The Scandals of Translation.pdf

TH SCANDAL OF

TRANSLATION

Towards an ethics of difference

Lawrence Venuti

. - .

,A .§.

~"6 0"',,0

r ~ Franc.\'"

London and New York

001J~L1?~Q

c(.

FOR GEMMA LEIGH VENUTI

First published 1998

by Routledge

11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Reprinted 1999

Routledoe is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

Typeset in Bembo by

The Florence Group, Stoodleigh, Devon

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Redwood Books, Trowbridge, Wiltshire

or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,

mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,

including photocopying and recording, or in any information

storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the

publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Venuti, Lawrence

The scandals of translation: towards an ethics of difference /

Lawrence Venuti.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Translating and interpreting - Moral and ethical aspects.

2. Intercultural communication. I. Title.

P306.2.V45 1998.

418'.02 - dc21 98-9530

ISBN 0-415-16929-1 (hbk)

ISBN 0-415-16930-5 (pbk)

C'e un amore piu grande

di te e di me) me e voi nella specie)

acqua su acqua.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1 Heterogeneity

2 Authorship

3 Copyright

4 The formation of cultural identities

5 The pedagogy of literature

6 Philosophy

106

7 The bestseller

124

8 Globalization

158

Acienowledgements

190

193

Bibliography

Index

206

Vll

INTRODUCTION

scandal. A grossly discreditable circumstance, event, or condi-

tion of things.

Oxford English Dictionary

The scandals of translation are cultural, economic, and political. They are

revealed when one asks why translation today remains in the margins of

research, commentary, and debate, especially (although not exclusively) in

English. Any description of these margins risks seeming a mere litany of abuse,

the premise of an incredible victimology oftranslation and the victims it leaves

in its wake. Translation is stigmatized as a form of writing, discouraged

by copyright law, depreciated by the academy, exploited by publishers and

corporations, governments and religious organizations. Translation is treated

so disadvantageously, I want to suggest, partly because it occasions revelations

that question the authority of dominant cultural values and institutions. And

like every challenge to established reputations, it provokes their efforts at

damage control, their various policing functions, all designed to shore up the

questioned values and institutions by mystifying their uses of translation.

My project is, first, to expose these scandals by enquiring into the relation-

ships between translation and a range ofcategories and practices that contribute

to its current marginal status. This enquiry must begin with the emergent dis-

cipline of translation studies. Translation research and translator training have

been impeded by the prevalence of linguistics-oriented approaches that offer

a truncated view of the empirical data they collect. Because such approaches

promote scientific models for research, they remain reluctant to take into

account the social values that enter into translating as well as the study of it.

Research thus becomes scientistic, claiming to be objective or value-free,

ignoring the fact that translation, like any cultural practice, entails the creative

reproduction of values. As a result, translation studies get reduced to the

formulation of general theories and the description of textual features and

strategies. These lines of research are not only limited in their explanatory

power, but directed primarily to other academic specialists in linguistics, instead

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: