Translation Historiography Research Articles

Contribución al estudio historiográfico de la traducción. Propuesta de un manual de lecturas guiadas y sus aplicaciones

Following an increase in the publication of anthologies focusing on the diachronic dimension of translation discourse in recent years, it seems timely to consider the historical research that has been carried out in this area in the last decades. The present article argues that there is a need to compile a translation historiography reader that serves to provide some keys to understanding the evolution of this multi-facetted and dynamic discipline. In line with the traditional remit of this genre, the proposed reader will have a mainly pedagogical function and will contain a well-contextualised selection of texts representative of research in the area of the History of Translation over the past forty years.

Japanese translation historiography: Origins, strengths, weaknesses and lessons

In order to broaden and more equitably represent the field of translation historiography, it is ethically and methodologically important to explore cultural specificities in discourses around this field. Yet we also need to recognize that the writing of history can have transcultural origins and that these external influences might, in turn, shape the fabric of translation historiography. Alongside endogenous elements, much of Japanese historiography is in fact derived from Chinese and European paradigms and methods, which were subsequently adapted to Japanese circumstances. This paper outlines those influences and explores major themes in Japanese translation historiography (both academic and popular), as well as the strengths and weaknesses of Japanese approaches. It also considers what lessons Japanese and non-Japanese translation historiographers might learn from each other today.

Translation historiography in the Modern World

Nearly all scholarly works about the encounter of Iran with European modernity emphasize the role of translation not only in introducing new literary forms into the Persian literary system, but also in becoming the main engine of change and modernization of the culture. This paper concerns itself with this constructivist narrative of the available historiographical discourse and the translational environment between 1851 and 1921 in Iran. After describing the field of translation in the period in question, I challenge the uncritical conception of translation as a positive force by, on the one hand, investigating hypothetical cultural and linguistic implications, and on the other hand, questioning the power of translation per se, as ascribed to it in the above mentioned historiographical discourse, in socio-cultural modernization. This will prioritize the individual and cultural translational effects over the supposed institutional ones.

Chaos Before Order: Network Maps and Research Design in DTS

This paper explores how the notion of “network” can help expand the framework of translation historiography by providing a fuller inventory of translation-related phenomena in the initial phases of researching an attempt to supplement more critical approaches based on models of social causation. The case chosen for this study is the field of popular translated literature in Turkey during two different time periods, the 1960s and the 2000s, explored via the operation of a large publishing house, Altın Kitaplar (Golden Books). For the purposes of the paper, Altın Kitaplar is viewed as the focal point of a wide network composed of publishers, translators, authors, editors, readers, and government and literary institutions. A detailed review of its structure and activities offers a gateway into this network, which is traced in a number of directions, unveiling a series of interrelations with other fields in the publishing world that have largely gone unnoticed.

A Promising Research Ground: Translation Historiography in Brazil

In Brazil, studies in Translation History began in the late eighties and expanded to the extent that by 1998 they had become an area per se in translation fori. The theories by Lefevere, Toury and Holmes are being applied to large corpuses of translations produced from the forties to the seventies in an effort to disclose publishing practices affecting the translation of fiction and the formation of a readership for this genre. New trends in the field include the pooling of human resources to deal with larger projects and an interest in how market demands affect the work of translators.

Imagining Indian Literature: Towards a Historiography of Translation

Imagining Indian Literature: Towards a Historiography of Translation

Shortcomings in the historiography of translation

A l'heure où les relations internationales subissent de profonds changements, l'historiographie de la traduction réveille un nouvel intérêt. Or, les méthodes qu'elle utilise sont-elles à la hauteur des circonstances? Nous voudrions, dans cet article, formuler une hypothèse sur l'effet historique des traductions, non pas pour la justifier empiriquement mais afin de voir comment certaines approches contemporaines pourraient la vérifier. Nous constatons que, du point de vue de notre hypothèse, ces approches comportent sept inconvénients méthodologiques: a) l'accu-mulation archéologique de données qui ne répondent à aucune problématique explicite, b) la dépendance générale du matériau anecdotique, c) la périodisation indiscriminée, d) les traductions vues comme expressions plutôt que comme facteurs de changements historiques, e) le privilège axiomatique accordé aux cultures cibles, f) des hypothèses infalsifiables, g) peu d'espace systémique pour l'interculturalité du traducteur.