Translation as a Discourse of History

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Translation as a Discourse of
History

Paul St-Pierre
1. Introduction
Through translation texts are made available to the readers of
cultures other than the one in which they were produced, but
this function of translation is far from neutral. Indeed, translation
is a form of cultural practice and, for this reason, it is necessary
to examine the conditions under which such texts are made
available. In attempting to do so we are led away from a
definition of translation as the accurate reproduction of original
texts to that of translation as the regulated transformation of
original texts, the substitution of "regulated" for "accurate"
insisting on the existence of criteria governing the relations
between texts and cultures, and the substitution of
"transformation" for "reproduction" underlining the fact that an
original text and its translation are dynamically connected to each
other, precisely through the criteria governing their relations,
rather than in a static, predetermined relation of equivalence.
Translation makes visible the existence of such criteria and in so
doing contributes to an awareness of the elements underlying
one's own culture, conditioning the definition of one's collective
self in terms of (and very often in denial of) another, the other.

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2. The Archaeology of Translation

2.1. Translation as Discourse
A translation is a discourse in the sense that it is a linguistic
event produced by a subject within a specific historical context;
as such, it is dependent upon laws and rules which determine
not only what can be said but also the way in which it can be
expressed. 1
Insofar then as translation constitutes a
transformation a regulated transformation of its object (an
object which is also discursive in nature), it falls within the area
explored by the work of Michel Foucault. In The Discourse on
Language, Foucault notes that "in every society the production of
discourse is at once controlled, selected, organized and
redistributed according to a certain number of procedures, whose
role is to avert its powers and its dangers, to cope with chance
events, to evade its ponderous, awesome materiality" (Foucault,
1976, p. 216). This quotation seems of particular importance for
translation, in that the description of controls and selection
procedures, and of the organization and redistribution of the
original and translating discourses are all relevant to translation:
which texts are translated, when, why, how and for whom, are
all questions to be answered whenever we are dealing with a
translation, since the answers to such questions define the
specific ways in which translations transform, and thus are
irreducible to, original texts. The purpose of such controls on the
production of discourse is also relevant to the study of
translation: just as their aim, according to Foucault, is "to avert
its powers and its dangers, to cope with chance events, to evade
its ponderous, awesome materiality," so too translation in its
relation to original discourses is given a function similar to that
of such controls. For many, a successful translation is one which
avoids what is singular in and specific to a particular utterance
(such elements are often characterized as "untranslatable") so as
to attain a level of generality ideally transcending both the
original text and the particular version produced by the translator

1.

This definition is based on Foucault (1969).

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(according to an ancient tradition, the "spirit" of a work should

be translated, not the "words"). A discursive approach to
translation, however, would see translation itself as a discourse
and show such a goal to be not only unattainable but also
undesirable, since it denies the discursive nature of the
translation practice and wishfully attempts to reduce translation
to a mere mirror image of its object.
2.2. Limits on Discourse
The strategies used to limit the production of discourse can be of
various sorts: external to the discourse itself, in relation to
considerations of power and desire (certain objects are excluded
from discourse and considered taboo, for instance, or the right to
produce discourses is attributed to certain subjects, to the
exclusion of others), or the limits can be internal, in which case
the aim is to reduce the role left to chance (such strategies have
to do with principles of classification and the disposition of
elements within the discourse itself). Both types of strategies have
a role in translation and, indeed, they often go hand in hand.
Perhaps the most obvious example of this is to be found in the
use made of translation in colonial contexts. Vincente Rafael in
Contracting Colonialism shows that such was the case in the
Philippines. There translation played an overtly political role
through the contradictory strategic uses assigned it by the parties
involved. He writes: "For the Spaniards, translation was always
a matter of reducing the native language and culture to accessible
objects for and subjects of divine and imperial intervention. For
the Tagalogs, translation was a process less of internalizing
colonial-Christian conventions than of evading their totalizing
grip by repeatedly marking the differences between their
language and interests and those of the Spaniards" (Rafael, 1988,
p. 213). The ambiguity of the relations instituted by translation
permitted this play between dominance and resistance. On the
one hand the colonizers tried to impose hierarchies through their
exclusive appropriation of translation and the attempt to set up
Castilian as the sole and necessary mediation between Latin and
Tagalog. On the other hand, these attempts were undermined by
the Tagalogs' separation of their own discourse from that of the

