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Mary Snell-Hornby. Translation Studies - An Integrated 170 P

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Document generated on 05/23/2024 6:46 a.m.

TTR
Traduction, terminologie, re?daction

Mary Snell-Hornby. Translation Studies – An Integrated


Approach, Revised Edition. Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 1995,
170 p.
Cynthia Burry

Volume 9, Number 2, 2e semestre 1996

Parcours de traduction
Pathways of Translation

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/037269ar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/037269ar

See table of contents

Publisher(s)
Association canadienne de traductologie

ISSN
0835-8443 (print)
1708-2188 (digital)

Explore this journal

Cite this review


Burry, C. (1996). Review of [Mary Snell-Hornby. Translation Studies – An
Integrated Approach, Revised Edition. Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 1995, 170
p.] TTR, 9(2), 232–235. https://doi.org/10.7202/037269ar

Tous droits réservés © TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction — Les auteurs, This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit
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Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal,
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Mary Snell-Hornby. Translation studies - An integrated approach,
Revised Edition. Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 1995, 170 p.

Translation Studies is a revised edition of a highly-informative book


which appeared seven years ago as an academic thesis by Mary Snell-
Hornby at the University of Vienna. The original book's success was
overwhelming and prompted the revised edition. The author has added
to the original by translating or paraphrasing the German quotations in

9. Cf. par xemple les ouvrages de Coulet et May qui demeurent parmi
les plus lus sur le roman au XVIIIe s. Coulet mçntionne brièvement
la traduction du Joseph Andrews « en 1750 » et donc avec une erreur
de datation (p. 429).

232
the text so as to make them more transparent for an English-speaking
audience. She also revised her Future perspectives section on
Translation Studies, from a 1995 perspective, added some new
selections to the bibliography and included an index of names and key
terms for easier reference (compiled by Gudrun Huemer).

The author comments in the preface and in the introduction to


Translation Studies that it is not a book about literary translation, but
it is rather an attempt to bridge the gap between translatology and
literary language. She explains that literary language has been 'excluded
as being 'deviant,' inaccessible to scientific analysis.' (p. 1) The book
is divided into five sections in which the author presents various
approaches, methods and concepts from translation theory and
linguistics so as to provide more insight into the theory, practice and
analysis of literary translation.

The first section, 'Translation as an independent discipline,'


discusses the position of translation departments in universities, how
they are situated somewhere between linguistics and literature and how
it is used merely as a vehicle for language teaching. This prompts an
interesting discussion on the concepts and the attitudes towards
translation over the years. The author notes various translation theorists
and their ideas and comments on those which apply to her integrated
approach towards translation studies. One of the interesting aspects
discussed in this section is that of equivalence, the term that came to
replace the dichotomy of faithful ox free.

The following section in Translation Studies is entitled


'Translation as a cross-cultural Event,' and discusses in great detail how
translation is not a mere process of transcoding words from one
language to another, but that it is a cultural transfer from one culture to
another. The authors stresses the importance of being bi-cultural, not
just bilingual. She cites different theorists such as Honig and Kussmaul
who view texts as "a verbalized part of a socioculture" (p. 44). One of
the translator's task is to decide whether to keep the cultural function
of the source text or whether to adapt the text to the needs of the target
text. She gives various explicit examples to illustrate her ideas.

233
In the third section, 'Translation, text and language,' the author
discusses the importance of text analysis in the translation process. A
text, she says, should not be analyzed in parts, but as a whole, from the
'macro-level' to the 'micro-level.' A text is more than a 'linguistic
phenomena,' it has a 'communicative function,' reflecting the culture
and society in which it was written. The analysis begins on the macro
level with "identifying the text in terms of culture and situation," (p. 69)
then it is reduced to the micro level, where the structure of the text (the
title, etc.) are analyzed. Afterwards, the translator will have a deeper
understanding of the make-up and structure of the text and this has a
great influence on the translation process. The author illustrates this
analysis with a text by W. Somerset Maugham entitled 'The Pacific'
which characterizes the Pacific as 'inconstant' and compares this to the
'soul of man.' Snell-Hornby then compares her textual analysis to the
German translation to illustrate a translation's shortcomings if a text is
viewed as a string of words and not as a whole. The author continues
to explain in greater detail the process of textual analysis with the aid
of examples which are very insightful.

The fourth section of the book, 'From special language to


literary translation,' examines the relation between situation and status
of the source text and the function of the target text with reference to
four texts in the appendix, three of a specialized nature and one literary.
The author uses these examples to illustrate how translations may need
to be altered for the target culture, depending on the information in
question and the audience. As Snell-Hornby states, "a text has its own
situational relationship to reality" (p 112). She then goes on to discuss
style (syntax, semantics and lexis as well as formal text presentation)
and the appropriate translation strategies and methods, again with
reference to the four above-mentioned texts.

At the end of Translation Studies, there is an extensive


bibliography as well as the author's 'Future perspectives'from1988 and
an updated version from 1995. In thefirstedition she expresses how the
field of Translation Studies is rapidly growing, but that it is in need of
a more 'theoretical basis' to prevent it from being "dismissed as either
mechanical [...] or mysterious" (p. 131). She also states that translation
is above all a specialized activity to be executed by professionals, and
that translation students are lacking the training to live up to such

234
expectations. SnellrHomby also points out that a more standardized
system of translation critique is needed, in order to "raise and maintain
[professional] standards" (p. 133). In her revised edition of 'Future
perspectives' the author expresses that the field of Translation Studies,
especially regarding research, is developing at an impressive rate, and
she lists the various areas that have been investigated recently. The
author also comments on the boom of translation training centres and
mentions that the older translation schools ("at least in the German-
speaking area" (p. 134)) are still in need of new study programmes and
tofreethemselvesfromtraditional language departments. She concludes
by saying that with the rapid growth of international development and
economics, translators will be required not only to be competent in
languages, but also knowledgeable and specialized in other fields. She
feels that translators will play an important role in the future, but that
it will be the work of researchers and teachers that will prove the
success of Translation Studies in the next century.

I cannot do justice to the integrity and the wealth of


information provided by Translation Studies in this review. Mary Snell-
Hornby has written a truly remarkable book which would be of interest
to anyone concerned with translation theories, methods and approaches
over the years and how they apply to literary translation and translation
in general. As the author quotes at the end of her first edition, "It is
easy to plough when the field has been cleared" (p. 131). Translation
Studies has fulfilled the main goal of the author, that is to clear away
old concepts, prejudices and ideas and to fill the space with a new
integrated approach comprised of various texts and translations with
reference to relevantfields.This book is well worth reading for the first
and second time.
Cynthia Burry
York University

235

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