Table Of ContentB EN J A M I N S
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Memes of
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Translation
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The spread of ideas
N in translation theory
Revised edition
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Andrew Chesterman
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L I B R A R Y
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Memes of Translation
Benjamins Translation Library (BTL)
issn 0929-7316
The Benjamins Translation Library (BTL) aims to stimulate research and training in
Translation & Interpreting Studies – taken very broadly to encompass the many different
forms and manifestations of translational phenomena, among them cultural translation,
localization, adaptation, literary translation, specialized translation, audiovisual
translation, audio-description, transcreation, transediting, conference interpreting,
and interpreting in community settings in the spoken and signed modalities.
For an overview of all books published in this series, please see
www.benjamins.com/catalog/btl
EST Subseries
The European Society for Translation Studies (EST) Subseries is a publication channel
within the Library to optimize EST’s function as a forum for the translation and
interpreting research community. It promotes new trends in research, gives more visibility
to young scholars’ work, publicizes new research methods, makes available documents
from EST, and reissues classical works in translation studies which do not exist in English
or which are now out of print.
General Editor Associate Editor Honorary Editor
Yves Gambier Franz Pöchhacker Gideon Toury
University of Turku University of Vienna Tel Aviv University
Advisory Board
Rosemary Arrojo Zuzana Jettmarová Şehnaz Tahir Gürçaglar
Binghamton University Charles University of Prague Bogaziçi University
Michael Cronin Alet Kruger Maria Tymoczko
Dublin City University UNISA, South Africa University of Massachusetts
Dirk Delabastita John Milton Amherst
FUNDP (University of Namur) University of São Paulo Lawrence Venuti
Daniel Gile Anthony Pym Temple University
Université Paris 3 - Sorbonne Universitat Rovira i Virgili Michaela Wolf
Nouvelle Rosa Rabadán University of Graz
Amparo Hurtado Albir University of León
Universitat Autònoma de Sherry Simon
Barcelona
Concordia University
Volume 123
Memes of Translation. The spread of ideas in translation theory. Revised edition
by Andrew Chesterman
Memes of Translation
The spread of ideas in translation theory
Revised edition
Andrew Chesterman
University of Helsinki
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
the American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
doi 10.1075/btl.123
Cataloging-in-Publication Data available from Library of Congress:
lccn 2015045490 (print) / 2015048313 (e-book)
isbn 978 90 272 5868 7 (Hb)
isbn 978 90 272 5869 4 (Pb)
isbn 978 90 272 6738 2 (e-book)
© 2016 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Company · https://benjamins.com
Table of contents
Preface ix
Chapter 1
Survival machines for memes 1
1.1 Introducing memes 1
1.2 Five translation supermemes 3
1.2.1 Source-target 3
1.2.2 Equivalence 4
1.2.3 Untranslatability 6
1.2.4 Free-vs-literal 8
1.2.5 All-writing-is-translating 9
1.3 The locus of memes 10
1.4 A Popperian meme 12
1.5 Update 13
Chapter 2
The evolution of translation memes 17
2.1 Words 18
2.2 The Word of God 19
2.3 Rhetoric 21
2.4 Logos 24
2.5 Linguistic science 27
2.6 Communication 31
2.7 Target 34
2.8 Cognition 38
2.9 Theory in the current meme pool 40
2.10 Update 44
Chapter 3
From memes to norms 49
3.1 Normative vs. prescriptive 50
3.2 Norm theory 52
3.3 Norms of language 54
vi Memes of Translation
3.4 What counts as a translation? 56
3.5 Translation norms 61
3.5.1 Toury’s norms 61
3.5.2 Expectancy norms 62
3.5.3 Professional norms 65
3.6 General translation laws and normative laws 68
3.6.1 Translation laws 68
3.6.2 Normative laws 71
3.6.3 Explanations 72
3.7 Norms as constraints 75
3.8 On expectancy norms for English 79
3.9 Update 82
Chapter 4
Translation strategies 85
4.1 General characteristics of strategies 85
4.2 A classification 89
4.2.1 Syntactic strategies 91
4.2.2 Semantic strategies 98
4.2.3 Pragmatic strategies 104
4.3 Motivation 109
4.3.1 The significance threshold 110
4.3.2 Compensation 112
4.4 Update 112
Chapter 5
Translation as theory 115
5.1 Tentative Theory, Error Elimination and translational competence 115
5.2 Retrospective assessment 121
5.3 Prospective assessment 125
5.4 Lateral assessment 130
5.5 Introspective assessment 133
5.6 Pedagogical assessment 135
5.7 Mind the gap! 138
5.8 Update 141
Table of contents vii
Chapter 6
The development of translational competence 145
6.1 Stages of expertise 145
6.2 The significance of memes 148
6.3 Suggestions for teaching 150
6.4 Ontogenetic = phylogenetic? 156
6.5 Bootstraps 163
6.6 Update 164
Chapter 7
On translation ethics 167
7.1 Background issues 167
7.2 Norms, actions and values 170
7.3 Clarity 173
7.4 Truth 176
7.5 Trust 178
7.6 Understanding 181
7.7 The Translator’s Charter 184
7.8 Emancipatory translation 186
7.9 Update 191
Epilogue 195
Appendix 197
References 201
Author index 219
Subject index 223
Preface
I see humanity as a family that has hardly met. I see the meeting of people, bod-
ies, thoughts, emotions or actions as the start of most change. Each link created
by a meeting is like a filament, which, if they were all visible, would make the
world look as though it is covered with gossamer. Every individual is connected
to others, loosely or closely, by a unique combination of filaments, which stretch
across the frontiers of space and time. Every individual assembles past loyalties,
present needs and visions of the future in a web of different contours, with the
help of heterogeneous elements borrowed from other individuals; and this con-
stant give-and-take has been the main stimulus of humanity’s energy. Once peo-
ple see themselves as influencing one another, they cannot be merely victims:
anyone, however modest, then becomes a person capable of making a difference,
minute though it might be, to the shape of reality. New attitudes are not promul-
gated by law, but spread, almost like an infection, from one person to another.
(Zeldin [1994] 1995: 465–466)
In Classical Greece the source of truth, knowledge, revelation, was the oracle. A
person officially designated to go and consult an oracle was known as a theoros
(θεωρός; Liddell and Scott 1940: s.v.). Interestingly enough, the same term was
also used of someone who was sent to attend a festival in some official capacity.
Yet another sense of the word is that of ‘magistrate’, and more generally ‘spectator’,
or ‘one who travels to see’ people and places (ibid.). The theoros, then, was inter-
ested in truth, knowledge, but also in pleasure. The word contains a sense of ra-
tional judgement (as a magistrate’s title), but the core meaning is simply someone
who sees, who sees with a purpose.
From this noun came the verb theorein (θεωρεîv) ‘to see, gaze upon’. This see-
ing was distinct from older verbs of seeing, in that it emphasized the function of
the seeing rather than the seeing itself. It meant ‘to be a spectator’, i.e. a spectator
of something; it stressed the conscious, deliberate activity of seeing rather than
some kind of purely passive perception (Snell 1975: 15).
And by this path came the noun theoria, (θεωρîα) ‘theory’. It carried both the
outward sense of ‘a looking at, a viewing‘ and the inner sense of ‘contemplation,
speculation’ (OED, s.v. theory).
There is a delightful anecdote in Herodotus ([1920] Book I, §29–30) about
the wise man Solon, who had come to work as a legislator for the Athenians, and
