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Translating others / edited by Theo Hermans.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-900650-84-3 (pbk. : v. 1 : alk. paper) -- ISBN 1-900650-85-1
(pbk. : v. 2 : alk. paper)
1. Translating and interpreting. 2. Language and culture. 3. Intercul-
tural communication. I. Hermans, Theo.
P306.T6795 2006
418’.02--dc22
2006012443
 Contents
Volume 1

Acknowledgements

Introduction ...................................................................................................... 9
Theo Hermans

1 Grounding Theory

Reconceptualizing Western Translation Theory ............................................... 13

Integrating Non-Western Thought about Translation
Maria Tymoczko

Meanings of Translation in Cultural Anthropology........................................... 33

Doris Bachmann-Medick

Misquoted Others .............................................................................................. 43

Locating Newness and Authority in Cultural Translation
Ovidi Carbonell Cortés

2 Mapping Concepts

Translation and the Language(s) of Historiography .......................................... 67

Understanding Ancient Greek and Chinese Ideas of History
Alexandra Lianeri

From ‘Theory’ to ‘Discourse’ ........................................................................... 87

The Making of a Translation Anthology
Martha Cheung

In Our Own Time, On Our Own Terms ........................................................... 102

‘Translation’ in India
Harish Trivedi

Translation into Arabic in the ‘Classical Age’ ................................................ 120

When the Pandora’s Box of Transmission Opens …
Myriam Salama-Carr

Gained in Translation ...................................................................................... 132

Tibetan Science between Dharamsala and Lhasa
Audrey Prost

‘And the Translator Is – ’................................................................................. 145

Translators in Chinese History
Eva Hung
Reconceptualizing Translation Theory
Integrating Non-Western Thought about Translation

MARIA TYMOCZKO
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

Abstract: In Eurocentric tradition most statements about translation

that date before the demise of positivism are relatively useless for current
theorizing, because most encode the dominant perspectives of Western
imperialism or respond to particular Western historical circumstances.
Some of the limitations of Eurocentric thinking about translation are
patently obvious. Most statements have been formulated with reference
to sacred texts, for example, including religious scripture and canonical
literary works. Similarly, Eurocentric theorizing has been marked by its
concentration on the written word and by the vocabulary in many lan-
guages that links translation with the notion of conveying sacred relics
intact from place to place.
Translation studies must strive for more flexible perspectives, and the
thinking of non-Western peoples is essential in achieving broader and
more applicable theories about translation.This contribution explores the
implications of several non-Western concepts of translation, as well as
marginal Western ones that fall outside the dominant domain of Western
theory. In addition the concept of translation is related to three adjacent
concepts about intercultural interface, namely, transmission, representa-
tion and transculturation. These three concepts relate to particular, though
not always separable, aspects of translation: communication of content,
exhibition of content and performance. One way to enlarge thinking about
translation is to move beyond Eurocentric tradition, opening transla-
tion studies to other cultures’ views of transmission, representation and
transculturation.

In Western1 tradition most statements about translation that date before the demise

1
There is, of course, a problem with the terms ‘East’ and ‘West’, both of which imply perspective
and position. East or west of what? In Chinese tradition where China is the ‘Middle Kingdom’, India
is ‘the West’: hardly the case for the imperial British. To the Romans, the nations of southwestern
Asia were considered ‘the East’, a perspective still encoded in the phrase ‘the Near East’. At the
same time, there are European countries that have been colonized, notably the Celtic fringe, and
hence have affinities with the Third World. Here I am using the term ‘Western’ roughly to refer to
ideas and perspectives that initially originated in and became dominant in Europe, spreading from
there to various other locations in the world, where in some cases, such as the United States, they
have also become dominant. At this point in time, however, when Western ideas have permeated the
world and there is widespread interpenetration of cultures everywhere, the terms ‘East’ and ‘West’
become increasingly problematic.
14 Translating Others Vol. I

of positivism are relatively useless for current theorizing about translation, because
most are limited by the dominant ideological perspective of their time – say, Western
imperialism – or are primarily applicable to a particular Western historical circum-
stance – say, the position of a national language and literature within a larger cultural
hegemony. These problems are before me whether I read the statements of Latin writ-
ers, including Cicero and Jerome, the Germans, including Martin Luther and Friedrich
Schleiermacher, or the English, including Alexander Tytler and Matthew Arnold.
Such early writers speak to their own condition, out of their own time and their own
historical circumstances, but there is rarely any self-reflexivity or acknowledgment
about limitations of their own perspective. The result is a narrow-minded declamation
that is supposed to address translations of all times and everywhere, but that is sorely
circumscribed by a cultural moment.
The restricted perspectives of Western pronouncements about translation before
World War I are not always apparent because of the positivist, generalized and pre-
scriptive discourses that frame them. Yet some of the boundaries of Western thinking
about translation in these statements should be patently obvious: the fact that most
views have been formulated with reference to sacred texts, including both religious
scripture and canonical literary works, for example. Similarly, Western theorizing
has been distorted by its concentration on the written word. Not least are difficulties
caused by the vocabulary in some languages that links translation with conveying
sacred relics, unchanged, from place to place: the word translation is paradigmatic
of this problem (cf. Tymoczko 2003a). Western translation theorists are heirs to these
limitations. It is only in the postpositivist period that Western theory begins to show
an awareness of its circumscribed nature, and even then many theories of translation
retain surprisingly positivist formulations or efface recognition of their own specific
commitments and pretheoretical assumptions.
There is a need in translation studies for more flexible and deeper understandings of
translation, and the thinking of non-Western peoples about this central human activity
is essential in achieving broader and more durable theories about translation. Here I
explore the implications of some non-Western concepts and practices of translation,
as well as marginal Western ones that fall outside the domain of dominant Western
theory. As a whole, I argue that in order to expand contemporary theories of transla-
tion, it is not sufficient merely to incorporate additional non-Western data pertaining
to translation histories, episodes and artifacts. The implications of those data must
be analysed and understood, and the results theorized. The consequence will be the
refurbishing of basic assumptions and structures of translation theory itself.2
Let me begin by observing that all theory is based on presuppositions – called
axioms or postulates in mathematics. In the case of translation theory, the current
presuppositions are markedly Eurocentric. Indeed, they grow out of a rather small
subset of European cultural contexts based on Greco-Roman textual traditions,

