Questions in the sociology of translation

Andrew Chesterman

Sociology of Translation

Esra TEKER KOZCAZ

08.04.2021
– Networks consist of human and – The sociology of translating focuses on
non-human actors (or resources). translating as a social practice.
– Each actor fulfils a role or
– The practice consists of the performance
function (division of labour. . . ).
of translation tasks (observable as
– Each role has a status (public translation events).
perception. . . ).
– Each task is completed under – The practice is institutionalized, to a
greater or lesser extent.
constraints (norms, policies, other
networks. . . ). – The tasks are carried out by translators, as
– Translation practice is governed people with their own subjectivity, interests
by some notion of quality. and values.

– Translators create and use networks, with

the help of which the tasks are
accomplished via cooperation.
Although some theoretical frameworks Chesterman discusses in this article:
have been proposed, their application
translation and revision processes in
has remained limited and many areas
teamwork;
in sociology of translation are relatively
neglected. co-editing, institutional multilingual
document production (e.g. manuals)

translator-client relations, translation policy,

translator networks;

translators’ use of technical and other

resources, translator status and mobility;

the discourse of translation, and

accreditation systems.
 Distinction between cultural and sociological
The sociocultural research into translation:

context Cultural research focuses on the level of ideas while

sociological research focuses on people and their
observable behaviour.

The opposition between the linguistic context and the

cultural context:

In the 1990’s,scholars began proclaiming the “cultural

turn” that would soon replace the purely linguistic
analysis of texts. Early cultural studies of translation
made much use of polysystem theory, which was
indeed originally developed as a theory of culture and
cultural transfer.
It is argued that the cultural turn
mostly focuses on theory of For example:
culture and cultural transfer (e.g. ● Historical studies:Anthony Pym’s
Polysystem theory)
oversimplifies the development in work on the methodology of
linguistic studies (such as historical research on translation
textlinguistics, discourse analysis, ● Maria Tymoczko and Edwin
pragmatics and cognitive Gentzler speak of “the power turn”
grammar) on ideological aspects of
many works grouped under the translation such as postcolonial
cultural turn actually seems closer issues, gender issues, the
to sociology than cultural studies. manipulation of national identities
and their perception, and the
illusion of the translator’s total
neutrality.
 how culture is best defined: Kroeber and Kluckholm
For attempting (1952: 181):

to clarify the concepts Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit of

and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by
of sociological issues symbols, constituting the distinctive element of
human groups, including their embodiment in
and cultural ones, it artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of

should be drawn a rough traditional (i.e. historically derived and selected) ideas
and especially their attached values. Culture systems
line between these may, on the one hand, be considered as products of
action, on the other hand, as conditioning elements of
concepts. future action.= culture partly as something external
(visible as behaviour and as artifacts), and partly as
internal (ideas and values).=the internal ones are
seen as more central (“core”).
• Geert Hofstede’s (1991) “Onion Model” also
explains culture with its internal and external
factors.
• At the core we have values, and around this,
practices.
• Practices include rituals, heroes and symbols. So
the further out we move from the cultural core,
the more we move into the realm of sociology:
into the realm of social behaviour and social
relations, of institutions, of the production and
distribution of artifacts, etc.
 • cultural systems are both produced by action –
The sociocultural including, and especially, social action – and
serve to influence future action.
context • In short, we have a constant interplay between
actions and ideas, with the causality working both
ways.
• The sociologists focus more on the actions, and
the cultural studies people on the ideas.
➔ Chesterman offers 4 different
contexts:
● Textual context: focuses on the
text, linguistic features etc.
● Cultural context: focuses on
values, ideas, ideologies, traditions
etc.
● Sociological context: focuses on
people (especially translators),
their observable group behavior,
their institutions etc.
● Cognitive context: focuses on
mental processes,decision-making
etc.
 “the sociology of translation” into three sub-areas.
Current models and They are:

frameworks – The sociology of translations as products.

– The sociology of translators.(actor)

– The sociology of translating, i.e. the translation

process.(process) (has received the least attention)
1) Polysystem Theory ● polysystem theory is a cultural rather than a
sociological one.
● It deals with cultural position and status of
translations – particularly literary translations –
in the textual or literary polysystem of the target
culture.