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colonial authorities, by alternating passages in Castilian and

Tagalog and clearly differentiating between the two. In this
context, then, the exclusion from discourse imposed upon the
native people by the colonial situation was accepted and used by
them, along with the internal disposition of discursive elements,
to at least partially elude the will to subjugate which
characterized the imperial power.
In addition to external and internal constraints, there are
other restrictions on the production of discourse, among which
the limits imposed by the division of knowledge into disciplines.
Such limits affect both what it is possible to say within a given
field, and the way in which it is possible to say it; and modern
text typologies point to the obligation on the part of authors and
translators to conform to such discursive constraints. Finally, the
elaboration of or adherence to a specific dogma or doctrine
should be mentioned as another limit imposed on the production
of discourse. The fates of translators such as Etienne Dolet and
Louis de Berquin could be recalled in this respect. Dolet was put
to death in 1546 for having attributed to Plato words denying the
existence of eternal life. 2 As for Louis de Berquin, his error, for
which the penalty was also death (in 1529), was to maintain that
sacred texts should be translated. But the effect on translation
and translators need not be so extreme for the constraints to
be effective and the choice available to translators limited. The
determination of which strategies are privileged in translation at
a given moment in time and the description of the way in which
their use varies contextually will help specify the nature of the
relations between translations and original texts, the nature of the
controls placed on the production of discourse.

2.

The text for which Dolet was put to death was the following:
Tarquoy elle ne peult rien sur toy, car tu n'es pas encores prest
dcder; et quand tu sera deced, elle n'y pourra rien aussi,
attendu que tu ne sera plus rien du tout." His heresy consisted
in the addition of the final three words of the text, erroneously
attributed to Plato.

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2.3. Limits on Translation

Foucault defined his work in part as an archaeology, that is, the
description of an archive (Foucault, (1968) 1991, pp. 59-60), and by
archive is meant "the set of rules which at a given period and for
a given society define... the limits and forms of the sayable,... the
limits and forms of conservation, ... the limits and forms of
memory, ... the limits and forms of reactivation, ... the limits and
forms of appropriation ...". For each of these sets of rules
governing the production of discourse a series of questions is
evoked, and it seems worthwhile to quote them here at length
since they are of particular relevance to the study of translation:
What I am doing is thus neither a formalization nor an
exegesis, but an archaeology: that is to say, as its name
indicates only too obviously, the description of an archive.
By this word, I do not mean the mass of texts gathered
together at a given period, those from some past epoch
which have survived erasure. I mean the set of rules which
at a given period and for a given society define:
1. The limits and forms of the sayable. What is it possible to
speak of? What is the constituted domain of discourse?
What type of discursivity is assigned to this or that domain
(what is allocated as matter for narrative treatment; for
descriptive science; for literary formulation)?
2. The limits and forms of conservation. Which utterances
are destined to disappear without any trace? Which are
destined, on the other hand, to enter into human memory
through ritual recitation, pedagogy, amusement, festival,
publicity? Which are marked down as reusable, and to what
ends? Which utterances areput into circulation, and among
what groups? Which are repressed and censored?
3. The limits and forms of memory as it appears in different
discursive formations. Which utterances does everyone
recognize as valid, or debatable, ordefinitely invalid? Which
have been abandoned as negligible, and which have been
excluded as foreign? What types of relationship are