2
Note that in good research there is always this sort of reciprocity between theory and data. Theory
drives the collection and interpretation of data, but data in turn refine and refurbish theory. See
Tymoczko (2002).
Tymoczko: Reconceptualizing Translation Theory 15

Christian values, nationalistic views about the relationship between language and cul-
tural identity, and an upper-class emphasis on technical expertise and literacy. For more
general and more universally applicable theories of translation, those presuppositions
must be articulated and acknowledged; they must be reviewed and rethought.
Before turning to such an articulation, however, an excursus is in order. It’s worth
asking whether a universal theory of translation is possible and, if so, whether con-
structing such a theory should be a goal of translation studies. This question is, of
course, a subset of a larger question, namely, is it possible to construct any humanistic
theory that will have universal applicability? It is quite feasible to construct theories
of solar systems that are universally applicable, or theories of the cell. There can be
theoretical knowledge that pertains to all six-sided geometrical objects. But can there
be a theory of literature, say, or human cultural behaviours in general? Is it possible to
have more than a local theory of translation? In fact, is ‘normal’ a concept that applies
to human culture at all, or is it just a label, like a setting on a washing machine?
Here I weigh in with those who believe that much is to be learned by attempting
to formulate general theories, even if such attempts are ultimately defeated or only
partially realised. General theories are not necessarily achievable – a complete descrip-
tion of literature, for example, may be impossible – but the virtue of pushing theories
of human culture toward broader and broader applicability is that, paradoxically,
researchers actually end up learning more and more about the particular phenomena
that are of greatest interest to them. It is only possible to define the self when we are
clear about the boundary that divides the self from the other (cf. Luhmann 1984). Thus,
the nature of literature in a specific culture and the positioning of that literature with
reference to its own culture become clearer when such arrangements are compared to
the situation of other literatures; the broader the comparison, the deeper the resulting
understanding of specific local phenomena. I believe that broader and more general
theories of translation will illuminate all specific phenomena related to translation
everywhere, if only in virtue of the increased awareness of difference.

1. Rethinking current presuppositions about translation

Let us turn to some current presuppositions about translation that are taken as a mat-
ter of course by most Western translation scholars and that underly most Western
translation theory. Why wouldn’t they be taken as givens, in view of their widespread
applicability in Western countries? Yet these are presuppositions that are in need
of rethinking if translation theory is to be extended to non-Western situations, as is
increasingly the case. Moreover, there are many situations within Western cultures
that current translation theory cannot adequately account for or describe because of
these prevailing assumptions. In what follows I draw on such marginal examples
to illustrate some of the problems with current paradigms, which incorporation of
non-Western experience, thought and perspectives may mitigate. What follows is a
selection of basic assumptions upon which contemporary Western translation theory
rests, assumptions that have not been well examined or fully interrogated.
16 Translating Others Vol. I

1.1 Translators are necessary in interlingual and intercultural situations; they

mediate between two linguistic and cultural groups

This is a basic assumption of the discipline of translation studies, yet all who study
translation are subliminally aware that there are many situations in which this presup-
position does not apply. Monolingualism has been taken as the norm, whereas it may
turn out to be the case that plurilingualism is more typical worldwide. I think, for
example, of my grandmother who grew up in the southeast corner of Slovakia at the
turn of the twentieth century, left school at the age of twelve, but spoke, as a matter
of course, two languages: Slovak and Hungarian. The same grandmother later learned
to switch back and forth between Bohemian and Slovak; she came to understand
Polish, and she learned to speak, read and write English as well. What is the role of
translation in such plurilingual communities as those of my grandmother? Are there
normally translators per se in such cultures? Or are the monolingual marginalized
and relegated to restricted and impoverished domains of cultural participation and
competence, monolinguals not being privy to participation in the world of, say, com-
merce? Are monolinguals afforded summary more than translation, observation more
than participation? These are questions that translation studies has not adequately
researched.
Numerous cases also illustrate the fact that translation can be an essential ele-
ment of plurilingual cultures but not for the purpose of mediation or communication
between linguistic groups. For example, there is a bilingual community of Hawaiian
nationalists who insist on speaking Hawaiian in official U.S. government contexts,
particularly legal ones, and who insist on having the services of government translators
who can translate between Hawaiian and English. The speakers of Hawaiian do not
ask for translation to facilitate communication, being usually less facile in Hawaiian
than in English which is generally their first language. Rather, the Hawaiian speakers
insist on translation as part of their attempt to block ‘common-sense’ communication
in the United States, to thwart U.S. ‘business-as-usual’ and to promote recognition of
the existence of a pre-Anglo culture in their islands.
Similarly, as I have argued in Translation in a Postcolonial Context (1999),
postcolonial cultures illustrate the limitation of this presupposition that transla-
tion facilitates communication between groups. In fact translation in a postcolonial
context can mediate across languages within a single group, functioning to connect
a people with its past, for example, more than to connect one people with another.
Translation can be made of a source community for the community itself, even when
it involves translation between two languages, rather than translation from one state
of a language to another.
This basic premise of translation studies is complex, as my counterexamples indi-
cate. It involves presuppositions about the way that languages function in plurilingual
layering, the purpose of translation as primarily communicative and the belief that
translation operates to connect different groups. These assumptions may all reflect an
Anglo-American model of linguistic (in)competence, equating nation with language
Tymoczko: Reconceptualizing Translation Theory 17

and national identity with linguistic provinciality.3 Translation studies has, after all,
been heavily theorized by English speakers, who are notoriously deficient in language
acquisition, and who, thus, may be particularly biased in their theorizing of translation.
More research may show that the assumption about monolingualism built into transla-
tion studies is ultimately atypical even of Europe, as well as the world as a whole.

