You are on page 1of 5

Venuti, L (2001) Strategies of Transtation. In M. Baker (ed.

), Routìedge Encyciopedia of
Translation Studies. London & New York: Routìedge, pp. 240-244.

Strategies of
translation
Strategies of translation involve the basic tasks
of choosing the foreign text to be translated and
developing a method to translate it. Both of
these tasks are determined by various factors:
cultural, economie, politicai. Yet the many
different strategies that nave emerged since
antiquity can perhaps be divided into two large
categories. A translation project may conform to
values currently dominating the target-language
culture, taking a conservative and openly
assimilationist approach to the foreign text,
appropriating it to support domestic canons,
publishing trends, politicai alignments. Altema-
tively, a translation project may resist and aim
to revise the dorninant by drawing on the margi-
nai, restoring foreign texts excluded by
domestic canons, recovering residuai values
such as archaic texts and translation methods,
and cultivating emergent ones (for example,
new cultural forms). Strategies in producing
translations inevitably emerge in response to
domestic cultural situations. But some are
deliberately domestìcating in their handling of
the foreign text, while ofhers can be described
as foreignizing, motivated by an impulse to
preserve linguistic and cultural differences by
deviating from prevailing domestic values.

Domesticati ng strategies
Domesticating strategies have been imple-
mented at least since ancient Rome, when, as
Strategies of translation 241

Nietzsche remarked, 'translation was a form of success that greeted the English version of
conquest' and Latin poets like Horace and Italian writer Umberto Eco's novel The Name
Propertius translated Greek texts 'into the of the Rose (1983) drove American publishers
Roman present': 'they had no time for ali those to pursue the translation rights for similar
very personal things and names and whatever foreign texts at the international book fairs
might be considered the costume and mask of (McDowell 1983). Yet what most contributed
a city, a coast, or a century' (Nietzsche 1974: to the success of the translation was the sheer
137). As a result, Latin translators not only familiarity of Eco's narrative to American
deleted culturally specific markers but also readers fond of such popular genres as histori-
added allusions to Roman culture and replaced cal romances and murder mysteries. By the
the name of the Greek poet with their own, sarne token, the Italian novelist Giovanni
passing the translation off as a text originally Guareschi was a best-seUer in English transla-
written in Latin. tion during the 1950s and 1960s largely
Such strategies find their strongest and because bis social satires of Italian village life
most influential advocates in the French and championed Christian Democratic values and
English translation traditions, particularly therefore appealed to American readers absorb-
during the early modem period. Here it is ing the anti-Soviet propaganda of the Cold War
evident that domestication involves an adher- era. The eponymous hero of Guareschi's first
ence to domestic literary canons both in book in English, The Little World of Don
choosing a foreign text and in developing a Camillo (1950), is a priest who engages in
translation method. Nicolas Perrot D'ABLAN- amusing ideologica! skirmishes with a Com-
COURT (see FRENCH T R A D U I O N ) , a prolific munist mayor and always comes out the victor.
French translator of Greek and Latin, argued Domesticating translation has frequently
that the ellipticaì brevity of Tacitus' prose been enlisted in the service of specific domestic
must be rendered freely, with the insertion agendas, imperialist, evangelica!, professional.
of explanatory phrases and the deletion of Sir William Jones, president of the Asiatic
digressions, so as 'to avoid offending the Society and an administrator of the East India
delicacy of our language and the correctness Company, translated the Institutes of Hindu
of reason' (1640: preface; translated). The Law (1799) into English to increase the effec-
domestic values that such a strategy inscribed tiveness of British colonialism, constructing a
in the foreign text were affiliated with an racist image of the Hindus as unreliable inter-
aristocratic Hterary culture (D'Ablancourt's preters of their native'culture (Niranjana 1992).
translation was dedicated to bis court patron, For Eugene Nida, domestication assists the
Cardinal Richelieu) but they were also dis- Christian missionary: as translation consultant
tinctly nationalist. Under D'Ablancourt's to organizations dedicated to the dissemination
influence, the English translator Sir John of the Bible, he has supervised numerous trans-
DENHAM (see BRTTISH TRADITION) rendered lations that 'relate the receptor to modes of
Book 2 of the Aeneid in heroic couplets, behavior relevant within the context of his
asserting that ' i f Virgil must needs speak own culture' (1964: 159; see also BTBLE
English, it were fit he should speak not only as TRANSLATION). The multi-volume English
a man of this Nation, but as a man of fhis age' version of Freud's texts known as the Standard
(1656: A3r). In domesticating foreign texts Edition (1953-74) assimilated his ideas to the
D'Ablancourt and Denham did not simply positivism dominating the human sciences in
modernize them; both translators' were in fact Anglo-American culture and thus facilitated the
mamtainirig the literary standards of the social acceptance of psychoanalysis in the medicai
élite while constructing cultural identities for profession and in academic psychology (Bettel-
their nations on the basis of archaic foreign heim 1983; Venuti 1993b).
cultures (Zuber 1968; Venuti 1993a).
Economie considerations sometimes under-
Foreignizing strategies
lie a domesticating strategy in translation, but
they are always qualified by current cultural A foreignizing strategy in translation was first
and politicai developments. The enormous formulated in German culture during the
242 Strategies of translation

