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An Approach to Translation Criticism
Volume 95
An Approach to Translation Criticism. Emma and Madame Bovary in translation
by Lance Hewson
Benjamins Translation Library (BTL)
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General Editor
Yves Gambier
University of Turku
Associate Editor
Miriam Shlesinger
Bar-Ilan University Israel
Honorary Editor
Gideon Toury
Tel Aviv University
Advisory Board
Rosemary Arrojo
Binghamton University
Michael Cronin
Dublin City University
Dirk Delabastita
FUNDP (University of Namur)
Daniel Gile
Université Paris 3 - Sorbonne
Nouvelle
Amparo Hurtado Albir
Universitat Autònoma de
Barcelona
Zuzana Jettmarová
Charles University of Prague
John Milton
University of São Paulo
Franz Pöchhacker
University of Vienna
Anthony Pym
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
Rosa Rabadán
University of León
Sherry Simon
Concordia University
Şehnaz Tahir Gürçaglar
Bogaziçi University
Maria Tymoczko
University of Massachusetts
Amherst
Lawrence Venuti
Temple University
Michaela Wolf
University of Graz
An Approach
to Translation Criticism
Emma and Madame Bovary in translation
Lance Hewson
ETI, University of Geneva
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hewson, Lance, -
An approach to translation criticism : Emma and Madame Bovary in translation / Lance
Hewson.
p. cm. (Benjamins Translation Library, - ; v. )
Includes bibliographical references and index.
. Translating and interpreting. . Discourse analysis, Literary. . Criticism. . Flaubert,
Gustave, -. Madame Bovary. . Austen, Jane, -. Emma. I. Title.
P.H
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Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
. Translation Quality Assessment
. Translation criticism
.. Leuven-Zwart and Koster: “shis” and the tertium comparationis
.. Armin Paul Frank and the transfer-oriented approach
.. Antoine Berman’s “critique”
.. Corpus Based Translation Studies
. In search of a new model
.. Source vs. target
.. Terminology
.. Identifying passages and the micro-meso-macro-level relationship
.. e question of style
.. e tertium comparationis
.. e critic’s interpretative position
. A brief outline of methodology
.. Preliminary data
.. e critical framework
.. Micro- and meso-level analysis
.. Macro-level analysis
. Corpus
. Concluding remarks
From preliminary data to the critical framework
. Madame Bovary
.. Preliminary data for Madame Bovary
... Editions of Madame Bovary
... English translations of Madame Bovary
... e macrostructure of the six Madame Bovary translations
.. e critical framework for Madame Bovary
.. e choice of passages for Madame Bovary
An Approach to Translation Criticism
. Emma
.. Preliminary data for Emma
... Editions of Emma
... French translations of Emma
... e macrostructure of the three Emma translations
.. e critical framework for Emma
.. e choice of passages for Emma
. From the critical framework to the initial reading
. Conclusion
Describing translational choices and their eects
. A passage from Madame Bovary
. A passage from Emma
. Tools and metalanguage for describing translational choices
.. Describing syntactic choice
... Syntactic calque and partial calque
... Overall form
... Fronting
... Juxtaposition
... Extraposition
... Recategorization
... Modulation
... Other syntactic choices
.. Describing lexical choice
... Established equivalent
... Borrowing, explicitation, implicitation,
hyperonymy and hyponymy
... Description and cultural adaptation
... Modication and radical modication
... Creation
.. Describing grammatical choice
... Tense and aspect
... Modality
.. Describing stylistic choice
... Repetition, appellatives, and anaphoric devices
... Cliché
... Trope
... Rhythm
... Alliteration and assonance
... Register
... Connotation
Table of contents
.. Overriding translational choices: Addition and Elimination
... Addition
... Elimination
.. Free indirect discourse (FID)
. Meso-level eects
.. Voice eects
.. Interpretational eects
.. e question of impact
. Meso-level analyses
.. Passage 3:1
.. Passage 3:2
. Conclusion
Two translations of Emma
. e social framework
. Looking for clues
. e author’s narrator and free indirect discourse
. Results and conclusion
ree versions of Madame Bovary
. Dialogue
. e depiction of iterative “reality”
. Fantasy
.. Charles’ daydream of Berthe’s future
.. Emma’s fantasized elopement
. Hallucination
. Results and conclusion
e macrostructural level
. e macro-level
. Macro-level eects
.. Voice eects
.. Interpretational eects
. General macro-level categories
.. From “divergent similarity” to “adaptation”
. Drawing up hypotheses
. Conclusion
An Approach to Translation Criticism
Radical divergence and adaptation
. Saint-Segond
. May and Hopkins
. Salesse-Lavergne
. Nordon
. Conclusion
Relative divergence
. Russell
. Steegmuller
. Conclusion
Divergent similarity
. Mauldon
. Wall
. Mauldon and Wall compared
. Russell and Steegmuller
. Hopkins and May
Conclusion
. Pitfalls and inherent weaknesses
. Results
. e need for criticism
. e purpose of criticism
References
. Primary sources
. Secondary sources
. Websites
Subject index
Name index
Acknowledgements
Many people have contributed directly or indirectly to this book. Some I would
like to thank by name, beginning with Philippe Rothstein (University of Mont-
pellier), who has provided untiring moral and linguistic support. Many academ-
ics and translators have been consulted, rst and foremost Delphine Chartier
(University of Toulouse) and Mathilde Fontanet (ETI, University of Geneva).
My thanks also go to two other colleagues at ETI: Alia Rahal and Ashley Riggs.
Finally, I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, whose careful and
perceptive remarks helped me to improve the nal version of this book.
Introduction
A published translation is a paradoxical object. It is a substitute for an existing,
original text and yet is a text in its own right. It is commonly perceived as being
the same as the text it replaces, yet is inevitably and irreducibly dierent. It is the
result of a period of decision-making on the part of the translator that has been
interrupted at a point which, while not arbitrary, is always questionable. And it
elicits reactions that range from polarised judgements – sometimes of praise but
more oen of condemnation – to total indierence (when the fact that a text is
a translation is simply ignored). is book sets out to examine ways in which a
literary text may be explored as a translation, not primarily to judge it, but to un-
derstand where the text stands in relation to its original by examining the inter-
pretative potential that results from the translational choices that have been made.
is very brief statement of aims skirts round a number of important issues that
will be raised in this rst, introductory chapter.
