Schaffner Norms
Schaffner Norms
Schaffner Norms
Christina Schffner
Institute for the Study of Language and Society, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK
Language and language use can be judged as correct from a phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic point of view. There is also a difference between what is possible in a language, regardless of context (described by rules), and what is considered appropriate in a given context (described by conventions or norms). When conventions are enforced with normative power they are considered to be norms. Norms are binding, and their violation usually arouses disapproval of some kind among the community concerned. The force of a norm is built up in the relationships between norm authorities, norm enforcers, norm codifiers, and norm subjects. For example, grammar books and lexicons provide models for correct linguistic forms, language teachers correct wrong or inappropriate communicative behaviour, or teachers of translation judge a text to be a good or a bad translation. In translation studies, the debate about norms has shifted from linguistic norms to translational norms (cf. Schffner, in press), mainly thanks to the influential work by Toury and Hermans.
tion journal Fremdsprachen between 1974 and 1980). The starting point was always a specific linguistic structure or phenomenon in the SL for which methods of translation were provided, as a kind of ready-made solution for the practising translator. Highly influential in this respect have been the seven methods of translation of the Stylistique compare (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1958), set up on the basis of a comparison of the lexical and syntactic structures of English and French. A similarly practical and pedagogical purpose underlies Newmarks (1988) seven translation procedures, and Friederichs (1969) techniques of translation for the language pair English and German. All these studies are based on a contrastive analysis of linguistic units and syntactic structures which are seen as correct in the two languages. Friederichs book Technik des bersetzens. Englisch und Deutsch, first published in 1969 and reprinted several times since then (latest edition 1995) can serve as an illustration of the studies that were conducted within this normative linguistic approach. In 25 chapters, Friederich discusses linguistic translation problems and gives techniques (practically in the sense of rules) for dealing with them. The problems he discusses range from lexical issues to syntactic structures, with a specific focus on differences in the linguistic systems of English and German. All chapters are constructed in a fairly similar way: the translation problem is given, and the various possible solutions are illustrated by a large number of examples, which, however, do not go beyond the sentence level. There are no comments about the context or the genre. The focus is on showing the possibilities that are allowed by the linguistic systems. Therefore, Friederichs presentation is often rather general, which becomes obvious in formulations such as in the German language we can , or the English language allows . Such general statements make his translation procedures highly prescriptive. The concept of norms is important in two respects in linguistic approaches to translation. On the one hand, they are concerned with the linguistic norms of the two languages, i.e. how to produce utterances and texts that are correct according to the respective rules and norms. On the other hand, the relations and regularities between the two linguistic systems that were discovered on the basis of contrastive analyses were translated into guidelines or rules for the translator, mostly with prescriptive intent (cf. frequently encountered formulations such as translators must (not) , should , etc.). Translation procedures and similar guidelines, however, were formulated in a rather general way and gave the impression that they are applicable throughout. A chosen TL-form may well be correct according to the rules of the language system, but this does not necessarily mean that the text as a whole appropriately fulfils its communicative function in the TL-situation and culture. Since we do not translate words or grammatical forms, but texts with a specific communicative function, the limitations of a narrow linguistic approach soon became obvious. Thus, a logical development was that in the 1970s, the insights and approaches of textlinguistics, a new (sub-)discipline of (applied) linguistics, were adopted in translation studies. Thus, regularities of the text itself, of the genre, and of the context were given more consideration.
