Translation and Fantasy Literature in Taiwan

Translators as Cultural Brokers and Social Networkers

Y. Chung

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137332776
• eBook ISBN: 9781137332783
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book examines the rise in popularity of fantasy literature in Taiwan and the crucial but often invisible role that translators have played in making this genre widely available. Topics covered include global fantasy fever, Chinese fantasy, game industry, the social status of translators, and the sociological direction of translations studies.

1

The Sociological Turn of Translation Studies

The aim of this chapter is to set out the theoretical framework for this book, to explore how Pierre Bourdieu’s approach can be used to enhance the sociological aspect of translation studies and how his work can be applied to a recent cultural phenomenon which began in Taiwan in 1998. It is also meant to illustrate this phenomenon in the form of a translation field by employing Bourdieu’s habitus/capital/field scheme. The entanglement and interactions of translators as agents and the environment in which they were situated resulted in this cultural phenomenon. There has been increasing support for the view that each translation act can be considered within a larger social context. This focus shift from textual to contextual in translation studies reflects the current tendencies and preferences in this realm.

Scholars involved in translation activities in the twentieth century originated from the realm of linguistics. They struggled to win recognition from the academic community after the Second World War (Bassnett 2002: 14–15). In 1972 Holmes christened this fledgling discipline ‘translation studies’ and drew a map for it. Kuhn’s concepts of ‘paradigm shifts’ and the evolution of a discipline were first applied to translation studies (Holmes 1994),¹ in an attempt to break the long-term monopoly of the equivalence norm in translation theories and practices. Up to the mid-1980s, the study of translation was widely seen as either a concern of linguistics or of literary studies (Snell-Hornby 2006). In the 1990s, Even-Zohar’s ‘Polysystems Studies’ (1990) led to the exploration of the mediating process and the position and function of translation in the target literary system. Scholars of comparative literature started to proclaim ‘a cultural turn’ in translation studies, describing the shift of focus from linguistics to culture (e.g. Bassnett and Lefevere 1990). Snell-Hornby (2006) described such ‘turn’ as ‘a shift of paradigm’.

After the cultural turn, translation scholars continually expanded their horizons and methodologies to other ultra-textual aspects of translation. It was inevitable that they approached the social aspect of translation and related issues. Simeoni thought of Toury’s (1995) descriptive translation studies as ‘quests for universal laws of translation’ (Simeoni 2008: 336) and emphasized norms as a social practice.Translation becomes an activity which has significant importance in the receiving culture and for the target community. Therefore, translation is more than a matter of linguistic realization and language comparison, and is incorporated in the social and cultural context. Later on, Simeoni (1998) explicated Toury’s notion of ‘norm’ to explore translators’ specialized habitus. Gouanvic (1997a, 1997b) used Bourdieu’s framework to investigate how specific writers in the genre of science fiction were translated in post-war France. Inghilleri (2003, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c) discussed the relationship between Bourdieu’s sociology and translation and interpreting studies. She explored the interpreter’s habitus and their status of agency in conflict settings. Sela-Sheffy (2005) and Sela-Sheffy and Shlesinger (2008) investigated translators as a social group to explore their occupational identity, by examining their habitus and the nature of the translation field.

As noted above, Bourdieu’s concepts have been introduced into translation studies since the late 1990s. Approaching translation practice as a social activity has been gradually recognized. Snell-Hornby posits a new paradigm of ‘translation sociology’ (Snell-Hornby 2006: 172). Chesterman argues that Holmes’ map of translation studies was heavily weighted towards texts rather than the people who produce them (Chesterman 2009: 19), and claims ‘the sociology of translation’ should include three sub-areas: products, the sociology of translators, and the sociology of translating (Chesterman 2006: 12). He even suggests the term ‘Translator Studies’ to position the translator-focused research trend at the time, and to describe and group these translator/interpreter priority researches (Chesterman 2009: 13). Wolf (2006, 2007) questions the sufficiency of Bourdieu’s approach, but notes that more and more researchers relating to translation studies have started to ‘go social’ (Wolf 2010), looking at translation from a broader societal perspective.