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established between the system of present statements and

the body of past ones?
4. The limits and forms of reactivation. Among the
discourses of previous epochs or of foreign cultures, which
are retained, which are valued, which are imported, which
are attempts made to reconstitute? And what is done with
them, what transformations are worked upon them
(commentary, exegesis, analysis), what system of
appreciation are applied to them, what role are they given
to play?
5. The limits and forms of appropriation. What individuals,
what groups or classes have access to a particular kind of
discourse? How is the relationship institutionalized between
the discourse, speakers and its destined audience? How is
the relationship of the discourse to its author indicated and
defined? How is the struggle for control of discourses
conducted between classes, nations, linguistic, cultural or
ethnic collectivities?
In relation to translation, the above questions can be
reformulated more specifically as follows:
1. The limits and forms of the translatable. What is it possible at
a given moment in time to translate? What are the criteria used
in translating different types of discourse? How are areas of
discourse defined and delineated? Such questions point to themes
commonly found in prefaces to translations and in theoretical
treatises, where discussion often centers on what, at that given
moment in time, is deemed untranslatable a text, a type of
discourse (poetry, for example), or a word. Such untranslatability
is a function not of differences between languages (the
untranslatable may often in fact already have been translated);
rather, such untranslatability is a function of what translation is
considered to involve within the specific context or in terms of
the particular original discourse. An examination of the
metaphors in relation to translation would also be of interest
from the point of view of what can or cannot be translated, and
not only because a metaphor is in a sense itself a translation of

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the untranslatable. Charting the appearance, distribution, and

disappearance of metaphors related to translation could well

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serve to indicate what at a given point in time are the limits of

translation.
2. The limits and forms of conservation. Which texts are
translated, or retranslated, and with what frequency and at what
times? Which texts are not translated? Which translations are
republished? For what purposes are particular texts translated?
Which texts enter into circulation within a particular culture, and
which other texts are censored, or simply repressed? These
questions point to the existence of periodizations both within
cultures and societies and in their relations to other cultures,
periodizations which are concretized in the practice of
translation. In addition, the connection between translation and
censorship needs also to be explored. Translation can be a means
of avoiding censorship (by publishing the work in a foreign
tongue, or by attributing the ideas expressed to a foreign author),
but it can also be an occasion to suppress elements of an original
7 , of morality, or of the 'genius
text, whether in the name of 'taste
of the language' the justification for such suppressions will
vary according to context.
3. The limits and forms of memory. What is the nature of
relations between a translation and an original text that are
accepted as valid at a given moment in time? The stereotypes of
the discourse of translators would need to be examined here, as
well as the references made to and the use made of previous
authorities (Horace, Cicero, St. Jerome, d'Alembert, etc). What
arguments are advanced in favour of certain types of relations
between texts, and what are those, on the contrary, which are
rejected as invalid? Which are the texts, or parts thereof, which
are considered too foreign for the target culture to assimilate, and
which are those in which the target culture can recognize itself?
For such aspects it is important to examine a commonplace of
translators' prefaces, namely the way in which they position
themselves in terms of previous, and competing, translations.

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4. The limits and forms of reactivation. The questions raised by

Foucault under this heading can apply directly to translation:
Among the discourses of previous epochs or of foreign cultures,
which are retained, which are valued, which are imported, which
are attempts made to reconstitute? And what is done with them,
what transformations are worked upon them (commentary

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what transformations are worked upon them (commentary,

exegesis, analysis), what systems of appreciation are applied to
them, what role are they given to play? In particular, the
question of the role given commentary and exegesis is an aspect
of importance to translation, since various discourses often come
into play around a translation, situating it within its context,
limiting or extending its effects, discourses such as prefatory
letters, explanatory notes, poems in praise of the translator or of
the patron, introductions, commentaries, as well as the
reproduction of the original text itself alongside the translation.
An examination of such discourses of their appearance or
disappearance is important as a means of determining the
function given the translation.
5. The limits and forms of appropriation. What individuals,
groups or classes make up the categories of translators or of
readers of translations? How is the public for translations defined
within the translations themselves? What relationships are
institutionalized betweentranslators, translations, and the public?
How is the role of the translator perceived in relation to that of
the original author, and in relation to national institutions? How
is translation situated in terms of the struggle for the control of
the production of discourses? Very often the tendency is to
consider translations as mere subsidiary discourses. As for the
readers of translations, they are frequently identified as those
who do not have the ability to read the original text, and who
require protection from the ideas expressed therein, thus the need
to filter, to edulcorate and to censor. Women are very often
named as members of this category, whereas seldom do they
control the discourse produced, either as authors or as
translators.