1.2 Translation involves (written) texts

This second premise of dominant translation theory has marginalized interpretation

as a central activity to be theorized in translation studies. A sign of the bias towards
seeing translation as a literacy practice is that even studies of interpretation are slanted
in favour of conference interpretation, an activity that begins with a fixed written
text. The focus on written texts as the subject of translation has been decried within
translation studies by those promoting the study of interpretation (see Cronin 2002
and sources cited). But it is a much more serious deficiency, for most human cultures
through time have been oral, and this continues to be the case in much, if not most,
of the non-Western world; it follows that most translation through time and space has
been oral. Orality is the central condition of human biology and culture, and translation
must be theorized so as to acknowledge these conditions.4 In expanding translation
theory to incorporate non-Western experience, the premise that translation primarily
involves written or fixed texts must be adjusted, for the majority of human beings in
the world still live in cultures where literacy plays a very restricted role.

1.3 The primary text types with which translators work have been defined and
categorized

Many Westerners believe that they know, use, and have categorized the central hu-
man text types: epic, drama and lyric poetry, for example; or novel, academic lecture
and business letter. In fact, text types can vary dramatically from culture to culture,
and defining a culture’s repertory of primary forms and text types is enormously
complex. There is even evidence within the Western tradition that those primary
forms characteristic of Greek culture (e.g. epic, lyric, drama) are not universal, but
the result of cultural diffusion from the Greco-Roman tradition.5 Needless to say, the
question of text types is further complicated by other aspects of cultural embedded-
ness of discourse: speech acts (e.g. irony), signals pertaining to relevance and so forth
(cf. Hatim 1997: ch. 16). Translation theory has hardly touched these complexities
of text type, yet they are essential to understand if current thinking about translation
is to be revisioned. The question of text types intersects with the need to understand
orality, for oral cultures often have very different text types and different semiotic

3
This is a model that relates to the specific histories of a number of key English-speaking nations,
including England (and later the United Kingdom), the United States and Australia.
4
Preliminary exploration of the question is found in Tymoczko (1990).
5
For the argument, see Tymoczko (1997), discussed below.
18 Translating Others Vol. I

structurings of texts from those of literate cultures. Far from being well-conceptual-
ized in existing translation theory, questions pertaining to text type must be explored
further if translation theory is to expand beyond current models.

1.4 The process of translation is a sort of ‘black box’: an individual translator

decodes a given message to be translated and recodes the same message in a
second language

Although this classic representation of the process of translation has been criticized
by many scholars as being too simple, nonetheless the model continues to operate
implicitly in many, even most, formulations of translation theory. The concept of
decoding/encoding has become a matter of scholarly debate,6 but the overall picture
of a single translator engaged in a mysterious inner process (conditioned, of course,
by social context) continues to hold sway. The translation process thus conceived is
very individualistic and bound to Western individualism as well as dominant Western
translation practice, but the model has assumed normative status in a great deal of
translation studies research. This view of translation practice does not reflect the full
range worldwide and may not even be the dominant mode crossculturally. It should
be contrasted, for example, with the practice of translation in China, which can be
traced for two thousand years: a practice that has typically involved more than one
person working on a translation, even groups of people working together assigned to
highly differentiated roles.7 Such non-Western practices of translation challenge basic
Western thinking and research about the translation process.

1.5 Translators are generally educated in their art and they have professional
standing; often they learn their craft in a formal way, connected with schooling
or training that instructs the translator in language competence, standards of
textuality, norms of transposition and so forth

This presupposition is widely deployed despite its logical and practical problems, in
part because the professional status of translators is so deeply rooted in Western cul-
ture.8 The difficulties with this assumption have been most obvious to those scholars
who are interested in community translation (still perhaps the most common type of
translation in Western countries, as elsewhere), where translators are rarely trained or

6
A classic statement of this model is found in Nida (1964: 145-55); see (Katan 1999: 123-44) on the
debate about decoder/encoder models, as well as other current models of the translations process.
7
Team translation has also played a prominent role in the West, but it continues to be inadequately
theoretized. Consider, for example, the translation of the King James Bible or current translation
protocols of the American Bible Society.
8
Consider the doctrinal and linguistic expertise required by Biblical translators or the official
standing enjoyed by the latimers, the king’s translators in the British Isles in the medieval period.
On the logical problems associated with attempting to theorize translators as professionals, see
Tymoczko (1998).
Tymoczko: Reconceptualizing Translation Theory 19

schooled, indeed where they are amateur almost by definition. But the extension of this
model to non-Western situations brings obvious absurdities: with so large a percentage
of the world still living in cultures that retain primary or secondary orality and hold-
ing schooling at a very high premium, it is obvious that professionalized translation
as found in the West will not occur in oral cultures and that translator training and
apprenticeship will take radically different forms from those of the West.

1.6 Currently translation is entering a completely new phase and assuming

radically new forms because of cultural movements and diasporas associated with
globalization and because of the hybridity of the ensuing cultural configurations