In investigating the emergence and evolution of a fantasy translation upsurge in Taiwan, this book is one such study. Translation played a role in introducing a new genre of fantasy into Taiwan. Participants such as fantasy translators act as the initiators and promoters of fantasy literature represented by their social groups and are ‘carriers’ of their groups’ values (Tyulenev 2009: 148). They became the agents of their social groups. Meanwhile, they were also agents of society, being cultural brokers, in introducing and mediating fantasy works in and out of Taiwan. The strategies and social actions they took, how they distinguished themselves from others, and how they interacted with other agents and social groups within a given social space, are what Bourdieu termed ‘a struggle field’. The term not only represents the translators as agents but also describes their social structure. This dynamic field will be explicated using Bourdieu’s approach.

What is translation?

Heilbron and Sapiro assert that translation studies started in small and often multilingual countries such as Israel, Belgium and the Netherlands, where translations play an important role (Heilbron and Sapiro 2007: 97). Although Taiwan is also a small and multilingual country, the status of translation is different. For most people in Taiwan, translation is merely a practice of textual transfer.² Their perceptions about translation remain at the textual level and seldom go beyond. In the history of Chinese culture, translation often plays an instrumental role for the authority to achieve certain goals. This prevailing image of translation still persists today, and translation is seldom viewed as a profession but rather as an auxiliary and do-for-favour job.

In order to understand translation more deeply, the meaning of the term ‘translation’ needs to be rethought (Bassnett 1998). One popular view of translation is that translation involves the transfer of meaning from one language to another. This is derived from the Latin root of the word of translation, translatum, which means to carry across (Cook 2010: 55). This is also the most common perception of translation. It seems that people take the word translation for granted, and use it without considering its meaning. However, in order for this study to progress, we need to define translation more closely. Like other important terms seeking explication, the exploration of the meaning of the term translation from the perspectives of ontology and epistemology, or essentialism and constructivism, is also a long-term issue which remains unresolved in translation studies. Recently, translation scholars such as Tymoczko (2000, 2007) and Cheung (2005, 2006, 2009) have started studying this issue by trying to define the boundaries of translation in both Western and Chinese contexts.

One perspective of Western philosophy, essentialism, views any specific kind of entity as a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. So all things can be precisely defined or described and terms or words should have a single definition and meaning. To put it simply, essentialism is a generalization stating that certain properties possessed by a group (e.g. people, things, ideas) are universal, and not dependent on context. To understand translation from this perspective, translation becomes an entity which needs to be defined with one single meaning. The essentialist definition of translation is that of a text that is equivalent to another text in another language (Schäffner 1999: 91). The essentialistic line of thought builds its knowledge system by deduction. On the other hand, from the point of view of empiricist epistemology (theory of knowledge), knowledge results from experience and observation. So empirical epistemology sets up a knowledge system by induction. Following this thread, the sociological theory of knowledge known as constructivism considers how social phenomena develop in social contexts and proposes that knowledge is not of an objective reality (an entity) but a result of subjective identification.

If we regard translation as a knowledge system, then the main argument lies in whether ‘translation’ is a pre-existing entity or a human constructed item. If translation is an objective entity, then it can and should be defined precisely. But if translation is a human construction, a heterogeneous cultural repertoire (Sela-Sheffy 2005), it would be better to explore it by epistemological approaches and take historical and spatial aspects into account. The argument is that the notion of ‘translation’ is a human construction rather than an a priori entity. If translation is understood as an a priori or self-evident entity, it would be easy to define translation in terms of an operational definition such as equivalence, namely that the target text is supposed to correspond to the source text. However, if translation is understood as a human construction, it becomes difficult to define because people from different times and areas interpret what translation is for them with different discourses, thus complicating the view that translation intrinsically involves transfer or communication between at least two entities. The notion of translation is constantly being modified. It requires empirical knowledge for verification by constant observations and experiences of the phenomenon. Considering the dynamic and multi-faceted features of translation concerning its processes and products, a static and substantial entity of translation does not seem to exist in any tangible form as concrete object. Then the question we should be asking is ‘How do people (society) view translation?’ or ‘What do people (society) think about translation?’ and not ‘What is (or is not) translation?’ This line of thought has led to the empirical-descriptive and the sociological trends in translation studies.