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2.4. Political Criticism

This reformulation of Foucault's questions in terms of translation
brings to the fore a certain number of elements which are
important for the study of translation. Rather than situate the
relations between a translation and an original text in terms of
equivalency of texts, the accent is instead placed on the nature of
the transformation effected by a translation; on the historical and

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y
social conditions which enable a translation to come into
existence, to be reproduced, or to be replaced; and on the roles
given translations within cultures. The essentially undecidable
question of the "quality" of particular translations undecidable
given the necessity of referring to contextually specific criteria
is replaced by those relating to the discursive nature of
translations, to their contextually-defined functions. Such a shift
in the questions asked in relation to a translation corresponds to
what S.P. Mohanty has called "political criticism" (Mohanty, 1990,
p.2):
... political criticism can be identified by at least a common
desire to expose the social interests at work in the reading
and writing of literature. It may not always be tied to larger
programs or alternative models of cultural practice, but
criticism is political to the extent that it defines as one of its
goals the interrogation of the uses to which literary works
are put, exploring the connections between social
institutions and literary texts, between groups of people
understood collectively in terms of gender, sexuality, race
and class, and discourses about cultural meanings and
values.
Criticism is political, then, insofar as it does not restrict
itself to internal readings of texts but looks at the uses to which
texts are put, examining the connections between texts and the
societies in which they are produced and consumed. Extending
this definition beyond purely literary works to include those in
other fields law, medicine, politics and political theory, the
arts and sciences, for example we can find in the study of
translation an area of particular interest for such an approach,
inasmuch as translation brings different cultures into contact with
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each other. Through the transformation of texts originating in

another context, translators by their choices make evident
the discursive nature of texts, the roles such texts are given to
play within their own and foreign cultures.
3. Translation in History
3.1. Questions of Method
It is impossible here to present a study which could claim
exhaustivity; I will limit myself therefore to the description of

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exhaustivity; I will limit myself therefore to the description of

specific variables relating in particular to what Foucault
described as the limits and forms of conservation of texts. Before
doing so, however, a brief explanation should be given of certain
methodological choices made. Firstly, since translation is being
studied as a discourse "about cultural meanings and values" it is
important that not only translations produced at different
moments in time be examined, but also translations produced in
different contexts. As a result, the corpus on which this study is
based is made up of 2750 randomly-selected works, including
2009 translations into French published between 1500 and 1799,
as well as, for purposes of comparison, 214 translations into
English published between 1650 and 1674, and another 527
translations into English which appeared in the first 50 years of
the XVIIIth century. The second methodological choice is that of
working on the prefaces to the translations rather than on the
translations themselves. Several arguments could be made in
favour of such an approach; for the purposes of the
demonstration to made here suffice it to say that no direct or
necessary correspondence need actually exist between what is
stated in the preface to the translation and the actual performance
on the level of the translation itself. Whether or not one indeed
reflects the other, the aims stated in the preface point to what
was considered to be relevant in the production of a translation,
which is why the translator refers to them. It is precisely their
conventional nature which is important for us, since the aim is to
determine the values dominant within a specific period.

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3.2. Areas of Texts Translated

In this section of the paper the different subject areas of the texts
translated will be presented and briefly commented upon.

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1500-24

1575-99

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1650-74

1725-49

Graph 1 : Languages of Works Translated into French

[In percentages]
Graph 1 presents the fluctuations in the relative importance of
works in different languages translated into French. Certain
elements should be noted: 1) over the 300 years represented here,
Latin can be seen to be in steady decline in importance, replaced
as early as 1600 3 by the vulgar tongues. This trend should not
hide the fact, however, that until 1724 more than a third of all
texts translated were original Latin texts and that until 1724Latin

3.