It is not hard to see why reactions to translations are so varied. Indierence is
the easy way out, a kind of pragmatic attitude or decision that allows the reader or
the literary critic to take the (translated) text at face value without worrying about
the way it inevitably diers from its source. Isabelle Vanderschelden’s comments
(2000: 282) about literary translation in France undoubtedly hold good for many
other countries: “the overwhelming majority of reviews of translated literature
do not comment on the translation, and this applies even more to specialized
publications such as Lire or Le Magazine littéraire”. What is implied here is that
reviewers are supposed to know about the particular status of the translated text,
and that they choose to ignore that status. But there is another form of more
genuine ignorance that results both from the successful marketing strategies of
publishers and the opinions generally held about translation. Publishers consis-
tently reduce or nullify the translator’s role (a novel in translation is marketed as
if it had been written by its (original) author alone and oen the translator’s name
does not even appear on the front cover), and, for the general public, translation is
at best unproblematic and thus simply not an issue. Madame Bovary “is” Madame
Bovary, regardless of who has translated it.
It would, however, be wrong to assume that all reviewers are indierent to
translation. When comments are made, they tend to be both succinct and negative.
ere is, indeed, nothing easier than to lambast a translator’s work. PeterFawcett
An Approach to Translation Criticism
notes that reviewers may damn an entire translation on the strength of a few awk-
ward phrasings. He goes on to underline (2000: 305) that reviews
constitute an exercise in institutionalized irresponsibility: an unexplained au-
thority to use a limited physical space to brand a translation and a translator as
poor in relation to a criterion assumed to be universal and unassailable, oering
little or no evidence and giving a competent review reader no opportunity of
objective assessment.1
Highly negative comments are not just the prerogative of reviewers. Scholars who
address the issue of translation from a wide variety of perspectives are also prone
to pouring scorn on the translator’s work when the published translation does
not conform to the scholar’s own poetics. Antoine Berman (1995) spoke of his
discomfort with Henri Meschonnic’s highly negative comments (i.e. 1973), while
he himself undertook a systematic but very damning analysis of translations of
John Donne.2 Berman, as we shall see, put forward detailed criteria to ground his
judgements. Other scholars point to weaknesses in translated texts by using ad
hoc and unsystematic criteria which give limited insight into short passages of
a text, but which hardly serve to understand the general impact of translational
choices.3 Two quotations can serve to illustrate the prevailing attitude to transla-
tion, which even recent developments in the eld, such as Descriptive Translation
Studies (i.e. Hermans, 1999) and the “cultural turn” in translation studies (Snell-
Hornby, 1990), have not succeeded in fundamentally modifying.4 George Steiner
wrote that “[n]inety per cent, no doubt, of all translation since Babel is inadequate
and will continue to be so” ([1975] 1998: 417); Georges Mounin began his Belles
. See also Raymond van den Broeck, who writes “[i]n many cases reviewers treat the trans-
lated work as if they were dealing with an original written in their mother tongue, without
betraying even by a single remark that it is in fact a translation” (1985: 55).
. at Berman is critical of Meschonnic’s negative criticisms and then himself indulges in
similar criticisms of translations of Donne may in part be ascribed to the circumstances in
which he wrote this, his last book. See the preface to Berman (1995) and Richard Sieburth’s
(2000) review of the work.
. See, for example, Alan Du (1981), Peter Newmark (1981) or Burton Rael (1994). I return
to this question in the nal chapter of this book in the section entitled “e need for criticism”.
. e prevailing attitude referred to above is not shared by the proponents of postcolonial
(i.e. Bassnett and Trivedi, 1999) or feminist approaches to translation. Sherry Simon, for exam-
ple, writes “[t]ranslators communicate, re-write, manipulate a text in order to make it available
to a second language public. us they can use language as cultural intervention, as part of an
eort to alter expressions of domination, whether at the level of concepts, of syntax or of termi-
nology.” (Simon, 1996: 9).
Chapter 1. Introduction
Indèles with the following statement: “[a]ll the arguments against translation can
be summarised by one single argument: it is not the original” ([1955] 1994: 13, my
translation). What is expressed here is an attitude that lies behind many approach-
es: translations are fundamentally awed and should be dealt with as “decient”
texts.5 Hence the interest in measuring “quality” and in coming up with denitions
of either what represents a “good” translation, or what constitutes “equivalence”.
Critical assessment of translations and the concomitant issue of quality is
probably as old as translation itself (Frank, 1990; Ballard, 1992; Brunette, 2000).
e two ideas are bound together in the more general approaches that are oen
designated by the term “translation quality assessment”, or TQA. e “quality”
question naturally presupposes the existence of published translations that do not
meet certain standards or criteria, and many scholars have set out to dene just
what such standards or criteria may be, and how quality might be measured. TQA
usually addresses dierent types of pragmatic texts, and thus does not necessar-
ily look in detail at the particular issues associated with the literary text, which
requires specic methodology and criteria – and where the notion of “quality”, in
my view, is not a productive one. I shall thus only give a brief overview of some of
the major approaches to TQA (even if their authors do not use the term)6 before
turning to works that specically address literary texts.
. Translation Quality Assessment
e rst systematic approach to TQA is generally thought to be that of Katharina
Reiß, with her Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Übersetzungskritik (1971). Reiß’s
book was highly inuential in the German-speaking world (Nord, 1996; Lauscher,
2000), but was only translated some thirty years later into English and French.
Reiß’s method was groundbreaking in that she argued for a three-pronged ap-
proach, combining analyses of (i) text type, (ii) “linguistic components”, and
(iii) extra-linguistic determinants. She argued in favour of a text typology tailor-
made for the specic purposes of translation. While admitting to the existence
of an incalculable number of hybrid forms, she identied four major text-types–
. Other scholars have underlined the mediocre quality of the majority of translated texts.
Berman (1995: 42, my translation) for example states “one can say that most translations are in-
adequate, mediocre, average, or even bad, but without calling at all into question their authors’
‘talent’ or ‘professional conscientiousness’”.
. e subtitle of the English version of Reiß, 1971 brings in TQA, but there is no mention of
the expression in the original.