This is a hypothesis that has generated some of the most interesting and entertaining
speculative writing on translation in the last fifteen years, but it is clearly a view that
can only be sustained by those who know very little history, even very little modern
history. The written history of the West alone documents vast population migrations
from the earliest times: for example, the simultaneous migration of thousands of Celts
who moved from what is now Switzerland to the Iberian Peninsula, passing through
Provence under the watchful eyes of the Roman legions in the second century BCE.
The Roman Empire itself was an immense realm covering much of Africa, Asia and
Europe, where there was constant intermingling of languages and cultures, where
cultural and linguistic translation was continuous and where population movements
– with resulting linguistic and cultural dislocation and interface – were often a mat-
ter of public policy. The Chinese empire likewise brought together many peoples,
languages and cultures. The Silk Road connected the great Chinese empire with
Western realms and served as a conduit in both directions for every manner of human
idea and every form of technology, and it supported population migrations as well.
The resulting linguistic and cultural translation has been documented in China since
antiquity. Even the history of Ireland, a small and seemingly isolated realm, can be
shown to involve almost continual interlingual and intercultural contact and hybridity
as far back as human beings have inhabited the island.9 Similarly the cultural effects
associated with the Viking diaspora into the British Isles and other parts of Europe are
palpable in surviving documents, linguistic borrowings and other historical evidence.
In the modern era, the types of hybridities associated with diasporas that cultural
studies scholars tout as being new can be traced in most immigrant cultures, notably
those of North and South America, where the phenomena have a documented history
dating to the European discovery of the Americas in the fifteenth century. Diasporas,
population movements, cultural and linguistic contact, cultural mixing, hybridity
and translation have been part of human history since the dawn of our species and its
diffusion out of Africa. This hypothesis must be rehabilitated before it can be useful
and non-Western data will aid the reformulation.

9
On these issues see Tymoczko (2003b), as well as other essays in Cronin and Ó Cuilleanáin (2003).
See also Tymoczko and Ireland (2003a, 2003b).
20 Translating Others Vol. I

1.7 Translations can be identified as such: translation theory has defined the
objects of its study

A persistent enterprise in Western translation theory for more than a century has been
the attempt to define translation: there have been efforts to specify definitions; to
distinguish translations from imitations, adaptations and versions; to categorize types
of translations; to look for commonalities linking types of translations; to establish
hierarchies among translation types and establish prototypes of translation; and so
forth.10 The interest in and the insistence on defining translation are not in fact trivial
or irrelevant. A major aspect of the scientific method – and, therefore, of all scholarly
research – is the definition of the objects of study of a discipline; such definitions are
part of the theoretical framework of a research methodology. Conceptual elements
must be delineated, which involves identification of both the ‘units’ of investigation
and the means to classify those units. Such definitions actually constitute and construct
the objects of study and the field of inquiry (cf. Foucault 1972: 40-49).
The difficulty with efforts to define translation is that it is so easy to find excep-
tions to the various definitions proposed. For example, just within medieval European
literature, scholars must acknowledge and encompass in their definitions of translation
not only the very literal word-to-word translations of saints’ lives from Latin to ver-
nacular languages, but the nine-page version of the Odyssey in Irish entitled Merugud
Ulix meic Leirtis, as well as the Old French romance version of the Aeneid entitled
Roman d’Eneas (in which Aeneas is more notable as lover than as founder of Rome).
Similarly many translations associated with oral literature defy conventional defini-
tions of translation, and translations produced under the constraints of postcolonial
contestations show unexpected differences as well. But it is also easy to find everyday,
contemporary counterexamples, for example, the (legally mandated) translations of
advertisements on bilingual packaging that in fact do not duplicate each other’s mes-
sages in alternate languages, but constitute additional and supplementary texts intended
to promote the product among an implied readership of bilingual consumers.11
A peril in fixating on a specific definition of translation in translation theory is that
rigid definitions may actually lead to closure on the question of what translations are,
resulting in the narrowing of research and the exclusion or marginalization of cultural
products that are different from those dominant in Western or globalized culture at
present.12 Faced with such problems of delimiting the objects of study in translation
research, scholars made two major breakthroughs in the 1970s.

10
Some research even predicates the work of ‘professional translators’ as the subject of investiga-
tion – suggesting that ‘real’ translations emanate from professional translators who are increasingly
pictured as working at a desk with a computer – professionals trained in rules about how to make
transpositions between specific language pairs, furnished with CAT resources, and so forth.
11
See the example offered by Itamar Even-Zohar in Grähs, Korlén and Malmberg (1978: 348-
49).
12
I see marginalization of the Other as a danger in current efforts to define translation as a prototype
concept, attempts that will ultimately stifle research in translation studies.
Tymoczko: Reconceptualizing Translation Theory 21

First in importance is Gideon Toury’s definition of translation as “any target

language text which is presented or regarded as such within the target system itself,
on whatever grounds” (Toury 1982: 27; cf. Toury 1980: 14, 37, 43-45). Toury broke
through the tendency to define the objects of study in translation studies in terms of
dominant, modern Eurocentric models, and he opened the way for cultural self-defini-
tion within the field of translation studies. This must be underscored: Toury’s move
is critical in decentring translation studies, in moving the field beyond Eurocentric
positions, and in permitting self-representation regarding the basic data of translation
by people who know it best in their cultures. His definition of translation is in fact an
a posteriori definition rather than a prescriptive or logical definition: whatever objects
function as translations within a receptor culture and are recognized as translations by
members of that culture must therefore be studied by scholars as translations, how-
ever different such objects might be from the scholars’ expectations of or norms for
translations. This move is essential to incorporating non-Western translation history
and practice into translation theory. Significantly, Toury’s definition is still resisted
by many translation scholars.
The second development, related to and perhaps even entailed in Toury’s a
posteriori definition of translation, is the theory of rewritings, formulated by André
Lefevere, or the theory of “refractions”, as he first called his idea. Lefevere (1985,
1992) showed that there are commonalities between all forms of rewriting, including
anthologies, histories of literature, works of literary criticism and editions, as well
as children’s versions of texts, films, cartoons, and so on. Like translations, all these
types of refractions are forms of reprocessing and representing source texts; Lefevere
argued that the lines between types of rewriting are blurred and that the characteris-
tics of different types of rewriting reveal a great deal about the function and social
position of all of them.13
The question of what a translation is takes on new meaning if translation theory is
reconfigured so as to include non-Western materials, for if the definition of translation
and other objects of study are bounded by Western experience or centred on Western
prototypes, it will be hard for the field to go beyond those very delimiters and be
open to the multifarious types of translation products and processes that exist in the
entire world. It is not possible to expand the theory of translation if the field of study
cannot accommodate all the data available. And vice versa of course. Essential to this
process is the redefinition of the objects of study in translation theory, and it involves
both the possibility of self-representation of translation in non-Western contexts and
the blurring of Western boundaries for translation.
A hint at the possible realignments that may be necessary can be seen by examining
some non-Western words for ‘translation’ and looking at their etymologies, cognates,