Translation has long been expected to be loyal to the original author and to the source text. The study of translation has widely been a speculation on how to arrive at a general set of principles that would be acceptable for the organization and evaluation of the translator’s task (Wolf 2010: 35). Meanwhile, translation scholars have been adopting various approaches, trying to define and to assess translation quality. Quite a few of the approaches are prescriptive oriented, governed by the equivalence norm based on a hierarchy of correspondences. The root reason behind this dominant ideology of originality lies partly in translators’ perception of translation. If translators perceive translation as a reproduction of the meaning of the source text in a target text, they tend to adopt equivalence as the main norm. A translation is then considered good when the equivalence norm is sufficiently met (Jagt 2010: 102).

It is undeniable that prescriptive approaches are usually applied by capable translators based on their translating experiences and moulded by their ideal ethics. Therefore, Prescriptive Translation Studies (PTS) tends to use close-ended postulations built on an individual’s authority and value. Conversely, the historical and cultural specific features are highlighted in descriptive models such as Even-Zohar’s polysystem and Toury’s norms. Holmes (1994: 71) and Toury (1995: 1) argue that translation is an empirical discipline concerned with describing what translation is, rather than what it should be. Compared to the prescriptive approach, descriptive methodology reaches a conclusion after the accumulation of empirical observations instead of stating a premise before carrying out relevant observations. In this light, PTS is inclined to the essentialist definition of translation, and DTS (Descriptive Translation Studies) to the epistemological definition of translation. The prescriptive approach emphasizes subjectivity, but the descriptive approach values objective analysis. It seems difficult to reconcile PTS with DTS, highlighting the limitation of any single theory which tries to discover ‘a general law’ as Toury expects. If people’s perceptions about translation are constantly being constructed at different times and places, it becomes less feasible to explore the essence of translation than to explore the formation of translation at a certain time and place.

Translator studies?

The influence of the human factor is unavoidable in the formulation of any theory or forms of knowledge, but this has long been ignored in attempts to build a translation theory. From the observation of the paradigm shift from PTS to DTS in translation studies, it is noticed that neither can be free of the engagements of the human factor, in terms of value judgement.

Value judgement is usually regarded as highly subjective and as a hindrance to rational calculation and detached reasoning. No matter how comprehensively a theorist attempts to integrate all translation practices to build a set theory, there are destined to be exceptions due to the human factor and the value judgement and discernment involved, not to mention the multiple changing social conditions. The procedure of framing a question or an agenda, the initial stage of orchestrating a theory, is unavoidably based on human value judgement in the attempt to establish feasibility. A theorist as a human being cannot be rid of the pitfall and limitation of value judgement, a hindrance to detached neutrality which is aspired to by academia. As the ‘reflexive’ viewpoint elaborates, a person cannot ‘see himself as seeing’. In other words, no human being can be omnipresent. Every individual is constrained by their own viewpoint and cannot avoid value judgements when making decisions.

Lefevere once noted the importance of the human factor in translation, ‘Like great Homer, the translator also nods, overlooks, makes mistakes’ (Lefevere 1992b: 96). Bassnett states, ‘It is an established fact in translation studies that if a dozen translators tackle the same poem, they will produce a dozen different versions’ (Bassnett 2002: 33). Hermans also asserts that ‘the translator’s own position and ideology are ineluctably written into the texts he or she translates’ (Hermans 2009: 97). It seems unrealistic to expect translators to go beyond value judgement when making decisions in the process of translating. Translators exert a substantial impact on their translations. Indeed, a translator is a person with a particular personality, an accumulation of personal background, family upbringing, system of values, and cultural conventions. Considering the key role the translator plays and the decisions he or she makes in the process of message transmission between two different contexts, the translator’s dispositions are an essential dimension to investigate when exploring translating activities in a particular society. Translation scholars seek to illustrate and analyse translation from various angles, yet the most complex variable, the translator, has long been ignored. Different translators as individuals have different interpretive or value systems and approaches in understanding a text and making decisions. In the process of trying to figure out what a text means, a translator may act as Robinson describes:

pretending to be first a source-language reader, understanding the source text as a reader for whom it was intended, and then a target-language writer, addressing a target-language readership in some effective way that accords with the expectations of the translation commissioner. (Robinson 1997: 197)