An Approach to Translation Criticism
“content-focused”, “form-focused”, “appeal-focused” and “audio-medial” texts.
e critic’s task is then to see whether the hierarchy of elements has been main-
tained in the target text: primarily the informational content for the rst text-
type, the formal principles for the second, the purpose for the third, and the
specic conditions of the “audio-medial” text for the fourth. As Lauscher points
out, there are several weaknesses in this approach: the vague notion of “opti-
mum equivalence”, and the suggestion that “equivalence is established at least to
some extent by bilingual dictionaries” (2000: 152). One may also wonder how, in
practical terms, such an apparatus can really account for the complexities of the
literary text, which is dominated by its poetic (or autotelic) function, and where
content is closely bound up with form.
e problems posed by the literary text are also beyond the scope of another,
important work, initially published six years aer Katharina Reiß’s book. Juliane
House’s A Model for Translation Quality Assessment [1977] enjoyed considerable
attention for a number of years, and was rewritten and revised some twenty years
later under the title Translation Quality Assessment: A Model Revisited. House
provides a critical account of Reiß’s use of text-types, and in particular of the
“equation” between language function and textual function/type (1997: 36). e
methodology she advocates draws on a wide – and rich – range of disciplines
(grammar, componential analysis, rhetorical-stylistic concepts, speech act and
pragmatic theory, discourse analysis, foregrounding and automatization), and in-
forms the three main textual aspects she seeks to address: theme-dynamics, claus-
al linkage and iconic linkage. But two aspects of her approach illustrate its limited
applicability to literary texts. Firstly, she emphasises the importance of text func-
tion, which is understood both as the key to understanding “equivalence” and
as the means of distinguishing between dierent levels, and secondly her work
on “overt” and “covert” translation, the “cultural lter” and the “discourse world”
has an explanatory and normative function that precludes detailed analysis of the
impact of translational choices. As will be shown below, “equivalence” per se, in
whichever of its disguises, is not a sucient criterion for analysing translations.
Moreover, the complexity and multi-layered nature of the literary text remains
beyond the scope of the tools on oer. Criticism of the model has been expressed
by such researchers as Armin Paul Frank and team:7
While developing an overwhelmingly complex analytical machinery, House has
lost sight of the inner dierentiations of a literary work. Treating as she does a
work as a linguistic eld, she fails to notice such literary features as changes in
. eir comments are based on the 1977/1981 work, from which poetic-aesthetic texts were
deliberately excluded.
Chapter 1. Introduction
the narrator’s perspective, dierentiation between narrator’s and characters’ ut-
terances, development of character, forms of structural irony, or the interplay of
dierent styles. (1986: 339)
e above quotation summarises some of the diculties faced by any approach
that does not foreground the literary features of a text. TQA also fails to fully
address the issue of interpretation – how a work (either an original text or its
translation) is read. ese are two major concerns that translation criticism has
to confront.
. Translation criticism
In this section I begin by making a distinction between the three terms that are
commonly used to discuss literary translations: analysis, evaluation and criticism,
and look at the specic role of the translation critic. en I give an overview of
current approaches to translation criticism, together with comments on the ter-
minological problems and the conceptual and/or methodological weaknesses
that may be identied.
Gerard McAlester’s (1999: 169) denitions of the three terms mentioned
above is a useful starting point. For him, translation analysis is “the explication
of the relationship between the target text (TT) and the factors involved in its
production, including the source text (ST), but without implying any value judge-
ment”. What I take to be characteristic of translation analysis is indeed the lack
of value judgement. I would thus include in the denition comments on transla-
tions that are used to illustrate something else, and in particular the underlying
linguistic properties that translations may be taken to represent. Some scholars
use translations as a means of illustrating dierent aspects of a particular theory.
Guillemin-Flescher (1981) is a good example of an ambitious project where anal-
yses of published translations play a key role. She sets out to identify the opera-
tions that underpin linguistic activity, and the way in which the operations are
realised in French and English.8 To do this she uses a large corpus, part of which
is made up of a number of translations of Madame Bovary, and in particular those
by Hopkins (1949) and Russell (1950). e translations, however, are taken as
they stand, in other words there is no attempt made to formulate a critical per-
spective on the translators’ orientations. As will be seen in Chapters 7 and 8, both
Hopkins and Russell make distinctive and sometimes idiosyncratic choices, and
. e epistemological framework used is Antoine Culioli’s theory of enunciative operations
(see Culioli, 1990 and 1999).
An Approach to Translation Criticism
Hopkins oen rewrites Flaubert’s text in a particularly characteristic fashion – but
such comments belong to criticism proper, as we shall see below.
McAlester’s (1999: 169) denition of translation evaluation (“placing a val-
ue on a translation (i.e. in terms of a grade or pass mark)”) is clearly limited to
translation pedagogy. is, it seems to me, is an unnecessary restriction, as the
term may be used to cover the pronouncements that one commonly nds in the
literature where judgement is the main purpose of the analysis. Such studies are
oen oriented towards a specic translation diculty and judge the result of
translational choices in the light of that diculty. Although the criteria used for
judgement are usually set out, the more general question of interpretation is not
addressed in detail and the result (usually negative) of choices becomes the main
focus. omas Buckley’s (2001) study of orality in translation is a case in point,
where the criteria used to judge translations is not just limited to one particular
aspect (orality), but ignores the complex set of parameters that lies behind trans-
lational choice. Another example is Fabrice Antoine’s (1997) study of a translation
of a short story by James urber: Antoine concentrates on errors and stylistic
incoherence to show how the humour and subtlety of the original disappears in
translation.
McAlester points out that the boundaries between the three approaches may
be fuzzy. Chevalier and Delport (1995), for example, set out to explore what trans-
lators tend to do, irrespective of what is being translated or which languages are
involved. ey thus point to the translator’s acquired habits and sense of what
“sounds right”, in other words the way she or he has come, more or less automati-
cally, to work by normalising and naturalising texts.9 eir analyses are thus oen
evaluative, but they do not seek to get the heart of one particular translation,
which is one of the main aims of translation criticism.
Translation criticism, in my approach, goes beyond “stating the appropriate-
ness of a translation, which naturally also implies a value judgement, though it
need not be quantied or even made explicit” (McAlester 1999: 169). It involves
an interpretative act whereby the basis of the value judgement is explicitly spelled
out. Translation criticism attempts to set out the interpretative potential of a trans-
lation seen in the light of an established interpretative framework whose origin
lies in the source text. It thus goes beyond both implicit (and indeed unsubstan-
tiated) judgements, and those approaches that seek to pinpoint specic weak-
nesses of a particular translation (or set of translations). Translation criticism is
evaluative, in that as it explores a translation’s interpretative potential, it looks at
. ey note, for example, how translators have put back into Flaubert’s text (Madame Bovary)
what Flaubert deliberately chose to leave out (during the extremely long revision process that
the novel was subjected to). See Chevalier and Delport 1995, Chapter 5.