13
Following from Lefevere’s views, arguments about whether texts are versions or translations can
be viewed as misplaced in cases where the texts function equally to represent the source text and
where they serve related purposes in the receiving culture. See also Harish Trivedi’s essay in the
present collection, which provides a more detailed consideration of words for translation in India
and a presentation of translation histories in India.
22 Translating Others Vol. I

lexical fields and specific histories. Here are a few examples: in India the common
words for translation are rupantar, ‘change in form’, and anuvad, ‘speaking after,
following’, both of which derive from Sanskrit; Sujit Mukherjee (1994: 80) indicates
that neither of these terms implies fidelity to the original and that the concept of
faithful rendering came to India with Christianity.14 By contrast, the current Arabic
word for translation is tarjama, originally meaning ‘biography’, connected perhaps
with the early focus of Syriac Christian translators on the Bible, patristic texts and
lives of saints in the third to fifth centuries of the common era. The Syriac transla-
tors eventually turned to more material subjects as well, becoming major conduits of
Greek science and philosophy to other cultures; this learned movement underlies the
later great translation tradition into Arabic initiated and patronized by the Abbasid
caliphate.15 Still another non-Western approach to translation is indicated by a native
American word meaning ‘to tell a story across’, connecting translation with narration
or testimony.16
A fourth way of looking at translation is suggested by the most common Chinese
phrase for translation, fan yi, which means ‘turning over’, formed using the characters
for fan, which means ‘turning a leaf of a book’ but also ‘somersault, flip’, and yi,
which means ‘interpretation’ and is a homonym of the word meaning ‘exchange’. This
concept of fan yi is linked to the image of embroidery: thus, if the source text is the
front side of an embroidered work, the target text can be thought of as the back side
of the same piece. Like the reverse of an embroidery – which typically in Chinese
handwork has hanging threads, loose ends and even variations in patterning from the
front – a translation in this conceptualization is viewed as different from the original
and is not expected to be equivalent in all respects. At the same time, of course, the
‘working side’ of an embroidery teaches much about its construction. Both images
– embroidery and turning a page – suggest that in China text and translation are re-
lated as the front and back of the object, or perhaps as the positive and negative of
the same picture.17
These are all very different ways of thinking about translation from those cur-
rently dominant in translation studies. As I have argued in more detail elsewhere,18
in order to accommodate such a range of ideas about translation, translation must be
viewed as a cluster concept, the most famous example of which is the concept game,
discussed in detail by Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953 section 65 ff.). Unlike many types
of categories, cluster concepts cannot be characterized by a set of necessary and suf-
ficient conditions that identify all instances of the category but only instances of that
category: in this case, all translations but only translations. Instead, cluster categories
are linked together by what Wittgenstein calls “family resemblances”: such categories
are “related to one another in many different ways [...] [by] a complicated network of

14
I am also indebted here to Harish Trivedi, personal communication.
15
For more on these translation movements, see Montgomery (2000, chs. 2-3).
16
Barbara Godard, ‘Writing Between Cultures’, unpublished paper presented at the University of
Warwick, July 1997.
17
I am indebted here to personal communications with Martha Cheung and Liu Xiaoqing.
18
Tymoczko (1998). See also my CETRA lectures, forthcoming from St. Jerome Publishing.
Tymoczko: Reconceptualizing Translation Theory 23

similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes

similarities of details” (ibid.).19 Cluster categories differ from many types of category
because of their pragmatic quality: membership in the cluster is not a matter of simple
logic, as Wittgenstein indicates, but a function of practice and usage, and it is defined
by cultural recognition. Thus, to understand such a concept takes us deep into the
realms that Bourdieu (1977) has discussed regarding the interrelationship between
cultural practice and cultural knowledge. Given the important role of practice in
translation studies, it is perhaps not so surprising that translation would turn out to be
such a cluster concept. A cluster-concept definition of translation is congruent with
the insights of both Toury and Lefevere, and it can accommodate the non-Western
conceptualizations of translation discussed above, all of which have ground-breaking
implications for reconceptualizing the theory of translation.

1.8 The parameters of the relationship between source text and translation have
been delineated, even though debate still remains on the particulars

The difficulties with this assumption follow from the incomplete and culturally bound
definitions of translation used by many translation studies scholars. Moreover, as
I have argued elsewhere (Tymoczko 2003a), the words most commonly used for
translation in European languages – particularly the words deriving from Latin,
including translation itself – have in many ways distorted Western understandings
about the relationship between a text and its translation. The word translation, for
example, suggests a carrying across, indicating that the relationship between text and
translation should be a strong form of equivalence, a type of identity relationship
rather than a similarity relationship which entails difference. Speakers of English and
Romance languages have been prominent in theorizing translation, and it may be the
linguistic implications of the words for translation in those languages that are partly
responsible for the tendency of Western translation theory to become embroiled in
fruitless arguments about the nature of translation equivalence. The understanding of
this primary relationship is yet another area that must open up if Western translation
theory is to be enlarged, with the field ultimately moving to an a posteriori definition
of equivalence. The contemplation of just the small sampling of non-Western words
for translation that I have provided suggests some of the richness of conceptualiza-
tion that may result.

