Table Of ContentPOLYSYSTEMS THEORY AND MULTIFUNCTIONAL ROLE
OF LITERA TY TRANSLATION
*Dr. Piotr Kuhiwczak
Susan Bassnett in her 1982book entitled Translation Studies gaye
thefollowingdefinitionof translationthoory.
"The purpose of translation theory, then, is to reach an
understanding of the processesundertakeninthe actof translation
and not, as is so commonly misunderstood, toprovide asetof
norms foreffectingtheperfecttranslation"(1).
i can assume thatmostof us havenoreservationsabout this simple
andclear definition butproblems arisewhenwe tryto decide in what way
we shouldreach an understandingof theprocessesundenaken in the actof
translation. in DWstcases those who attempt to explain these processes
tend touse purely linguistic tools.However, somethooreticiansclaim that
structural linguistics, for instance, is not adequate in this respect, and
therefore they resott to semiotics or cultural studies in order to establish
convincingthooretic~ modelsfortheprocessesoftranslation.
It should not be surprising to anyone, then, that the theory of
translation is an object in the making. The purely linguistic-theories of
translationwhichprovide uswith strictpatternsand definitionsfail thetest
of universa1ity, because the linguists are very far from reaching a
consensus conceming the nature of language. It is not surprising, then;
that a thooryof translation based on the principles of, let's say, generatiye
grammar,will tellussomethingentirelydiferentfrom amodel builtonthe
principlesofcognitivelinguistics.Thenon-linguisticthooriesoftranslation
do notprovideus with onecomprehensive modeleither, sinceso-ca1led
cultural studies have adistinctly interdisciplinary character. in addition to
worked out ina c1imateof idoologica1turmoil, which means thattheir
* UniversityofWarwick.
primaryrolewasnottoproduce afeasibletheoryofcu1turebuttoconvince
us that tne particular theory was idelologically correct and politically
sound.
if itis stilIpossibleto talk abouttranslationtheory asapplied to the
field of non-literary translation (although my personel view is that the
studyof non-literary translation shouldbe basedonpracticerather thanon
theory), it is very difficuIt to get hol~ of athooretical model which could
help usto deal with the translation of artistictt;xts.i amdeliberately using
here the term "artistic texts'~in order to emphasize the fact that literary
translation does not mean only translation of printed texts from one
language into another. It also means a translation and adaptation of such
complex texts as film dialogues, plays, radio and theatre scripts. Maybe
this is why Susan Bassnett tends to avoid the term, theory of literary
translation, and suggests a more flexible and broader term, translation
studies.
There are many reasons why there is so much vagueness and
suspicion surrounding the field of translation studies. The obvious one is
that only recent1yand only in somecountries has translation achieved full
academicstatus.Onthewhole,however,theideathatliterarytranslation
.
has got nothing to do witl-ithe principle of originality or creative thinking
stiUprevails in many countries and in many academic institutions. It also
must be said that the newly emerging theories of translation have not
helped toimprovethe statusoflitemrytranslationintheeyesofthe general
publle,either.Likeliteraryeritics,thetheoretiC?ianosftranslationhavetried
to prove that their subject can be conceived in purely scientific terms, so
that its positiQnwithin the academy cou1dbe justified and seeured. As a
result, the pseudo-scientific jargon which some of the theoreticians use
does not only alienate the general public, but also facilitates a popillar
opinion thattranslation studiesis nota subjectwhichshov\d be subsidized
wiilitaxpayers; money.
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It would be a difflcuIt but also rewarding task to decide which of
the recendy proposed theories of translation genuinely contribute to our
understanding of translation and which depend only on a skilful use of
quasi-scientiflc terminology. What strikes me when i look through some
thooreticalarticlesis thefact thatthe mostimportantworkontranslationis
undertaken in the socalled "small" cultures, for which translation is very
often an issue of primary importance. This is why the most interes~g
coatributions tothefieldoftranslationstudiescomefrom suchcountries as
Holland, Isrea1'or Czechoslovakia. (Andre Lefevre, Anton Popovic,
Gideon Toury ete.). Each of the theoreticians mentioned above has
provided us with an interesting contribution to the field of literary
translation. Butfor allmyrespect for theseachievements, i would heshate
to call them "theories of translation", since each of them admits a great
. numberofexceptions;a factthatmightsuggesteither,that theyare not
capable of identifying universal laws of literary translation, or that such
lawssimplydo notexist.
In order to make my point clearer I would like to discuss very
brieflyoneofthemostinfluentialtranslationthooriesofrecentyears,called
the polysystems approach. The theory has been developed at the Porter
Institute for Poetics and Semiotics in Tel-Aviv. Its main principles were
presented by Itmar Even-Zohar in Papers in Historical Poetics (Tel-Aviv
1978) and byGidoon Toury in his In Search of a Thoory of Translation
(Tel-Aviv 1980).
The polysystems approach is not a theory which explains what
happens when we trimsfera literary text from the source language into a
target language. Its main aim is to show how translation can function
within literary systems and how it can challenge or maintain a dominant
poetics or a dominant ideology. From my short and very simplified
definitionofthepolysystemsapproach,onecandeducethatitis a "thoory"
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which has its roots in atleastthree dis~plines: linguistics, social sciences
and literary history. Those who promote ~is approach elaim that it can
bring about a revolution in our thinking about literary history, since it
shows that translation can play a crucial role in.the formation of literary
genresaswellasthetransformationofdo~ant socialvalues.
The American schoIar Maria Tymoczko showed in her artiele
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Trans1i on F firL' RI. in h Tw if nu °hi
from Epic to Romance (2) how translation triggered a shift from epic to
romance arida transition from oral to written cuIture in medieva! France.
T~zko arguedthat "translationplayedacentta!andin factdecisiverole
in the shiftfrom oral to writtenliterature, from epic to romance. Failure to
recognize and define the precise role of translation in this Hterary
development has marred all critical and historica! discussions of the
emengence of the genre of romance" (3).Although Tymoczko points out
that shepresentsjust one case study,wecan assume that like Even-Zohar,
she would be inclined to look for paradigms which polysystems theory
couldproduce whenappliedtovarious culturalcontexts.
lt is undoubtedly truethat this approach heIpsus to undersiand the
role of translation in the-formation of what i call1iterary genres and what
the above-mentioned scholars tend to cal1"literary systems". The work of
several critics included in the volume The Manipu1ationof Literature (4)
proves thevalidityofthistheoryin someEuropeancountries.
The development of the sonnetformin NorthernEuropeor therise
of the novel, ft}rinstance, are cases which call for the applicationof this
approach. The study of a single case does not however Iead us to any
usefulgeneralisation,especial1ysinceitcanbe observedthatin manycases
translationhasvery littleinfluenceontheemergenceofnewliteraryforms.
Even-Zohar pointedout thattranslationbecomes aprominent force
either in a time of cu1tura1crisis or when "internal candidates for
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restructuring a literary hierarchy cannot for some reason fulfill a
replacementfunction" (5).Evenif weacceptthisexplanation,wemayfind
it difficult to agree with Even-Zohar's and his followers' interpretation of
social phenomena as related to the processes of literary translation.
According to the polysystems approach, the power of translation is such
that it cannot only change the so-called dominant poetics, but it can also
alter the value systems, ideology and patterns of social behaviour. When
analysingmid-twelfthcenturyFrance,MariaTymoczkoclaimed:
"Thus, the translations of the mid-twelfthcenturyhad aprimary
function inexpressing or promotinganew ideologyas well as a
new poetics.Alltheseelementsindieatethatthetranslation system
was associated with a shift in value structures, precisely the
same shift we associate with romance, but a shift well
underway bythetimeromancesbeganto bewritren"(6).
What Tymoczko tells us, is that tr9.nslation can play not a
supplementarybut amajorrole inbringing about asocialchange. i do not
feel competent to discuss this p6int in the context of the mid-twelfUi
centuryFrance. However,from theobservationofother literarycu1turesin
their various stages of development, i draw the conclusion that although
translation can accelerate the pace of Socialchange'considerably, it can
neverbe the agentwhichtriggersoffthischange.
In order to strengthen the force of my argument, let me look at
someexamples. Oneof themhasbeenratherconvenientlyprovided byDr.
Saliha Paker in her article, Hamlet in Turkey (7). Dr. Paker's argument is
that Turkish translation and productions of Shakespeare's play have
always been closelyrelated to majordevelopmentsin Turkish theatre, and
also tocrucial changes inTurkish culturalhistory in the twentiethcentury.