Chapter 1. Introduction
degrees of similarity to or divergence from the source text’s perceived interpreta-
tive potential. Criticism involves a conscious act undertaken by the translation
critic, who occupies a unique position that goes beyond that of the translator-as-
reader-rewriter (Hewson, 1995): the critic engages in a rereading of translational
choices seen in the light of rejected alternatives (Hermans, 1999),10 and examines
the interpretational consequences of those choices. In what follows, therefore, the
term “critic” is limited to those engaging in translation criticism.
In the paragraphs below, I shall look at the theoretical and methodological
implications of dierent approaches to criticism. is will involve examining
statements about source or target orientation, the type(s) of literary texts exam-
ined, the theoretical models used and the types of results expected. In the light
of what was said previously, two elements will be given particular attention. e
rst concerns the question of interpretation – whether the issue of criticism as an
interpretative act is addressed. e second involves the methodology and termi-
nology used to compare source and target passages. I shall be showing that terms
such as “shi” (Catford, 1965) or “deviation” (i.e. Frank, 1990) – despite the ap-
parent neutrality of the former – condition the way in which the critic approaches
originals and their translations, and shall thus be proposing alternative terms.11
.. Leuven-Zwart and Koster: “shis” and the tertium comparationis
Kitty van Leuven-Zwart’s work on translation criticism became available to Eng-
lish speakers at the very end of the 1980’s, albeit in the shortened form of two
articles appearing in Target.12 She proposes a two-stage model, starting with mi-
crotextual analyses of random passages of source and target texts, and then dis-
cusses how an accumulation of shis on the microtextual level can lead to shis
on the macrotextual level, with the aim of formulating “hypotheses concern-
ing the translator’s interpretation of the original text and the strategy adopted”
(1989: 154). Shis on the microtextual level (henceforth “micro-level”) may occur
. Hermans writes (p. 88): “[r]eading texts oppositionally by highlighting the exclusions, the
paths that were open but that were not chosen, may allow us to glimpse the agenda behind the
choices that are made”.
. Koster (2000: 121 fn.) points out that “shi” is not the generally accepted term, and that
people prefer “change”. Toury objects to the “totally negative kind of reasoning required by any
search for shis, which… would encompass all that a translation could have had in common
with its source but does not” (1995: 84, author’s italics) (also quoted by Koster, 2000: 155).
. Koster speaks of the “unfortunate circumstances” surrounding the English presentation,
as “most of the general theoretical considerations on translation comparison from the Dutch
presentation… have been le out” (2000: 105).
An Approach to Translation Criticism
on the semantic, pragmatic and stylistic levels, and are only noted if they “sub-
stantially aect meaning” (1989: 155). Shis are identied by means of “transe-
mes” (comprehensible textual units) – these are then compared to a common
denominator, or “architranseme”, which therefore functions as a tertium compa-
rationis. e macrostructure (1989: 171)
is made up of units of meaning which transcend phrases, clauses and sentences,
that is to say, such units of meaning as the nature, number and ordering of the
episodes, the attributes of the characters and the relationships between them, the
particulars of events, actions, place and time, the narrator’s attitude towards the
ctional world, the point of view from which the narrator looks at this world,
and so on.
Analyses at the macrotextual level (henceforth “macro-level”) combine Halliday’s
three functions of language (1978) with the “story” and “discourse” levels of nar-
rative prose (Leuven-Zwart, 1989: 172; 1990), and aim to collate the results of
micro-level analysis on the six ensuing levels.13
e weaknesses of this model have been underlined by a number of scholars
(Gentzler, 1993; Munday, 1998; Hermans, 1999; Koster, 2000). Hermans points to
the strong interpretative element in the model, which, however, is given insucient
space. He also notes the problematic relationship between the two levels: how, for
example, does one judge at what point a micro-level dierence has an impact on
the macro-level? ere is, in addition, the problem of the choice of random pas-
sages. Firstly, it is hard to see how many random passages are necessary to produce
a reliable cross-section of the work, and secondly, one can always be criticised for
consciously (or unconsciously) including or excluding certain passages. I would
also not follow Leuven-Zwart in her armation that “only those microstructural
shis which show a certain frequency and consistency lead to shis in the macro-
structure” (1989: 171), since one marked shi can inuence the way a whole text
is interpreted, as I have pointed out elsewhere (Hewson and Martin, 1991: 226–8).
Koster is critical of the rigid, bottom-up character of the procedure (he prefers
the metaphor of the hermeneutic circle) and is also unhappy about the imprecise
relationship between the two levels. Other criticisms can be added here. e whole
apparatus is extremely unwieldy (Munday, 1998), with a long list of types (and sub-
types) of shis (1989: 170; 1990: 87). e shis themselves are catalogued on the
basis of the tertium, which cannot be said to be an objectied (and objective) yard-
stick, but rather the construction of a common denominator that aims for objectiv-
ity, and yet which is necessarily – and subjectively – formulated in one (and one
. e ideational, interpersonal and textual functions are analysed successively on the dis-
course and story levels – see the table in 1979: 179.
Chapter 1. Introduction
only) of the two languages under investigation. e tertium, in other words, is itself
a form of translation.14 Finally, using the transeme presupposes cutting up passages
in such a way as to overlook both intersentential relations, and broader relation-
ships within a unit that go beyond the simple sentence (i.e. changes in clause or
sentence structure, but also more generally syntactic reorganisation that may make
it dicult or impossible to nd comparable transemes).
e other major contribution to translation criticism that specically uses the
combination of shis and the tertium comes from Cees Koster (2000). He sets out to
examine “the way in which one can describe a target text in its status as an interpre-
tation of a corresponding source text” (2000: 17). His examples are taken from poet-
ic discourse, and the model that he builds up – he calls it the armamentarium – can
function for a relatively compact unit such as a poem. In much of his book, Koster
engages in a useful discussion of the major concepts he employs. He gives a criti-
cal appreciation of various approaches, with detailed references to Leuven-Zwart,
Toury (1980/1995) and Frank (i.e. 1990). Many of his observations are useful for
literary texts in general, and not just for poetic discourse. For example, he stresses
the importance of collecting preliminary data before the work of criticism proper.
is will include information about the translation’s paratext, the type of edition,
the translator’s identity together with other works translated (or written as author),
and historical-bibliographical information about the source text. He then sets out
to construct the “text world”, which for him functions as a global tertium. is en-
tails establishing a “semantic-pragmatic skeleton target text” by examining deixis,
the personae referred to and the relations between the “text world elements”, the
spatio-temporal location, the most important states, processes, actions and events.
e skeleton will then be checked against the source text and used for a comparative
analysis (using traditional tools such as lexis, prosody, rhetoric and intertextuality).