classica! and Romantic periods, perhaps most standards, and ethical norms in the target
decisively by the philosopher and theologian language. Hence, when foreignizing transla-
Friedrich SCHLETERMACHER (see GERMAN tion is revived by twentieth-century German
TRADITION) (Berman 1992). In an 1813 lecture theorists like Rudolf Pannwitz and Walter
'On the Different Methods of Translating', Benjamin, it is seen as an instrument of
Schleiermacher argued that 'there are only cultural innovation. For Pannwitz, 'the transla-
two. Either the translator leaves the author in tor makes a fundamental error when he
peace, as much as possible, and moves the maintains the state in which his own language
reader toward him. Or he leaves the reader in happens to be instead of allowing his language
peace, as much as possible, and moves the to, be strongly affected by the foreign langu-
author toward him' (quoted in Lefevere age' (1917: 242; translated).
1992b: 149). Schleiermacher acknowledged From its origins in the German tradition,
that most translation was domesticating, an foreignizing translation has meant a close
ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to adherence to the foreign text, a literalism^hat
target-language cultural values, bringing the resulted in the importation of foreign cultural
author back home. But he much preferred a forms and the development of heterogeneous
foreignizing strategy, an ethnodeviant pressure diaiects and discourses. Johann Heinrich
on those values to register the linguistic and Voss's hexameter versions of the Odyssey
cultural difference of the foreign text, sending (1781) and the Iliad (1793) introduced this
the reader abroad. prosodie form into German poetry, eliciting
The French theorist Antoine BERMAN (see Goethe's praise for putting 'rhetorical, rhyth-
F R E N C H TRADITION) viewed Schleiermaeher's mical, metrical advantages at the disposai of
argument as an ethics of translation, concerned the talented and knowledgeable youngster
with making the translated text a site where a (Lefevere 1992b: 77). Friedrich Holderlin's
cultural other is not erased but manifested - translations of Sophocles' Antigone and
even i f this otherness can never be manifested Oedipus Rex (1804) draw on archaic and
in its own terms, only in those of the target nonstandard diaiects (Old High German and
language (1985: 87—91). For while foreigniz- Swabian) while incorporating diverse religious
ing translation seeks to evoke a sense of the discourses, both dominant (Lutheran) and
foreign, it- necessarily answers to a domestic marginai (Pietistic) (George Steiner 1975:
situation, where it may be designed to serve a 323-33; Berman 1985: 93-107). Hòlderlin
cultural and politicai agenda. Schleiermacher exemplifies the risk of incomprehension that is
himself saw this translation strategy as an involved in any foreignizing strategy: in the
important practice in the Prussian nationalist effort to stage an alien reading experience, his
movement during the Napoleonic Wars: he felt translations so deviated from native literary
that it could enrich the German language by canons as to seem obscure and even unread-
developing an élite literature free of the French able to his contemporaries.
influence that was then dominating German Foreignizing entails choosing a foreign
culture, which would thus be able to realize its text and developing a translation method
historical destiny of gìobal domination (Venuti along lines which are excluded by dominant
1991). cultural values in the target language. During
Yet in so far as Schleiermacher theorized the eighteenth century, Dr John Nott reformed
translation as the locus of cultural difference, the canon of foreign literatures in English by
not the homogeneity that his imperialist devising translation projeets that focused on
nationalism might imply, he was effectively the love lyric instead of the epic or satire, the
recommending a translation practice that most widely translated genres in the period.
would undermine any language-based concept He published versions of Johannes Secundus
of a national culture, or indeed any domestic Nicolaius (1775), Petrarch (1777), Hafiz
agenda. A foreignizing strategy can signify the (1787), Bonefonius (1797), and the first
difference of the foreign text only by assuming book-length collections of Propertius (1782)
an oppositional stance toward the domestic, and Catullus (1795). Nott rejected the
challenging literary canons, professional 'fastidious regard to delicacy' that might have
Strategies of translation 243