But before Dr. Paker presents to usher analysis ofmodern literary life in
Turkey, she discusses the role translation played during the period of
Tanzimat reforms in the nineteenth century. According to her, after 1859
"the[irst generation of Westem-onented Onomans began to introduce
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generic and literary innovations (such asthe novel, drama and new forms
ofpoetty) intomitiveliteraturebymeansoftranslation"(8).It seems,then,
.thatinthatcrucialperiodofmodernTurkishhistorytranslationdidplayan
important role in altering literary culture. However, in Dr. Paker article
there is no suggestion that translation opened the gateway to the major
social and political changes of that time. We may guess that the need for
change derived from the decomposition of power relations wIthin the
Ottoman Empire, and translation was only a supplementary factor which
assisted the major political change. This, in fact, can be found in Dr.
Paker's conclusion:
"Itwasin thisperiod, extendingfrom the mid-nineteenth century
onwards, in which the Ottoman society was for the first time
opening out tOWestem influence,that Shakespeareandtherestof
the continentalliteramres wereread andtranslatedthroughFrench
asthe intermediatesourcelanguage"(9).
,
The Turkish example is in a way the reverse of the phenomenon
deseribedbyMariaTymoczko.
Chinese culture provides us with examples entirely different from
the situtations we have discussed above. China has twice gone thrOugha
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period of intense translation one duringtheTang Dynasty(618-907), and
that which started during the Opium War and continued up till now. It
would be natural, therefore, to expect that these two periods of intense
translation have brought about an enormous difference to the countty
which for thousands of years has been successfully implementing
isolationist policies. Theconclusions wecan draw from ourreading about
China do not at all support the thesis about the innovatory role of
translation'inalteringthedominantpatternsofChinesecnlture.
There seem to be two entirely diverse traditions of translating
fnTPian~- tpvtl;: in mMPni {"'hin!:," nnp t-!:-ae'r-c-rp.t t"111t111"Pn";pntPr1 , ianr1 thp n-t_hp..1_'..
172.
source culture oriented. Unlike the Europeans, who have tried to find a
compromise between the two approaches, the Chinese felt compelled tho
choose either of the lwo methods andimplement it in the p'urse~possible
form.Gao ChangFan quotes examplesoffamous Chinese transhitorswho
have followed stricdy oneof the approaches. Heclaims that in either case
wearedea1ingwithtranslationfallure.Thetar~etcultureorientedtranslator
produced versions of European masterpieces such that one could hardly
recognize anything Westem in them, while the source culture oriented
translator supplied the Chinesereader with the translations which they
were not able to understand at all. It seems, then, that in the Chinese
tradition translationshavebeencompletely neutralized,andthereforehave
neither strengthened nor subvertedthe cultura1statusquo. Gao Chang Fan
concludes:
"Languagedoesnotrestrain thoughts andwaysofthinking. There
areculturalbairierstotranslationbuttherearenocultura!bairiers to
thoughts andideas. Cultura! bairiers can be broken but only by
removing cultura! obstacies. Translation cannot fu1fillthistask.
(n.) Shared knowledge and shared practice do not come
through translation. The ultimate force that breaks cultural
barriers arechanges ofeconomic structure, political systemsand
a range of otherpractices "(10).
Thus, the Chinese case offers us a possibility which the
polysystems approachhasnottakenIntoaccount:translationneitherbrings
innovationnorfacilitatestheexisting"literarysystem".
Using these three examples i have attempted to show the
polysystems approach can be found useful onJy when we dea! with
relatively uncomplicated situations. Unfortunately, the number of such
clear-cut cases is very smal1.Normally, translated texts enter cultures in
whichitisdifficult tOestablishwhat isa"dominant literaiypolysystem" or
a "dominant ideologyil. if we want to leam something about the role of
tra.ü.siarioilin süch compiex cases, we caiiilotlimit ourselves just to oiie
theoryoftranslation.
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REFERENCES :
i. S. Bassnett-Mc Guire, Translation Studies, London 1980,p. 17.
2. M.Tymoczko, "TranslationasaForceforLiteraryReyolutionin the
Twelfth-Century Shifat from EpictoRomance", New Comparison.
Nr 1, 1986,pp. 7-27.
3. M. Tymoczko, op. cit. p. 8.
4. T. Hermans (ed.),Manipulation of Literature.Loiidon 1988.
5. Quoted after M. Tymoczko, op.cit. p. 20.
6. M. Tymoczko,~,p. 14.
7. S.Paker, "Hamletin Turkey", New Comparison, Nr 2, 1986.
pp.89-105.
8. S. Paker, Qlt&I1.p. 90.
9. Ibidem.
10.Gao Chan.gFan, "Cultura!Barries inTranslation", New ComDarison.
Nr 8, 1989,p. 10.
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