Two comments should be made about Koster’s proposals. Firstly, his em-
phasis on the tertium tends to conceal the essentially interpretative nature of his
approach: his “pragmatic-semantic skeleton” is nothing other than a selective
paraphrase that is limited by the particular set of parameters chosen.15 Secondly,
the way in which the skeleton – which is constructed on the basis of the target
. e main objections to the tertium are summarised in Shuttleworth and Cowie 1997: 165–
166. e limitations of the tertium are humorously described by Lefevere and Bassnett in their
“Introduction: Proust’s Grandmother and the ousand and One Nights. e “Cultural Turn”
in Translation Studies” (Bassnett and Lefevere, 1990: 1–13).
. For example, the category of “the most important subjects (persons, animals, and animat-
ed, personied objects) and objects referred to” (2000: 171) both reects the particular poem
chosen for analysis (“Skunk Hour”) and requires a hierarchy that will necessarily embody an
interpretative element that needs to be constructed.
An Approach to Translation Criticism
text – may then be subject to “manipulation” (2000: 181) in order to be applied
to the source text implies another interpretative act where the critic’s subjectivity
needs to be addressed. Koster’s model, like Leuven-Zwart’s, fails to come to terms
with its own subjectivity.
.. Armin Paul Frank and the transfer-oriented approach
It is hard to summarise in a few paragraphs the vast, eleven-year project that was
undertaken by Armin Paul Frank and the team of scholars working with him at
the Göttingen Center for the Cooperative Study of Literary Translation, who set
out to plot a cultural history of literary translation (in their case from American
into German). ey made a distinction between “external” and “internal” trans-
lation history, where the former is concerned with the “circumstances and the
institutions involved in translational transfer, and the agents… those who actually
have carried out these transactions,” and the latter looks at
the texts themselves, with work, author, and period styles, with the modications
and deviations that the works have undergone in translational transfer, and hence
with the resultant dierences that exist between the potential for imaginative ex-
perience which the source text oers to its readers and which the translations
oer to theirs. (1990: 9)
e project sought to identify a middle ground – the “transfer-oriented ap-
proach” – between the excesses of source- and target-oriented translation, the
aim being to embrace “considerations of the source side, the target side, and of the
dierences between them” (1990: 12). Frank continued as follows:
one might describe a literary translation as the result of a compromise which
a translator has found between “demands” originating in four norm areas: the
source text as understood by the translator; the source literature, language, and
culture as implicated in the text; the state of translation culture (which includes
concepts of translation, previous translations of the same and of other texts, etc.);
and the target side (for instance in the form of publisher’s policies, local theater
conventions, censorship, etc.). (1990: 12)
Whether in practice such an approach is really as balanced as the author makes
out is another matter. Koster (2000: 126) claims that “because it takes the source
text as a frame of reference for the description of TT elements, the procedure can-
not avoid the drawbacks of institutionalized source-orientedness” and points out
that “no separate analysis of the target text’s potential for meaning is provided for”.
But this is inherent in any approach that emphasises the importance of translation
as an act of interpretation:
Chapter 1. Introduction
… a literary translation incorporates the translator’s interpretation of the work
he has translated and, in turn, invites new acts of understanding under the new
conditions of the target language, literature and culture – conditions that are, of
course, subject to historical change. (Frank et al., 1986: 323)
e aim was therefore to have a double focus, both on the conditions prevalent
in the target language and culture, and on the insights that the act of translation
can bring to the potential interpretations of the source text. us the “devia-
tions” that are discovered are not to be considered as mistakes, but as a means of
gaining insight into aspects of the source text that “are otherwise inaccessible”
(1990: 18).
With regard to methodology, a somewhat heterogeneous and corpus-driven
set of proposals was put forward. For example there is the horizontal, compara-
tive (and ideally exhaustive) analysis of source and target texts, comprising ten
categories of textual elements.16 Deviations identied are then beamed onto the
literary structure (i.e. point of view or character), which is then followed by a
horizontal analysis “designed to determine the relation between the translation,
considered as a whole, and the source text (i.e., the translational alteration of the
work’s potential for meaning)” (1986: 351). As Hermans (1999: 153) points out,
despite the impressive list of publications, there has been little impact outside the
German-speaking world. Hermans puts this down to the fact that “the centre as
a whole did not develop a coherent theoretical or methodological framework,
preferring instead to devote their energy to extensive and detailed case studies”.
And so while there are tangible results, the proposals do not lend themselves to a
more general application, or approach to translation criticism.
.. Antoine Berman’s “critique”
Berman’s approach to translation criticism is essentially a hermeneutic one,
inspired on the one hand by Ricœur and Jauss, and on the other hand by
Benjamin’s critical approach. Berman notes that in all the writings on transla-
tions and translating, there have been a vast number of studies of translations,
. e ten categories appear in Frank & Hulpke 1987: 107 (also quoted in Koster 2000: 123):
“(1) Schreibung; (2) Lautung; auf Wortebene (3) Denotationen, (4) Konnotationen (wobei in-
besondere kultur- und autorspezische besonders auällige Befunde ergeben), (5) Wortform
und (6) Wort als Stilsignal; auf Wortgruppenebene (7) Bildlichkeit und (8) “Vorgeprägtes” (die
ganze Phalanx von Anspielungen, Zitaten, stehenden Wendungen u.ä., die normalerweise auf
dieser Ebene greiar zu werden beginnt, vgl. “Es war einmal…”); und auf Satzebene (auch im
Verhältnis zur Verszeile) (9) Syntax als Fügungsmittel und (10) Syntax als rhetorisches Mittel (im
engeren Sinn der Redeguren)”.
An Approach to Translation Criticism
going from the most naïve and simple to the most detailed. But translation criti-
cism does not have its own specic form, and this is what Berman sets out to
establish. He writes:
Since the Classical Age there have been critical reviews of translations, where criti-
cism signies judgement (in the Kantian tradition) or evaluation (in the parlance
of a modern translation school). But if criticism means the rigorous analysis of a
translation, its fundamental characteristics, the project that has engendered it, the
horizon out of which it has arisen, the translator’s position; if criticism fundamen-
tally means releasing the truth of a translation, then it must be said that translation
criticism is only just starting to exist. (1995: 13–14, author’s italics, my translation)17
“Releasing the truth of a translation” is thus the ultimate aim, and Berman sets out
a series of theoretical and methodological considerations to attain this aim. Before
examining them, it should be noted that there is undoubtedly a value judgement
that lies behind the orientation of the book. When criticising Meschonnic’s highly
critical pronouncements about translations, Berman points out that Meschonnic
only attacks “translations that ill-treat works of major importance for our culture:
the Bible, Celan, Kaa, etc.” (1995: 49, author’s italics, my translation). But this is
presented in a positive light, as Meschonnic is seen to defend “great” works alone.