The ‘important aspect of abductive pretense in the translator’s work’, as Robinson asserts, reveals the impact and effect of ‘norms’, namely the established practices, which have great influence upon translators, especially for novices or newcomers (Robinson 1997: 164). These newcomers may not have clear ideas about translation and may therefore ‘imitate’ those more experienced, by pretending to be a member of that group and imitating those insiders’ conduct, which is perceived as the norm. Considering the role of translators in translation studies, Toury asserts that translation cannot be reduced to the mere generation of utterances like linguists do, because translation activities should be regarded as having cultural significance. He refers to translators’ social role in a given cultural context as constrained or manoeuvred by norms (Toury 1995: 53, 63). Toury clarifies his assertion that translators are under the influence of norms: ‘young people who are in the early phases of their initiation as translators often behave in an extremely epigonic way: they tend to perform according to dated, but still existing norms, the more so if they receive reinforcement from agents holding to dated norms, be they language teachers, editors, or even teachers of translation’ (Toury 1995: 63). Nevertheless, this is not always the case. Translators may act as ‘cultural custodians’ or ‘cultural importers’ while confronting external cultures (Sela-Sheffy 2005: 1), in terms of their attitudes towards domestic dominant norms in the intercultural exchange where translating activities occur. Translators from established cultures tend to comply with domestic norms, but in peripheral or nascent cultures translators may choose to disobey domestic norms to be innovative (Sela-Sheffy 2005: 5–6). From a sociological perspective, new translators’ non-conformity to norms and different reactions to existing situations in translating practices may result from their individual and collective value systems as well.

Although norms are not directly observable and normative pronouncements cause more suspicion than recognition today, Toury disagrees with the abandonment of semi-theoretical and critical formulations of the study of norms, for uncovering the sense in which it was not just accidental (Toury 1995: 66). He suggests the historical axis of contextualization in translators’ norms from diachronic and synchronic perspectives (Toury 1995: 64). He emphasizes the historical establishment of norms but refuses ‘to draw any conclusions in the form of recommendations for “proper” behaviour’ (Toury 1995: 2). However, Toury’s refusal of value judgement does not mean that descriptivists can rid themselves of it. As Crisafulli argues, ‘norm-observing is inseparable from the researcher’s value judgments’ (Crisafulli 2002: 31). In other words, the researcher’s position is key.

On the other hand, Pym enquires about the presumption that ‘translation history should be an empirical science’ (Pym 1998: 25) by emphasizing the importance of humanity and the fallacy of descriptive methodology. He argues that there should be a distinction between the human and non-human sciences because the former involves factors such as human values rather than abstract results. He thinks the dehumanized way of undertaking empirical science is not compatible with the very essence of human sciences, the humanities. In other words, Pym emphasizes the translator’s subjectivity and unpredictability. He therefore argues that people are more important than the text and that descriptivism fails to ask important questions about the subjectivity behind the texts called translations. Preti also questions the influence of the scholar’s interpretation upon the empirical data which involves placing a conceptual order on facts and the assessment of significance (Preti 1975: 155).

Following this line of thinking, factors such as people’s reactions in general sociological or psychological research have significance for the formation of prospective translation studies. A new direction in study is suggested – the sociology of translators, which opens another research path for the purpose of investigating the connection between translators and their contexts.

Pierre Bourdieu’s approach to tr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  The Sociological Turn of Translation Studies
• 2  The Evolution of Fantasy Literature in Taiwan
• 3  A Translation Field in the Taiwanese Book Market
• 4  Fantasy Translators as Social Agents in Taiwan
• 5  More Than a Case Study
• Notes
• References
• Index