2. What is needed to unseat these presuppositions?

What must be done in order to move beyond these assumptions, to accommodate
non-Western perspectives on the nature and practice of translation, and to enlarge
translation theory as a consequence? Although in the short term it may be difficult
to change ideas on these points held by people who currently teach and research

19
The result is that a cluster category is a ‘fuzzy category’, so to speak.
24 Translating Others Vol. I

pragmatic aspects of translation, theoreticians of translation must begin to shift these

assumptions within translation theory itself, whence change will eventually ‘trickle
down’ to other branches of the field.20 The following are some brief suggestions for
how to begin, indicating the sorts of concrete research projects that might be under-
taken so as to deepen the theory of translation.

2.1 Exploration of the nature of plurilingual and pluricultural life

To understand adequately how and where translation functions in plurilingual societies

throughout the world, much more information is needed in translation studies about
linguistic behaviour and linguistic mediation in such cultures. Existing studies by
anthropologists, ethnographers, sociologists and linguists on these questions must be
identified and put to use within translation studies. Additional empirical investigations
will probably need to be undertaken in order to garner information that specifically
pertains to translation practices, processes and products in plurilingual cultures. Work
in translation studies must be set on a firm empirical basis regarding the range of actual
conditions and behaviours related to translation in plurilingual societies.

2.2 Integration of knowledge about oral cultures into translation studies

Investigating the nature of oral cultures has been a continuous thread in my own schol-
arly interests, but I still feel that I have only begun to understand the characteristics
of orality and the differences between oral cultures and literate ones. In primary oral
cultures many things are different: how people learn and produce texts, how memory
is conserved, how tradition and variation are viewed, and so forth. Even more basic
things also vary: the meaning of ‘a word’, ‘the same’ and ‘original’, to give only a
few important examples.21 The implications for translation practice in the absence
of fixed texts – both in terms of source text and target text – as well as the specifics
of cultural uptake in traditional oral societies should be investigated by translation
scholars. Translation theorists would also do well to learn the characteristics of sec-
ondary oral cultures, as well as primary ones.
A beginning toward this goal is to valorise research on interpretation, with a
commitment in interpreting studies to shifting attention away from conference in-
terpretation towards interpretation in situations that do not involve fixed texts. The
inclusion of research about interpretation in every issue of Mona Baker’s journal The
Translator is an example of what is needed in journals as well as collections of essays.
I would also second Michael Cronin’s (2002) call for a cultural turn in translation

20
What I believe will follow when theorists become persuasive about the implications of the nature
of translation practices worldwide is the abandonment of prescriptive approaches to translation,
not just in translation theory but ultimately in translation pedagogy as well. This will be the logical
consequence of the broadening of translation theory: that practice will be taught as time, place and
circumstance specific.
21
A classic study of orality is Lord (1964).
Tymoczko: Reconceptualizing Translation Theory 25

studies which will begin to differentiate, contextualize and historicize research on

interpretation.22

2.3 Openness to a greater diversity of text types

Obviously diversity of text type intersects with the differences between oral and literate
cultures. As we have seen, many cultures have different primary forms and text types
from those typical of Western cultures: this rich diversity must be more adequately
integrated into the theory of translation. In the process it is important to reflect the fact
that texts with similar surface structure may perform very different functions and may
hold very different positions in the textual repertories of diverse cultures. The converse
is, of course, also true: text types with divergent surface structures may nonetheless
perform similar functions and hold similar positions crossculturally.
Two cases serve as examples. As I have argued elsewhere (Tymoczko 1997), the
fact that Celtic literatures seem to have no native dramatic forms corresponding to
mainstream European drama may be misleading. The Celtic texts that have been gener-
ally analysed by scholars as exquisite examples of European lyric poetry – emotional
poems in the first person attributed to known historical persons or legendary characters
– should probably be seen instead as examples of a performance genre. Spoken (i.e.,
performed) by members of the native orders of professional poets – reputed for being
prophets, seers and visionaries – such poems are a counterpart to the dramatic literature
which is found in other medieval cultures and which scholars see as ‘missing’ from
early Irish and Welsh literature.
A second example of these issues pertaining to text type is found in the storytell-
ing traditions of some native peoples of North America. Both in tribal council and
in private settings, certain tribes of Native Americans use stories about ostensibly
unrelated topics as a means of achieving consensus and reaching a decision about an
issue under discussion or debate.23 In other words, narrative is the rhetorical form of
discourse and debate. Similarly, allusions to narratives can operate in powerful ways
that are different from those dominant in Western tradition, thus arguably constituting
a distinct text type. Keith Basso (1990: 138-73) gives an example of Apache elders
reflectively trading place names (which alluded to and, hence, encapsulated narratives
serving as exempla) as a means of reflecting on, assessing and coming to agreement
on the meaning of the behaviour of a younger member of the tribe.
As can be seen, reassessment of the question of text types in translation studies
has a variety of facets. Those interested in the theory of translation must become
expert in the wide variety of text types used in human cultures throughout the world,
in the assessment of both surface structures and deep structures of texts, and in the
understanding of such features as embeddedness, as discussed earlier. These are
preliminaries to expanding translation theory and theorizing non-Western translation
data.

22
See also Hatim (1997: 200-212) who stresses the importance of research on and training in com-
munity interpretation in translation studies.
23
This practice continues even among some assimilated tribes, such as the Mashpees of
Massachusetts.
26 Translating Others Vol. I

2.4 Attention to processes of translation in other cultures

What types of translation processes are found throughout the world? Translation
scholars should inventory the repertory of actual translation practices worldwide,
investigating as well the boundary between transmission (or transfer) of cultural
materials and translation per se in various societies. The black-box model of the
individual translator working alone must be superseded by more accurate data on
the range and frequency of different types of translation processes, including those
that are emerging as a result of the development of modern technology, information
devices, and the like. But inventory is not sufficient: the different types of processes
must be analysed for their implications and then theoretized within an expanded view
of translation.

2.5 Recognition of all types of translators: beyond professionalism

If a broader view of process becomes part of translation theory, it follows that there
will be a broader view of translators – not only of their identities, but their train-
ing, their capabilities, and so forth. The idea of the translator as a professional is a
pretheoretical construct, based on Eurocentric practice and translation history. As the
discipline becomes more inclusive of non-Western data, Western cultural imperatives
about who translators are and how they should behave will also shift in the formula-
tion of theory.