Behind this, it seems to me, lies a preconditioned, ideological vision of translation
and the translator that comes to bear on the considerations that are then advanced.
Berman advocates a close reading of the target text, before turning to the
source text. is is to avoid falling into the trap of compulsive comparison, but
also to see whether the translation conforms to certain standards – this is in
itself curious, as it seems to preclude any licence with the target language that
has been taken in response to any idiosyncratic use of the source language that
the author may have exploited. On the one hand, the translation must observe
target-language norms and be well-written (the value judgement is again trans-
parent here), and on the other hand hold up as a text in its own right (1995: 65).
is is all very well, but presupposes a set of criteria that should, at least, be
made explicit. e only point of comparison in such an exercise is the language
and literature of the target culture; innovative decisions taken by the translator
on the basis of the source text are thus likely to be censured. In a similar vein
we nd Berman’s insistence on the importance of the translator’s “translational
position”, “translation project” and “horizon” (1995: 74 sq.). It is undoubtedly
true that many translators will have a clear “conception” and “perception” of the
practice of translating and, moreover, that for each new translation, a project
. See also Richard Sieburth (2000: 321), who translates “dégagement de la vérité d’une traduc-
tion” in similar fashion.
Chapter 1. Introduction
will be determined in advance in accordance with the specic nature of the text
to be translated. But we can see that such a position presupposes much about
the type of translator whose work will be examined, and about the autonomy
that she or he is expected to enjoy (the role of the publisher and post-editor is
passed over). I would suggest that many published translations are not the result
of any such “translation project”, and may in any case be subject to the various
kinds of manipulations that can take place once the “nal” manuscript has been
delivered to the publisher. But because such translations become available in the
target culture, and come to represent the source text and its author, they need to
be subjected to the critical light that translation criticism throws on them (see
Chapter 10, below).
Berman aims not only to release the truth of the translation, but also to pre-
pare the ground for a new translation. He thus looks in detail at the way a transla-
tion is received within the target culture, in other words its critical reception as a
work of literature, and the way in which it was presented to its new readers. His
remarks are founded on his (pessimistic) vision of all translation (that in part will
inevitably be “defective”) and on the particular situation of the rst translation
of a work, which, as he says (1995: 84), is both introduction and translation. e
rst translation thus paves the way for future translations. Berman’s example, that
occupies more than half of the book, concerns the way that John Donne has been
translated into French. e criticisms of the translators and their project, such
as Berman sees it, are damning indeed, and if they do indeed prepare for a new
translation, it is clearly on Berman’s own terms. In other words, he occupies and
closes the critical space rather than opening it out.
.. Corpus Based Translation Studies
e various approaches described above have a common denominator: they rely
primarily on manual collection of data to be analysed. e development of corpus
processing tools and the availability of large computerised corpora have opened
up new possibilities in translation criticism. Munday (1998: 1–2) outlines some of
the advantages of a computer-assisted approach, which enables
accurate and rapid access to surface features over a whole text, reducing the ar-
duousness and tedium of what has previously been a manual task. In addition,
the relating of the results to larger computerized control corpora (such as the
now readily available British National Corpus) promises a systematic way for the
analysis to break out of the connes of a single pair of texts to enable prelimi-
nary consideration of the inuence of typical target-language patterns and of the
translator’s specic idiolect in the creation of shis.
An Approach to Translation Criticism
Munday’s study is primarily geared towards showing the potential of the various
tools that Corpus Based Translation Studies (CBTS) has made available. I shall
argue below that the framework he has chosen, based on Toury’s (i.e. 1995) ap-
proach (with its exploration of the norms of “adequacy” and “acceptability”), is not
entirely appropriate for translation criticism, but he certainly makes a strong case
for using CBTS tools, which he illustrates by looking at a short story by Gabriel
García Márquez and its English translation. Munday is understandably cautious
when presenting frequency lists and the type/token ratio. He notes, for example,
that the “comparative length of the ST and TT may depend on many variables,
and seems to be an area far more complex than previously thought and worthy
of careful future investigation on other texts” (1998: 4). But he clearly shows how
looking at lexical items in context – using a concordancer and intercalated texts
– enables the researcher to concentrate on various types of shi throughout a
text. He notes in particular how repetitions are not respected in the translation,
and looks at modications to cohesion and word order/segmentation. Munday’s
study is positive in its orientation – he writes that “the translation examined is not
erroneous; nor does it intentionally distort the original narrative. Indeed, com-
parison of the illustrative texts reveals that Edith Grossman’s translation closely
follows the original Spanish” (1998: 15). Even though the interpretative element is
not fully exploited, the ways in which translational choices have an inuence on
reading strategies comes clearly across.
A more ambitious study using CBTS tools – Charlotte Bosseaux’s How Does It
Feel? Point of View in Translation – appeared in 2007. Bosseaux’s work (following
Hermans, 1996 and Schiavi, 1996) takes as its starting point the fact that trans-
lational choices inevitably lead to the presence of a dierent voice – that of the
translator – in the translated text. She thus sets out “to explore further the nature of
the translator’s discursive presence by investigating certain narratological aspects
of the relation between originals and translations” (2007: 10). She sets out a clear
epistemological framework for her work, drawing in particular on narratology and
narrative point of view, systemic functional grammar, and to a lesser extent style.
She chooses to examine the linguistic construction of point of view, investigating
four major areas – deixis, modality, transitivity and free indirect discourse (FID) –
in her corpus, made up of Virginia Woolf ’s To e Lighthouse (1927) and e Waves
(1931). She bases her choice of categories on critical readings of Woolf which, she
says, “show that there is a consensus regarding the intentions of this author and to
some extent there is also agreement on questions of interpretation” (2007: 52).