required him to delete the explicit sexual the same foreign text. In the early 1960s, for
references in Catullus' poems, because he felt instance, the American translators Norman
that 'history should not be falsified' (1795: Shapiro and Paul Blackburn were both trans-
x). His translation provoked a moral panie lating Provencal troubadour poetry. Consider
among reviewers, who renewed the attack their versions of the first stanza from a poem
decades later when expressing their prefer- by Gaucelm Faidit:
ence for George Lamb's bowdlerized Catullus
Us cavaliere si jazia
(1821).
ab la re que plus volia;
soven baizan li dizia:
Domesticating vs. foreignizing strategies • - Doussa res, ieu que farai?
que-1 joms ve e la nueytz vai,
Determining whether a translation project is
ay!
domesticating or foreignizing clearly depends
qu'ieu aug que li gaita cria:
on a detailed reconstruction of the cultural
'Via! sus! qu'ieu vey la jom
formation in which the translation is produced
venir apres l'alba. '
and consumed; what is domestic or foreign
(Mouzat 1965: 555)
can be defined only with reference to the
changing hierarchy of values in the target- A knight was with his lady fondly lying -
language culture. For example, a foreignizing The one he cherished most - and gently sighing
translation may constitute a historical inter- As he kissed her, complained: My love, the day
pretation of the foreign text that is opposed to Soon will arrive, chasing this night away.
prevailing criticai opinion. In the Victorian
Alas!
controversy that pitted Francis Newman's
Already I can hear the watchman crying:
Iliad (1856) against Matthew Arnold's Oxford
Begone!
lectures On Translating Homer (1860), what
Quickly, begone! You may no longer stay,
was foreignizing about Newman's translation
For it is dawn.
was not only that it used archaism to indicate
(Shapiro 1962: 72)
the historical difference of the Greek text, but
that it presented Homer as a popular rather A knight once lay beside and with
than an ..élite, poet. Newman cast his transla- the one he most desired,
tion in ballad metre and constructed an and in between their kisses said,
archaic lexicon from widely read genres like what shall I do, my sweet?
the historical novel; he thought that Sir Walter Day comes and the knight goes
Scott would bave been the ideal translator of Ai!
Homer. Arnold argued, however, that Homer And I hear the watcher cry:
should be rendered in hexameters and modem 'Up! On your way!
English so as to bring the translation in line I see day
with the current academic reception of the
coming on, sprouting behind the dawn!'
Greek text. Whereas Newman wanted to
(Blackburn 1978: 195)
address an audience that was non-specialist
and non-academic, composed of different Shapiro adopts a domesticating strategy.
social groups, Arnold aimed to please classi- His lexicon, while intelligible to contemporary
ca! scholars, who, he felt, were the only English-language readers, makes use of archa-
readers qualified to judge translations from isms that are recognizably poetica!, drawn
classical languages. Newman's translation from the tradition of rmieteenth-century verse:
strategy was foreignizing because populist; alas, begone, cherished. Although his verse
the translation that Arnold preferred was structure, both metrical and rhyming, is
domesticating because élitist, assimilating intended to approximate Faidit's musical
Homer to literary values housed in authorita- stanza, Shapiro effectively àssimilates the
tive cultural institutions like the university. Provenga! text to the traditional forms fav-
Translation strategies can often be deter- oured by noted American poets, such as
mined by comparing contemporary versions of Robert Lowell and Richard Wilbur, who had
1
244 Subtitling

achieved national reputations by the 1960s See a/so:


(Perkins 1987). Blackburn adopts a foreigniz- ADAPTATION; F R E E TRANSLATION; IDEOLOGY
ing strategy. His lexicon mixes the standard AND TRANSLATION; LTTERAL TRANSLATION;
dialect of current English with archaism (to He PURE L A N G U A G E .
with, meaning 'to engagé in sexual inter-
course'), colloquialism (in betwèen, coming Further reading
on), and foreign words (the Provencal ai). Blanchot 1971; Cohen 1962; Ebel 1969;
Although his verse structure, both rhythmical Graves 1965; Heylen 1993; Lefevere 1992a;
and intermittently rhyming, aims to approxi- Simon 1987; Venuti 1995a.
mate the musicality of Faidit's stanza,
Blackburn actually assimilates the Provencal LAWRENCE VENUTI
text to the open forms favoured by experimen-
tal poets, such as Robert Creeley and Charles
Olson, who at the time were on the fringes of
American literary culture (von Hallberg 1985).
Shapiro's domesticating version relies on
canonical values, whose authority fosters the
illusion that it is an exact equivalent or a trans-
parent window on to Faidit's poem. Black-
burn's foreignizing version relies on marginai
values, whose strangeness invites the recogni-
tion that it is a translation produced in a
different culture at a different period. The
distinction between their strategies is particu-
larly evident in their additions to the Provencal
text: Shapiro makes his version conform to the
familiar image of the yearning courtly lover by
adding gently sighing and complained; Black-
burn seeks estranging effects that work only in
English by adding the pun on night in Day
comes and the knight goes, as well as the
surreal image of the sun sprouting.
As this example suggests, foreignizing
strategies have been implemented in literary
as opposed to technical translation. Technical
translation is fundamentally domesticating:
intended to support scientific research,
geopolitica! negotiation, and economie
exchange, it is constrained by the exigencies
of communication and therefore renders
foreign texts in standard diaiects and ter-
minologies to ensure immediate intelligibility.
L I T E R A R Y TRANSLATION, in contrast, focuses
on linguistic effects that exceed simple com-
munication (tone, connotation, polysemy,
intertextuality) and are measured against
domestic literary values, both canonical and
marginai. A literary translator can thus experi-
ment in the choice of foreign texts and in the
development of translation methods, con-
strained primarily by the current situation in
the target-language culture.

You might also like