translators. For both approaches, translation involves a specific relationship between the source (language) text and the target (language) text. This relationship is typically labelled equivalence, although there have been several definitions of this notion where it is not rejected outright (e.g. by HolzMnttri, 1984, cf. also Halverson, 1997). When the target text is expected to be a faithful reproduction of the source text, then equivalence is defined as identity (of meaning and/or form), not necessarily in the strict sense of interchangeability and complete reversibility, but more often in the sense of equal value or correspondence (cf. Snell-Hornby, 1988: 13ff.). Types of equivalence were suggested in order to specify the relationship between SL-text and TL-text, for example Nidas formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence (Nida, 1964), or Kollers denotative, connotative, text-normative, pragmatic, and formal-aesthetic equivalence (cf. Koller, 1979: 215f). It has been (and still is) argued that translation needs to be set apart from other kinds of derived texts, as reflected in the opposition of translation (proper) and adaptation (e.g. Koller, 1979), semantic translation and communicative translation (Newmark, 1981), overt and covert translation (House, 1977), and that the label translation should be reserved for those cases where an equivalence relation obtains. There is still much controversy on this point, and this is also apparent in the debates presented in this issue. Functionalist approaches see equivalence as one possible relationship among others (e.g. Reiss & Vermeer, 1991). Descriptive translation studies, of which both Toury and Hermans are representative, see translation as the result of a socially contexted behavioural type of activity (Toury, 1980), or as implying a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose (Hermans, 1985: 11). Toury shifted the focus of attention by saying that a translation is every text that is regarded and accepted as a translation by a given community. For him, equivalence is only a label that is affixed to a translational relation that is assumed to exist between two texts (Toury, 1980: 39, 65). This reversal of perspective opened the way to a reassessment of the notion of equivalence, since now we can ask for the type of translational relation that exists in a certain case, and for the reasons that one specific type exists and not another. The crucial instrument to help answer these questions is the concept of norms, i.e. translational norms.
Translational Norms
Norms function in a community as standards or models of correct or appropriate behaviour and of correct or appropriate behavioural products. Whereas linguistic and text-linguistic (and also to a certain extent functionalist) approaches focus on the product (i.e. the target text) and on the linguistic norms and genre conventions that determine (the production of) this product, Toury defines norms as being central to the act and the event of translating. Norms are a category for descriptive analysis of translation phenomena (Toury, 1980: 57), or more specifically, norms are the translation of general values or ideas shared by a certain community as to what is right and wrong, adequate and inadequate into specific performance-instructions appropriate for and applicable to specific situations (Toury, 1980: 51). Translational behaviour is
contextualised as social behaviour, and translational norms are understood as internalised behavioural constraints which embody the values shared by a community. All decisions in the translation process are thus primarily governed by such norms, and not (dominantly or exclusively) by the two language systems involved. Toury (1980: 53ff.) described three kinds of norms: (1) preliminary norms, which decide the overall translation strategy and the choice of texts to be translated, (2) initial norms, which govern the translators decision to adhere primarily to the source text or to the target culture, and (3) operational norms, which control the actual decisions made during the act of translation. If it is accepted that norms are central to translating, then their nature and their function need to be explained more systematically. This involves questions such as: how can we establish which particular general concept of translation prevailed in a particular community at a particular time? How does this concept compare to general concepts of translation that were valid at another time and/or in other communities? Who are the norm authorities? Who introduced changes in dominant norms, and why were they accepted? Since translating is situated in time and space, any answer to such questions implies a careful description of the situation and the culture in which such norms obtain. As Halverson (1997: 216) observes, the consequence of adopting a norm-based theory of translation is that the object of study for historical-descriptive approaches becomes regularities of translation behavior (norms) and the situational/cultural features which may account for these regularities. In the two main contributions to this CILS issue, Toury and Hermans although opting for different styles of presentation and argumentation provide examples of translation (or translators) behaviour which they explain in terms of norms or conventions. In discussing an historical case, Adrianus de Bucks 1653 translation of Boethius, Hermans uses the concept of norms to inquire into the translators choices. He argues that the choices which a translator makes simultaneously highlight the excluded alternatives, and that in this way light can be shed on the interplay between the translators responses to expectations, constraints and pressures in