Bosseaux’s book contains two extended case studies which illustrate both the
substantial advantages of her methodology and also its drawbacks. In the chap-
ter devoted to To e Lighthouse, she is somewhat deprecating about her own
results, which “did not reach the level of interest expected” (2007: 128), pointing
Chapter 1. Introduction
to the fact that “the shis uncovered were minor” (2007: 140). I would turn this
argument round and say that even if the dierences noted are relatively minor,
they do allow her to draw interesting conclusions about the way the translations
change the ways in which we read the novel, and also help us to frame translation
criticism in a positive light. She demonstrates, for example, that “the hybridity
of FID is most consistently maintained in Pellan’s translation, as there are only
six passages in her translation in which FID is less emphasised”, and concludes
that “Lanoire’s translation presents another picture as the boundary between the
discourse of the narrator and that of the characters is more tangible, he reaches
a certain homogeneity which is not representative of the original’s enunciative
structure” (2007: 141).
e method used also has drawbacks, some of which are raised in the sec-
tion entitled “Advantages and Limitations of Using Corpus Processing Tools”
(2007: 91–3). Bosseaux stresses the subjective nature of the interpreting process
and the limitations of quantication. She also rightly points out that a concor-
dancer cannot nd what is not there, and notes that “frequency lists and word
statistics, by their very nature, tend to focus attention on single decontextualised
lexical items” (2007: 92). More generally, there is a temptation to limit one’s
analysis of originals and translations to the predened categories that have been
identied for corpus processing – in this case, deixis, transitivity, modality and
FID– and to use the results as a prism through which the whole range of transla-
tional choices is examined (or indeed not examined, if they fall beyond the scope
of the chosen categories). When the selection of specic passages depends on the
presence/absence of certain features, there is a necessary limitation to the overall
vision of the work which, in my view, needs to be developed for the purposes
of critical analysis. Many interesting choices may thus be simply overlooked, or
analysed from one single viewpoint, and passages that may – in a broader ap-
proach– be identied as being of critical interest may not be examined if none of
the predened features occur in them.
e approach outlined in this book has not be designed with CBTS tools in
mind. Such tools have, however, been used for a limited number of word searches
and word counts (in Chapter 7, for example). In my nal chapter I envisage ways
of using such tools to improve the approach developed below.
. In search of a new model
Several problem areas have been identied during the brief overview of the cur-
rent state of research, as presented above. e rst of these is the very orientation
of the critical enterprise (should the critic begin by examining a source text, or,
An Approach to Translation Criticism
with Berman (1995) and Koster (2000), look rst at the target text?). Should the
critic be looking for evidence of adhesion to dierent types of norm (in particular
those posited by Toury (adequacy vs. acceptability, or their variations), as dis-
cussed below)? e terminology used (i.e. shis, deviations) reects an agenda
that is not always spelled out. e choice of passages (when not generated by
means of computer-assisted identication of pre-dened elements) and the rela-
tionship between microstructural elements and the macrostructural level is oen
taken for granted. ere is a need for an intermediate level between the micro-
level and the macro-level (the “meso-level” in my terminology). e tertium is
always problematical when it is taken to be the objective yardstick that it cannot
be. Style, when it is given any consideration, tends to be relegated to a very minor
position. Finally and most importantly, the interpretative position of the critic,
which constitutes the foundation of the critical act, requires theoretical clarica-
tion and exemplication. I shall attempt to address all these issues in the outline
that follows.
.. Source vs. target
e source vs. target question is one that has obsessed translators and academics
alike since the earliest times. I have suggested elsewhere (2004a, 2006) that when
one adopts a prospective perspective (how the translator will choose to act or how
translation will be taught), the apparent opposition between the two poles is less
clear-cut than many scholars have made out. Indeed, Toury’s “initial norm” (i.e.
1995), where the translator makes a choice between two dierent strategies (the
pursuit of “adequate” or “acceptable” translation), presupposes a conscious and
consistent strategy which practice – empirically observable in translation criti-
cism – oen belies (Hewson, 2004a). From the retrospective point of view – that
of the critic – it is always theoretically possible to reactivate at least part of the
range of choices that faced the translator (irrespective of whether a strategy or
a project was deliberately formulated) in order to judge whether choices show
a leaning either towards more literal formulations or to various types of rewrit-
ing. But the situation in reality is more complex, as retrospectively, the source-
target dichotomy suggests in addition that one either orientates the criticism from
the source perspective (meaning that the translation will inevitably fall short of
expectations), or from the target perspective, which runs the risk of turning
the original into an irrelevance.18 But as Koster points out (2002: 26), the critic
. is is what is implied by Toury’s statement (1985: 19): “translations are facts of one system
only: the target system”.
Chapter 1. Introduction
needs to address the translated text as “a representation of another text and at the
same time a text in its own right”. e translation’s double status needs to found
the critical act, whereby the new text both represents its “original” by bearing
its author’s name, and leads its own, autonomous life within its new linguistic
and cultural environment. By reactivating interpretations of the original while
envisaging the interpretative potential of the translation, the critic can hope to go
beyond the unproductive source-target dichotomy.
.. Terminology
Choosing an adequate terminology to name the results of critical observations is
no easy matter. Expressions such as “deviation” (Frank), or “deforming tenden-
cies” (Berman), imply a negative stance, however strongly those that use them
argue in favour of a positive appreciation.19 A term such as “shi” is, in a sense,
more dangerous, as it appears as a non-emotive and non-judgemental concept
that simply labels an observation. However, the very notion of “shi” presupposes
that some texts, or rather parts of texts, manifest zero shis. is would imply that
a particular passage and its translation were genuinely “equivalent” in all possible
respects. But as Catherine Fuchs has pointed out, any reformulation, including
intralingual paraphrase, leads to a transformation of content, however minimal
it may be.20 is means that all translation implies degrees of change and dier-
ence. In Chapter 3 I shall thus be talking about translational choices and their
eect(s).21 is presupposes not only that there is always choice, even when, theo-
retically, the target-language system requires a certain solution (the translator can
always avoid what appears to be constraint by choosing to modify or leave out the
element(s) in question), but that the impact of the choice – its eect(s) – can both
be identied and, to an extent, measured. e combination of translational choice
and eect also has the advantage of foregrounding the two players involved: the
translator and the critic, both of whom engage their subjectivity. Much of Chap-
ter3 will be spent discussing how one can categorise both what the translator has
chosen to do, and how the critic may set about measuring what the potential ef-
fects of those choices may be.
. See Frank (1990: 18). But as Chesterman puts it (1997: 23), deviation from the original can
be perceived as a “sin”.
. See Fuchs (1994: 31) who speaks of “l’inévitable transformation de contenu, si minime soit-
elle, qui s’eectue lors de chaque reformulation d’un texte par un autre”.
. e term is also used by Charlotte Bosseaux (2007: 65).