2.6 Knowledge of the history of cultural movements and cultural interface

Clearly the best way to achieve change in translation theory and practice and to im-
prove understandings about translation is to gather more historical data about cultural
diasporas and migrations, patterns of cultural interface and hybridity, and histories
of translation movements as the phenomena have occurred throughout the history of
the world. More information and more particular information about the operations
of immigrant societies can also be gathered by translation scholars, with a view to
understanding what cultural elements remain intact, how blendings occur, and how
these effects impact on translation itself in such situations.

2.7 and 2.8. Expansion of the object of study: redefining translation and the
relationship between text and translation

Implicitly I have already suggested a number of things that should be done in transla-
tion studies to enlarge and redefine the object of study (and its corollary, to reconfigure
concepts about ways that a text and its translation are related), including examining
the meanings of words for translation in non-Western contexts and looking at specific
historical traditions associated with those variant conceptions of translation. In theo-
rizing the data it is essential to view translation as a cluster concept, moving beyond
attempts to define translation as a logical concept or a prototype concept, which have
Tymoczko: Reconceptualizing Translation Theory 27

resulted in so many Eurocentric pronouncements about the field. Clearly, in order to

understand the scope of the cluster concept called translation in English, translation
studies scholars must be assiduous in seeking out more of the world’s words for trans-
lation, as well as in investigating in detail the connotations, implications, translation
practices and actual histories of translation associated with those terms. Only by en-
gaging in such an investigative enterprise can translation scholars fully understand the
objects of research in translation studies – encompassed in the large and complicated
cluster concept of translation – and the types of family resemblances that bind these
objects conceptually, thus expanding translation theory in the process.
In broadening the definition of translation and breaking the hold of Eurocentric
stereotypes of translation, it may also be helpful to consider forms and modes of cul-
tural interface that are related to translation but distinct from it. Such forms include,
for example, postcolonial literature and related hybridized forms of cultural produc-
tion; work on these forms in translation studies has already been productive for the
field.24 Three additional modes of cultural interface to explore are illustrated by the
English words transference, representation and transculturation.
In transference or transmission,25 material is moved from one cultural context to
another, but the mode of transfer is not specified. It can range from physical transfer
to symbolic transfer (such as happens in a bank transfer) or transfer that involves a
radical shift in medium (such as a television transmission). Thus, transference can
result in cultural products that are either very close (even identical) to the source
substance or very different from the source material. In cultural transfer, then, there
is no presupposition about either the process or product of the cultural transposition.
By contrast, translation in a single culture at a single point in time is usually governed
by a cultural prototype encompassing both product and process, notwithstanding the
fact that such prototypes have varied widely through history, from close linguistic
transfer to free adaptation, from fluency to radical abridgment, and so forth, as we
have seen above. Thinking about transference or transmission can remind transla-
tion studies scholars of how varied cultural mediation can be in process and product,
helping to move their thinking beyond their own particular cultural presuppositions
and prototypes.
Still another strand of translation is indicated by the word representation. To
understand some of the parameters involved in representation – parameters that il-
lustrate the power and potential for manipulation in representation – it is useful to
consider the extensive definition of representation in the Oxford English Dictionary:
a representation is

24
See, for example, Bassnett and Trivedi (1999); Simon and St-Pierre (2000); as well as the survey
of publications in Tymoczko (2000).
25
In the Oxford English Dictionary transference is defined as “the act or process of transferring; the
conveyance from one place, person, or thing to another; transfer”. Transmission is essentially treated
as a synonym, defined as “the act of transmitting or fact of being transmitted; conveyance from one
person or place to another; transference”. I use the two words interchangeably in what follows.
28 Translating Others Vol. I

an image, likeness, or reproduction in some manner of a thing; [. . .] the action

or fact of exhibiting in some visible image or form; [. . .] the fact of expressing
or denoting by means of a figure or symbol; symbolic action or exhibition; [.
. .] a statement or account, esp. one intended to convey a particular view or
impression of a matter in order to influence opinion or action; [. . .] a formal
and serious statement of facts, reasons, or arguments, made with a view to
effecting some change, preventing some action; hence, a remonstrance, pro-
test, expostulation; [. . .] the operation of the mind in forming a clear image
or concept; [. . .] the fact of standing for, or in place of, some other thing or
person, esp. with a right or authority to act on their account; substitution of
one thing or person for another.

Thus, representation is a very complex concept with a number of facets. Represen-

tation constructs an image, but implies as well the exhibition of that image. It involves
clarity of knowledge and symbolic substitution. It has a serious import connected
with social goals, including social change. Representation, therefore, presupposes
both a perspective on what is represented and a purpose in the activity itself. In fact,
since the decline of positivism, there has been a new awareness of the constructivist
aspect of representation, of the fact that representation is not an ‘objective’ process.
As a form of definition that involves substitution in the symbolic realm, representation
creates images that have an ideological aspect. It is the power inherent in representa-
tion, the potential for speaking with authority on behalf of another, and the ability to
make statements that have legal or political standing, as well as the inescapability of
a perspective and purpose, that have led to the crisis of representation in the social
sciences, most particularly in anthropology and ethnography, where the potential for
manipulation and ethnocentrism in representations has been discussed and debated
(see, for example, Clifford and Marcus 1986). Obviously translation is a major inter-
cultural form of representation, and, as such, translations must be scrutinized for the
various factors associated with representation, even when translation occurs internally
to a plurilingual society.
Finally, translation can be seen in light of the process of transculturation, which
can be defined as “the transmission of cultural characteristics from one cultural group
to another”.26 The term has come into English from Spanish, where it was first used
to speak about the interchange of cultural characteristics between Europeans and
the indigenous populations in Latin America, and to describe the creolization and
hybridization of most Latin American cultures. Transculturation goes far beyond the
transfer of verbal materials and includes such things as the transfer of ideas about
religion and government; the spread of artistic forms including music and the visual
arts; and transfers having to do with material culture including clothing, food, housing,
transportation, and so forth, not to mention more recent cultural domains such as the