a social context. Toury reflects on the expectations about the nature and role of translation within a society, and thus on the expectations about preferred options, by giving as an example three different Hebrew versions of Hemingways short story The Killers. Translational norms prevail at a certain period and within a particular society, and they determine the selection, the production and the reception of translations. Based on the work by Toury and Hermans, Chesterman (1993, 1997) differentiates between expectancy norms and professional norms. Expectancy norms refer to what the target language community expects a translation to look like regarding grammaticality, acceptability, appropriateness, style, textuality, preferred conventions of form or discourse and the like (Chesterman, 1993: 17). Professional norms govern the accepted methods and strategies of the translation process, and they can be subdivided into three major types: accountability norms, communication norms, relation norms. Bartsch (1987: 176) speaks of norms as consisting of two parts: norm content and normative force. The norm content is a socially shared notion of what is
correct, and, as Hermans argues in his position paper, norms and conventions are intimately tied up with values. Dominant values in a society reflect the power relationships in that society. This has as a consequence that translation can never be value-free. Translations as cultural and historical phenomena are characterised by opaqueness, and by lack of transparency or neutrality. In contrast to Toury, Hermans argues against retaining the notion of equivalence in our discourse on translation a problem that formed a substantial part in the debates. As said above, the notion of equivalence has played an important role in the perception and presentation of translation. Pym (1995) makes a useful distinction between an external view of translation (held by clients, or readers, of translation, who are assuming that translation means sameness) and an internal view (held mainly by translation scholars, who know that translating is much more complex). Because of this complexity, some translation scholars prefer to speak of translation as rewriting, textual manipulation, or appropriation, and they argue that equivalence is not really a broad enough term to cover the kinds of activities that translators do. But exactly how much and what kind of rewriting is prescribed, preferred or allowed in practice, depends on the prevailing concepts of translation. This brings us to the aspect of the normative force, and to the related question of who has the power to enforce norms. If norms act as constraints on behaviour, foreclosing certain options while suggesting others (Hermans, 1991: 161), they also provide models and guidelines for correct behaviour. As far as linguistic norms are concerned, they are usually codified in an institutionalised way, for example in grammar books and lexicons. In translation studies, scholars have attempted to set up normative translation laws and translation rules or guidelines, typically with a practical purpose in mind (particularly teaching). Such rules are meant both to explain translation regularities and to predict certain structures (thus limiting choices), and typical formats are if then, or translators must, should, ought to. In these contexts, however, normative is meant in the sense of prescriptive. This sense is, unfortunately, also often found in standards or handbooks on translation, cf.: The translation should be a faithful rendition of the work into English; it shall neither omit anything from the original text nor add anything to it other than such verbal changes as are necessary in translating into English. (A Handbook for Literary Translators, 1991: 16, quoted in Venuti, 1995: 310) In its sense of descriptive it refers to the study of the norms themselves or to the study of the products, processes or behaviour that are taken to constitute or represent norms (Chesterman, 1993: 11). It is this descriptive sense which is dominant in the two main contributions of this CILS issue. The ambiguity of the terms norm and normative is sometimes obvious in the debates, although less so in the responses. The written responses come from scholars who did not attend the meeting, which has made it possible to widen the perspective and add some new ideas. Describing translation as norm-governed behaviour in a social, cultural, and historical situation, raises a number of issues. For example, how do we get from the norms to the text, and how do we reconstruct norms from textual features?
What is the relationship between regular patterns in texts and norms? How do translators acquire norms, do they behave according to norms, and are they conscious of their norm-governed behaviour? What happens if translators show some kind of deviant behaviour? Are translators themselves powerful enough to introduce and change norms? Are there translation specific norms, or more general norms in society that also influence translational behaviour? What can sociological theories contribute to an understanding of norms? Do norms really exist, as social facts, or are they just hypotheses? Is the behaviour of translators indeed governed by norms, or are they rather actively involved in the maintenance of norms (cf. Simeonis habitus-governed account, Simeoni, 1998). These are some of the questions raised and discussed in the two main contributions, in the debates and in the responses. Some have not (yet) been answered in full; some will continue to provoke controversy. New questions will undoubtedly emerge as a result of our academic interest in translational phenomena.
References
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