An Approach to Translation Criticism
.. Identifying passages and the micro-meso-macro-level relationship
If one starts from the premise that translators work with an extended translation
project that comprises a number of strategies, it might seem logical to believe
that the product of the work will show a high degree of internal consistency. In
such a case, the critic may reasonably choose a small number of passages in order
to reconstruct just what the project and strategies were. If, however, one has no
reason to believe that such an approach was adopted (and even if the translator
claims that it was adopted, why take the armation at face value?), the choice
of passage becomes in itself an interpretative act (see below). Furthermore, the
macro-level is not immediately “visible”, and certainly cannot be postulated in
an objective fashion outside an accompanying interpretation. When micro-level
data have been collected and examined on the intermediate, meso-level, the critic
then sets out to hypothesise about how the macro-level can be projected on the
basis of the micro- and meso-level results (Chapter 6).
.. e question of style
Few people would contest that style is an important element in literary translation,
and yet it is only relatively recently that scholars working in the eld of translation
studies have addressed the phenomenon. Style has traditionally been seen as a
second-order element, even in the specialised eld of translation criticism, where
one might expect close attention to be paid to stylistic choices. Leuven-Zwart’s
approach is typical of an approach which downplays style – she writes: “stylistic
aspects of disjunction are considered stylistic variables with respect to a seman-
tic invariable basis” (1989: 162). Several recent studies, however, are evidence of
renewed interest in the subject. Tim Parks’ (1998) study examines style in transla-
tion with reference to such authors as Lawrence, Woolf, Joyce and Beckett. Mona
Baker’s “Towards a Methodology for Investigating the Style of a Literary Transla-
tor” (2000) considers how to pinpoint the style of individual translators. Baker’s
denition of style (in the context of translation) is a very broad one (2000: 245).
In terms of translation, rather than original writing, the notion of style might
include the (literary) translator’s choice of the type of material to translate (…)
and his or her consistent use of specic strategies, including the use of prefaces or
aerwords, footnotes, glossing in the body of the text, etc. More crucially, a study
of a translator’s style must focus on the manner of expression that is typical of a
translator, rather than simply instances of open intervention. It must attempt to
capture the translator’s characteristic use of language, his or her individual prole
of linguistic habits, compared to other translators.
Chapter 1. Introduction
As Baker’s concern is not with translation criticism, but with the stylistic char-
acteristics of individual translators, her denition will not concern us directly
here; but her article contains valuable insights about linguistic features that she
identies as “forensic stylistics”, which “tends to focus on quite subtle, unobtru-
sive linguistic habits which are largely beyond the conscious control of the writer
and which we, as receivers, register mostly subliminally” (2000: 246). As my own
work suggests that translators indeed have an identiable “thumb-print”, I shall be
discussing this idea over and above the more general framework of comparative
stylistics, used here to discuss the eects produced by stylistic choices in source
texts, and the ways such eects have been recreated (or not) in the corresponding
target texts.
e second study is that of Jean Boase-Beier, who clearly underlines the im-
portance of style in literary translation (she writes that literary translation “can
be seen as the translation of style because it is the style of a text which allows the
text to function as literature” (2006: 114)). As I note in Chapter 3, Boase-Beier
stresses the importance of choice, not only for the original author, but also for the
translator. is is clearly a very dierent concern to that explored by Baker. I shall
argue that it is not for translation criticism to decide why a particular choice was
made, nor whether it was made consciously or unconsciously, but to examine the
impact that the choice may potentially have on the reading and interpretation of
the target text. One of my aims is thus to give style the central place it deserves
within translation criticism. In many approaches, style is either relegated to a sec-
ondary position or is simply le out of analyses. What is needed is a reversal of
perspectives, whereby style is seen as a primary factor both when attempting to
reconstruct the choices that faced the translator, and when assessing the eects of
the translational choice that was nally made. e impact of translational choices
on style is analysed in some detail in Chapter 3.
.. e tertium comparationis
Although many theorists have set out the need for a third term when engaging
in contrastive analysis (Chesterman, 1997; House, 1997; Snell-Hornby, 1998),
the very formulation of the concept of the tertium comparationis is one that has
always been controversial. e tertium is intended to introduce an objective
measurement against which source and target passages can be compared. is
is sometimes expressed in terms of an invariant, despite the fact that its very for-
mulation consists of some type of paraphrase which, as discussed above, in itself
constitutes some kind of interpretation. Both Leuven-Zwart’s and Koster’s use of
the tertium is open to question on interpretational grounds for the simple reason
An Approach to Translation Criticism
that the interpretative position that accompanies the construction of the tertium
is not spelled out. e former’s architransemes attempt to pinpoint the minimal,
invariant semantic meaning shared between two transemes, excluding anything
that goes beyond their own boundaries, and reducing stylistic dierences, while
the latter’s “pragmatic-semantic” skeleton is nothing but one possible macro-level
reading of the target text which is then (somehow) “altered” in such a way as to
apply to the source text (Koster, 2000: 239).
I shall be advocating a rather dierent approach, based on potential interpre-
tation, as I indicate in the section below.
.. e critic’s interpretative position
e issue of interpretation in translation criticism has been addressed by schol-
ars such as Frank and Koster, with the latter (2002: 29) writing that it is “hard to
see how any meaningful target text-source text comparison is possible without
somehow taking into account the question of interpretation”. Koster goes on
to draw a parallel between the translator and the critic (the “describer” in his
metalanguage): “the describer is in competition with the translator precisely
because she also performs a translational interpretation” (2002: 29). While such
a view is a helpful one, it fails to address the complexity of the issue of interpre-
tation by suggesting that what is at stake is two rival interpretations of the same
work: on the one hand the translator’s, embodied in the translational choices
made, and on the other hand the critic’s, made explicit in the way that she or
he comments on those translational choices. I would suggest that other factors
need to be taken into account.
A translator performs a particularly complex operation, in that as the work of
translating proceeds, she or he inevitably reduces or excludes certain interpreta-
tive paths while favouring or opening up other paths (Levý, 1967). It is not be-
cause the translator sets out to translate with a particular interpretation in mind
that this interpretation will be the one that will be “discovered” in the text by
other readers. e text, whether translation or original, will give rise to a range
of interpretations, some of which may be highly plausible and others implausible
or erroneous. e critic cannot judge that the translator’s work is based on an
erroneous interpretation, but, by envisaging other possible interpretations, can
argue that the translational choices encourage an interpretation that lies outside
the range that the critic has set out.
In this light it is helpful to explore not just theories that give the reader (as
opposed to the author) a key role in assigning meanings, but those that place the
text itself at the centre of the interpretative operation. e model put forward by