26
This definition is given in passing in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1974:12.65) in a discussion
of the history of Mexico. In the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary the word is simply defined
as ‘acculturation’.
Tymoczko: Reconceptualizing Translation Theory 29

modern media. Thus, the popularity of Chinese food, reggae and U.S. films around the
world are all examples of transculturation. Transculturation has elements in common
with intersemiotic translation, for it is not exclusively or even primarily a linguistic
process. With respect to texts, transculturation is often a matter of transposing ele-
ments that constitute overcodings, such as the poetics, formal literary elements and
genres of literary systems, as well as discourses, worldviews, and so forth. Obviously
transculturation is an essential aspect of cultural interchange in cultures where more
than one language and culture are in interface; indeed transculturation is operative
in any postcolonial nation.
One of the distinguishing aspects of transculturation, in contrast to either rep-
resentation or transmission, is that it entails the performance of specific forms or
aspects of another culture. It is not sufficient that Chinese food be displayed nor de-
fined nor described for transculturation to occur: the food must be eaten and enjoyed
as well. At the same time, paradoxically, transculturation does not always involve
representation; one can easily imagine a person receiving and incorporating into her
life a cultural form with little or no sense that it originated in another cultural setting.
That is, a cultural form can become completely naturalized in the receptor culture
or transculturation can proceed in such a way as to obscure the point of origin of a
specific cultural element.27 This aspect of easy interchange through transculturation
is very common in places that bring together more than one cultural group; many
things may be perceived as perfectly natural in a hybridized culture without people
having a strong sense of their cultural point of origin.
One way of differentiating translations is to say that some are oriented towards
cultural transfer, some towards representation, and some towards transculturation
of source material. With respect to transculturation, some translations actually per-
form the characteristics of their sources, importing genres, reproducing functions
of the source material (say, humour or word play) dynamically, and so forth. Other
translations do not have such performative aspects: they assimilate generic markers
to receptor standards, translate literally and thus obscure word play or humour or
shift the moral or political emphases of the source to sentiments consonant with the
receptor culture. Investigation of transfer, representation and transculturation can
therefore serve to illuminate translations with respect to several major axes, enabling
both descriptive and theoretical analysis.
By teasing apart the foregoing types of cultural interface in specific cultures, the
various dimensions and norms of translation in these cultures will become clearer, and
translation as a general phenomenon will be illuminated as well. In translation stud-
ies this is one path to redefining the objects of study and to understanding in greater
delicacy the way a source relates to its translation in many cultural contexts. It seems
very likely that these three strands of cultural interface are balanced differently in
cultures that see translation as related to biography, to turning over an embroidery,

27
The eating of pizza might be seen as an example of such transculturation through much of the
world: pizza is often not perceived as specifically Italian at all, nor does it generally stand as a
representation of anything Italian to the consumer of the pizza. In certain circumstances it might
even be thought of as American or English in origin.
30 Translating Others Vol. I

or to carrying across. Case studies investigating the relationship of these three com-
ponents of cultural mediation – transfer, representation and transculturation – to each
other and to translation in both Western and non-Western cultures will have important
implications for reconceptualizing translation theory.

3. Conclusion
What are the ideological implications of the project outlined above? Who are to be
the agents of such research programmes and of the expansion of translation theory?
Will the broadening of translation theory become an occasion for a new Oriental-
ism? Will it become a means of adding to the imperial archive?28 Or will Western
thought become more flexible and inclusive on translation, leading to other sorts of
shifts in thinking about language, culture and the interface between peoples? These
are important questions that require some thought.
As with any intellectual theory, translation theory has the potential to be used for
good or ill, for oppression or liberation. Like translation itself, translation theory can
be a two-edged sword. What is clear at present is that translation studies does not stand
in a neutral space. Contemporary Western translation theory is increasingly being em-
braced and used by those who research, teach and practise translation in Asia, Africa
and Latin America. Eurocentric translation theory has been promulgated by teachers
of translation (often educated in North America or Europe), by visiting scholars and
by Bible translators in non-Western parts of the world. Translation theory has followed
the flow and diffusion of English as a dominant international language serving to
spread knowledge of all types to all corners of the globe. Western conceptualizations
of translation are permeating non-Western countries and becoming lenses for perceiv-
ing and understanding local conditions. This is a form of intellectual hegemony that
needs to be reconsidered and, I would suggest, resisted. The dissemination of Western
translation theory will inevitably continue to have a hegemonic character unless it
is interrogated on the basis of differences that exist between dominant Western as-
sumptions and other local knowledges and experiences, differences between Western
histories of translation and other local histories.
If the task of developing translation theory remains primarily a project of Western
scholars, the hegemonic potential of translation studies will increase substantially. By
contrast, that peril will be mitigated if the project brings together people from many
parts of the world, people who best know and understand and can advocate for their
own local conceptions and traditions of translation. Such voices can promote the
self-representation of non-Western perspectives in translation studies. What is to be
hoped is that non-Western translation scholars take the lead in marshalling data and
counterexamples that challenge contemporary translation theory formulated primarily
in the West and that, moreover, the same scholars articulate the implications of and
theorize those data. Such work would resist the extension of Eurocentric theories of

28
On the concept of the imperial archive, see Cronin (2000) and sources cited.
Tymoczko: Reconceptualizing Translation Theory 31

translation that are inadequate to describe or account for much non-Western data. It
would also become a means of resistance against Western constructions of the actual
objects of study in translation studies. Modelled on the internationalism of translation
itself, a refurbished theory might also promote modes of translation and pedagogical
practices that would move beyond dominant Western constructions of and norms for
translation.

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