For the purposes of presenting the data, the period studied has
been arbitrarily divided into 25-year sections. Thus "1600" here
refers in fact to the 25 years between 1600 and 1624.
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and Greek together accounted for more than 50% of all texts
translated. The noticeable decline in the importance in Latin after
1725 confirms studies cited by Denis Roche in Les Rpublicains des
lettres pointing to such a decline as far as original Latin works
were concerned. As can be seen here, what was true for the
original works was also the case in terms of works translated; 2)
another trend should also be noted, in relation to non-classical
languages. Over the 300 years between 1500 and 1799, there were
three vulgar tongues of major, but varying, importance: Italian,
Spanish, and English. It was during the 100 years between 1550
and 1649 that the largest percentage of Italian texts were
translated; Spanish texts gained influence between 1600 and 1674;
and works originally written in English became popular
beginning in 1675. As will be seen shortly, the Italian texts which
were translated tended to be literary for the most part, and
Spanish texts were often religious. On the other hand, English
texts from all areas were translated. The most remarkable trend

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to be noted here is the steady increase in works translated from

English, making up less than 4% of all works translated at the
beginning of the XVIth century to more than 50% in the third
quarter of the XVIIIth century. The XVIIIth century is also
characterized by the appearance in the corpus of texts originally
written in other languages as well: German (the largest number
of other-language texts represented here), but also Danish,
Swedish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew,
Dutch and Russian. That the vulgar tongues gained greater
recognition in the XVIIIth century was thus reflected both in the
increasingly large number of translations from these languages
(more than 70% of all translations done between 1750 and 1774)
and in the greater diversity of languages translated as well.
Graph 2 enables us to make a summary comparison, for
three 25-year periods, of the original languages of works
translated into English and of those translated into French. The
following observations can be made: 1) although there was a
decline in the number of texts translated from Latin and Greek
between 1650 and 1749, the decline was nowhere near as
significant as in the case of texts translated into French; indeed,

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1650-74

1700-24

1725-49

Latin

EJ

Italian

French

Greek

Spanish

German

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Graph 2: Languages of Works Translated into English

[In percentages]
whereas in 1650-1674 classical works were less dominant in
English than in French, by 1725 this had been reversed; 2) the
second remark to be made concerns the relative positions of
English texts in the corpus of translations into French, and that
of French texts in the English corpus. As we have already seen,
translations of English texts increased rapidly and steadily,
especially after 1675, to the point where translations from English
easily outnumbered those from any other language throughout
the XVIIIth century. The corresponding importance of French
works translated into English began at a much earlier date. Thus
for the period 1650-1674 already some 28% of works translated
were from French (whereas, for the same time period, works
originally in English made up only 3.6% of the works translated
into French). This percentage increased constantly and works
originally in French made up more than 50% of all works

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translated into English in the second quarter of the XVIIIth

century.
Graph 3 (see following page) presents the evolution of
the different categories of works translated into French between
1500 and 1799. It should be noted here that the determination to
which category a work belongs is often problematic. Should, for
example, Les Commentaires de Jules Csar be classified as literature,
as history, or as politics? And what is to be understood by each
of these categories? For the purposes of this paper, works have
been identified according to their classification at the
Bibliothque nationale: although the system may often be illogical
and even self-contradictory different copies of the same work
are sometimes identified as belonging to different categories ,
it nevertheless provides an objective basis from which to work.
Thus Les Commentaires de Jules Csar is considered to belong to
the category of history. Turning to Graph 3 as such, it can be
noticed that literary texts predominate, particularly prior to 1600
and once again in the XVIIIth century. In the XVIIth century,
however, the category of text most translated was the religious.
These two categories Literature and Religion are those in
which there is the greatest variation as well. Literary texts

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g
y
accounting for between 23.2% of the corpus, in 1625-49, and
54.3%, in 1750-74; and religious texts, between 2.4%, at the end
of the XVIIIth century, and 31.4%, 100 years earlier, between 1675
and 1699. The other categories show much less variation, at no
point greater than 11%: History (10-21%), Philosophy (7.7-15.6%),
Medicine (2.4-9.9%), Politics (1-7.7%) and Language (0-7.2%).
The following four Graphs (see next two pages) indicate
the correlation between the language of the original text and four
areas: Literature, History, Philosophy, and Religion. Here too
certain trends can be noticed: 1) that before 1725, Latin original
works dominate for all categories of texts translated, and after
1725, English original texts do the same, including the area of
religion; 2) that each of the other languages Greek, Italian and
Spanish is associated, although in no way exclusively, with
certain categories of texts more than others. Thus texts translated

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1500-24

1575-99

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1650-74

1725-49

Graph 3: Areas of Works Translated into French,by

Period [In percentages]

