence of French theory (philosophy of language): Foucault, Derrida...

•         Reflexive turn:

–        Ethnography as ‘writing’ 

•         James Clifford & George Marcus, Writing Culture. The poetics and politics of ethnography, 1986

•         Clifford Geertz, Work and Lifes. The Anthropologist as Author (1988)

–        Auto-ethnography

•         Ethnographer as object of analysis

–        Native anthropology

•         ethical dimension: who has the right to speak

•         Translational turn (?):

–        Ethnography as ‘translation’

•         Talal Asad, ‘The concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology’, 1986

–        Cfr Snell-Hornby: pervasiveness of the translation metaphor

–        Context : 1992: ‘globalization’

1992. ‘Globalization’:

New research paradigm in Anthropology/Cultural Studies

•         Benjamin Barber, ‘Jihad vs. McWorld’ (1992)

–        Globalism vs tribalism as ‘the two axial principles of our age’

–        ‘glocalization’

–        Cfr. localization vs internationalization

•         Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large (1996)

–        ‘-scapes’: dimensions of global discontinued cultural flows

•         Benedict Anderson (Imagined Communities)

•         Ethno-, media-, finan-, ideo-, techno-

•         Homi Bhabha, ‘The Third Space’ (1994)

–        culture = ‘transnational and translational’

‘Third Space’ = the space of translation:

•         Translation and hybridity

–        all forms of culture are continually in a process of hybridity…

–        the process of cultural hybridity gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognisable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation

–        = the third space

•         Translation:

–        = activity of displacement, de-centering

G. Marcus, ‘Ethnography in/of the World System. The emergence of multi-sited ethnography’ (1995)

George E. Marcus, ‘Ethnography in/of the World System. The emergence of multi-sited ethnography’ (1995), in: Ethnography through Thick and Thin, 1998

•         Cultural logics so much sought after in anthropology are always multiply produced (…). Strategies of quite literally following connections, associations, and putative relationships are thus at the very heart of designing multisited ethnographic research (p.81)

•         Enhanced challenge of translation (p.84)

–        The function of translation (from one cultural idiom or language to another) is enhanced since it is no longer practiced in the primary, dualistic ‘them-us’ frame of conventional ethnography but requires considerably more nuancing and shading as the practice of translation connects the several sites that the research explores along unexpected and even dissonant fractures of social location. Indeed, the persuasiveness of the broader field that any such ethnography maps and constructs is in its capacity to make connections through translations and tracings among distinctive discourses from site to site.

•         Multi-sited fieldwork:  = multilingual

•         This move toward comparison embedded in the multi-sited ethnography stimulates accounts of cultures composed in a landscape for which there is as yet no developed theoretical conception or descriptive model (p.86)

•         Interdisciplinary arenas and new objects of study. Modes of construction (p.86…)

–        Follow the people

•         Cfr migration studies

–        Follow the thing

•         Commodities, works of art, intellectual property,…

•         This technique is at the heart of Wallerstein’s method for study of the world-system

–        Follow the metaphor

–        Follow the plot, story, allegory

–        Follow the life or biography

–        Follow the conflict

Example: Carol Gluck & Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (eds.), Words in Motion: Toward a Global Lexicon, 2009

•         On the premise that words have the power to make worlds, each essay in this book follows a word as it travels around the globe and across time. Scholars from five disciplines address thirteen societies to highlight the social and political life of words in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The approach is consciously experimental, in that rigorously tracking specific words in specific settings frequently leads in unexpected directions and alters conventional depictions of global modernity.

•         Such words as security in Brazil, responsibility in Japan, community in Thailand, and hijāb in France changed the societies in which they moved even as the words were changed by them. Some words threatened to launch wars, as injury did in imperial Britain’s relations with China in the nineteenth century. Others, such as secularism, worked in silence to agitate for political change in twentieth-century Morocco. Words imposed or imported from abroad could be transformed by those who wielded them to oppose the very powers that first introduced them, as happened in Turkey, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Taken together, this selection of fourteen essays reveals commonality as well as distinctiveness across modern societies, making the world look different from the interdisciplinary and transnational perspective of “words in motion.”

CONFERENCE: Key Cultural Texts in Translation University of Leicester, April 29-30 2014

“Key Cultural Texts in Translation” network based at the Research Centre for Translation and Interpreting Studies (RTISt), the University of Leicester

•         The conference will focus on the ways in which cultures define and re-define themselves through the representation in texts and other artifacts (films; paintings ...) of their key concepts. What happens to the images of the initial and the receiving cultures when these representations of key concepts are translated? How are key concepts re-represented? What can we learn from this about how peoples can adjust mutually in times of meetings and migration?

•         ….

(Christiane Stallaert, Universidade de Antuérpia, Universidade de Leuven, Bélgica)