The translator’s sociological biography and life telos: the case of John Minford

Abstract

ABSTRACT The ‘human turn’ in Translation Studies has recently drawn attention to the translator’s personal motivation, or ‘telos.’ However, this concept is largely underdeveloped due to a lack of proper conceptual and methodological frameworks. This study aims to propose a theoretical model for constructing the translator’s life teloi based on the structural analysis of their sociological biography. This approach, which draws upon Bernard Lahire’s sociology at the level of the individual and borrows conceptual tools such as ‘biographical ruptures’ and ‘existential problems’, is used to examine the life teloi of the Chinese-English literary translator John Minford. Minford’s sociological biography is reconstructed and then broken down to highlight his sociological ruptures and existential problems. The structural analysis of Minford’s biography indicates that he has a life telos of ‘translation as utopia’, which was forged before his entry into a translation career and had considerable influences on his translation activities. This suggests that there may be complex links between a translator’s life and practice. As such, it seems promising to investigate the translator’s personal history and explore the genesis of their motivations for engaging in translation, their selection of source texts, their preferences among translation norms, and their unique translation choices.