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120

1525-49

1575-99

1625-49

1675-99

1725-49

1775-99

Graph 4: Literature: Languages of Works Translated into

French [Number of works]

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Translation as a Discourse of History

1525-49

1575-99

1625-49

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1675-99

1725-49

1775-99

Graph 5: History: Languages of Works Translated into

French [Number of worl

Page 17

1525-49

1575-99

1625-49

1675-99

1725-49

1775-99

Graph 6: Philosophy: Languages of Works Translated into

French [Number of works]

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1525-49

1575-99

1625-49

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1675-99

l
1725-49

Graph 7: Religion: Language of Works Translated into

French [Number of works]

1775-99

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from Greek tend to be literary, historical, or philosophical, but

not religious; texts translatedfromItalian are mostly literary; and
translated Spanish texts are usually literary or religious.
3.3. Themes of Translation
Graph 8 (see following page) shows the distribution of certain
themes referred to by translators in the prefaces to their
translations, and by theoreticians of translation in their treatises.
It should be noted, first of all, that not all translations
have prefaces, and that in those that do translators may well refer
to more than one of the criteria indicated, thus explaining how,
for 1700-1724, it is possible to arrive at more than 100%. Certain
trends can be noted here as well: 1) four themes fidelity,
utility, terms, verse remain more or less constant throughout
the period studied, appearing in 40% of the prefaces to
translations. Among these four there is, however, some variation:
the theme of "fidelity" (translators either invoking their own
faithfulness to the original work, or explaining why they should
not be bound too strictly to it) gains progressively in importance,
whereas "utility" (the notion of rendering a service through the
translation of the work) and "terms" (the theme that the
translation of the original work causes certain problems due to
the necessity of inventing new terms to identify new realities) are
given less importance beginning in the XVIIth and XVIIIth
centuries respectively. It should also be noted that if "fidelity" is,
not surprisingly, the dominant criteria referred to, what is
understood by "fidelity" can vary greatly, even to the point of
4
justifying opposite solutions to translation problems.
Despite
this, "fidelity" remains a preoccupation of translators, even when
a certain distance from the original text is seen as desirable. Thus
Monsieur de Prfontaine in his translation of the Abrg de
l'histoire romaine by Eutrope writes: "Je me suis attach rendre

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mon Auteur presque mot pour mot, sans nanmoins le trahir

force de fidlit..." There are other criteria which are more

4.

See St-Pierre (1990) for a more complete discussion of this

question.

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120

100

Tiir

1500-24

1575-99

1650-74

1725-49

Graph 8: Translators' Themes, Translations Towards

French [In percentages]

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temporally bound, most notably those which come to have a

certain importance in the XVIIIth century: "foreignness" (often
with the idea that it is necessary to reduce such difference to
something more familiar and reassuring), "biensance" and
"taste," which combine with the theme of the "genius of the
language," already a concern since the XVIIth century. Reference
to notions such as these demonstrate the desire of making the
foreign French, and, indeed, the relation to that which is foreign
becomes a major theme of the prefaces of translators in the
XVIIIth century.
Thus the notion of "biensance," for example, which is
used to justify certain decisions on the part of the translator to
make changes in the text being translated. The translator of Les
Amours de Clitophen et de Leucippe (1734), Du Perron de Castera,
indicates that the content of the work rendered the translation
difficult: "Cette premire difficult rendoit l'Auteur peu
susceptible d'une Traduction en notre langue, qui aujourd'hui est
plus incompatible que jamais avec ce qui choque la pudeur et la
biensance." He therefore made certain changes: "Je laisse cette
Dame Ephsienne tout son amour pour Clitophon tant qu'il peut
parotre lgitime; et lorsqu'il cesse de l'tre, je lui suppose de la
vertu. Le retranchement de quelques phrases opre ce miracle. ...
C'est Tatius habill modestement la Franoise, suivant l'usage
du tems; un peu dguis sous ce vtement qui lui est nouveau;
mais reconnoissable par son port et ses habits." For certain
translators making the text conform to the values of the target
culture will be of far greater importance than being faithful. Le
Vayer de Marsilly writes in his translation of Montemayor's
Roman espagnol (1735): "Quelque exacte, quelque bonne qu'ait t
la plume d'un traducteur, l'original a toujours perdu. Dans ces
sortes d'entreprises, la fidlit est le mrite dont on se pique le
plus souvent. Je doute cependant que ce sait elle qui men au
succs, il me parot au contraire que l'ennui et la scheresse
suivent de prs l'exactitude trop grande. Accomoder un Auteur
au got de la Nation pour laquelle on traduit, c'est avoir soin de
sa gloire."

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The question of "biensance" is intimately connected to

that of "foreignness," since translation brings into contact readers
of one nation and tradition with a text and the values of another.
As a result, the translator must determine whether the translation
should reduce to the greatest possible extent the differences
separating the two, or whether it should maintain such
differences. As the preface to the translation of VAgriculture
parfaite (1720) states: "Il y a donc deux sortes de Lecteur, les uns
rendant un Traducteur responsable de tout ce qui ne leur plat
pas dans un crit. Ils veulent qu'il applanisse ce qu'il y a de
raboteux, qu'il prte mme son Original des agrments que
l'Auteur peut avoir nglig. Les autres, d'un got tout diffrent,
n'exigent d'un Traducteur qu'une fidlit exacte, et une servitude
d'interprte. Ils veulent qu'un livre traduit soit comme les vins
qui ont beau tre transportez loin du lieu de leur origine, et qui
conservent toujours un got qui fait connotre le terroir qui les a
produits." And as the translator of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's
Travels writes, in 1727: "Quoique j'aye fait mon possible pour
ajuster l'Ouvrage de M. Swift au got de la France, je ne prtens
pas cependant en avoir fait tout--fait un Ouvrage Franois. Un
Etranger est toujours Etranger: quelque esprit et quelque politesse
qu'il ait, il conserve toujours un peu de son accent et de ses
manires." The opposite point of view is, however, also found.
The translator of Oronoko, published in 1745, writes: "Mon
intention n'a pas t, d'entreprendre une Traduction littrale, ni
de m'astreindre scrupuleusement au texte de mon Auteur.
Oronoko, a pl Londres, habill l'Angloise. Pour plaire
Paris, j'ai cr qu'il lui falloit un habit Franois. Je ne scais mme,
si cette manire de traduire les Ouvrages, de pur amusement,
n'est pas le meilleure." These opposing viewpoints centre around
recurring themes in the prefaces and treatises, to the point where
at times it would seem that such texts merely repeat what has
been said many times before. Such an impression is false,
however, for Graph 8 not only clearly shows there is variation in
the distribution of such themes and the appearance of new ones
but also that the configuration of the themes also varies.

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Page 22

4. Conclusion
The attempt has been made here to present both the theoretical
underpinnings of a discursive approach to translation and an
all-too-brief example of one element which could be studied
using such an approach. Both aspects would need to be further
developed; however, it is already possible to understand that
when translation is considered as a discursive practice, situated
within a specific social and historical context, the questions to be
asked of it change. No longer is the attempt made to determine
whether a translation transforms and thus as conventional
wisdom would often have it betrays an original text, but
rather the question becomes one of defining how such a
transformation is carried out and the conditions which make it
possible.

References
FOUCAULT, Michel (1969). LArchologie du savoir. Paris, Gallimard.
(1991; 1968). "Politics and the Study of Discourse,"
in Graham Burchell, Colin Gordon, Peter Miller, ed., The
Foucault Effect. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
(1972; 1971). The Discourse on Language. Trans. A.M.
Sheridan-Smith.
MOHANTY, Satya (1989). "Us and Them: On the Philosophical Bases
of Political Criticism." Yale Journal ofCriticism, 11(2), pp. 1-31.
RAFAEL, Vicente (1988). Contracting Colonialism: Translation and
Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish
Rule. Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
ROCHE, Daniel (1988). Les Rpublicains des lettres. Paris, Fayard.
ST-PIERRE, Paul (1990). "The Historical Nature of Translation,"
in P.N. Chaffey, A.F. Rydning, S.S. Ulriksen, d. Translation
Theory in Scandinavia.

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