Some polysystem scholars have extended their focus

to more sociological questions, such as Lefevere’s
interest in the institution of patronage: the influence of
publishers and other sponsors in selecting texts to be
translated and in setting or confirming translation
norms.
2) Bourdieu His central concepts is the agents (i.e. translators)
who compete for positions of status and power. For
example:

Jean-Marc Gouanvic has used Bourdieu’s model in his

study of the emergence of science fiction as a new
genre in France after World War II, under the influence
of translation. Gouanvic looks at the roles played in
this emergence by economic factors, key translators
and publishers, marketing practices and book clubs.
The focus is on the factors that gave rise to a new
literary genre in France, not on the actual translating
process itself.
2) Bourdieu Habitus: This is the basic psychological-emotional
disposition of agents (in a field), including notions of
role model, self-image and group identity.

Simeoni has drawn attention to the typical habitus of

translators as one of “voluntary servitude”.

This kind of approach is directed more at the

sociology (or sociopsychology) of translators
themselves, rather than at translations as products or
at the observable process of translating.= Actors
rather than process.
 Luhmann sees society as being constructed of
differentiated systems (the law, the church, politics. .),
3) Luhmann each being constituted of acts of communication.

A translation event can be defined as the duration of a

translation task, from initial request to delivery and
payment.

Following Toury, we can distinguish such events from

translation acts: acts take place in the translator’s
head, at the level of cognition, and are not observable
directly.
 But a translation system contains more than just
translation events. It also contains statements about
3) Luhmann these events: discourse on translation, including such
texts as translation reviews, prefaces and other
paratexts, and also scholarly research on translation:
all these feed into the system, reflecting it and
affecting it. These additional elements show
something about people’s perception of translation (at
a given time and place). (combination of translation
events and people’s perception of translation).

➔ In this sense, the translation system is self-

reflective and self-developing.
➔ Luhmann’s offers the study of factors
influencing translation and translators,
➔ He also offers a way of looking at the relations
between the translation system and other
social systems, in terms of interference and
influence.
 Recent research on translation history has
Translation stressed the roles of individual translators, as
real people living in specific circumstances.
historiography Pym and Delisle and Woodsworth concerns the
sociology of translators.
Pym divides translation historiography into
three areas. Its “archaeology” has to do with
who translated what, how, when, where, for
whom, etc.=“historical criticism,” which looks
at the consequences of translations in terms of
their contribution to “progress.”
● ideological dimension (including the
scholar’s own ideology).
● “explanation,” dimension which explores
the causality of translation, including
social causes.
➔ Pym’s aim is to place translators and
translations in a broad sociohistorical
context.
 These frameworks have also been used in translation
Critical discourse research, in the sense that they allow us to explore the

theory, pragmatics relations between textual features and, for instance,

political aspects of power and ideology.

➔ Norman Fairclough’s theory of critical discourse

analysis
➔ Annie Brisset adapted critical discourse
analysis in her examination of some drama
translations
● Some scholars have adopted a pragmatic
framework in their analysis of translation (see
e.g. Hatim & Mason 1990; Hickey 1998).
● This work applies concepts such as Grice’s
conversational maxims, relevance theory,
politeness and presupposition in the close
textual analysis of translations. (Appiah’s Thick
However, these approaches are too Translation)

restricted in focus. They are really

 “Socio” and “Linguistic”
At the “socio” end, we find research that
Sociolinguistic models examines particular aspects of the social
conditions of translation, i.e translation to
and from creole languages.
At the “linguistic” end, we find many
studies of particular textual features that
have social causes, such as dialects and
other instances of linguistic variation: i.
e the translation of Jim’s vernacular in
Huckleberry Finn
➔ Eugene Nida’s pioneering work in
the 1960s on communicative aspects
of translation.
 Jean Peeters uses a sociolinguistic model based on Jean
Gagnepain’s theory of mediation.
Sociolinguistic models
It is presented as an anthropological theory
foreground correlations it claims to capture what it is that makes human
and causal connections communication human.

between situational There are four key concepts:

features and linguistic 1. The Sign – having to do with designation, meaning,

cognition; (cognitive level)
profile features. 2. The Tool – having to do with production, technology,
ends and means; (the linguistic texts )
3. The Person – having to do with interactions, social
relations; (social terms)
4. The Norm – having to do with values. (cultural level)

Translation is affected not only by one’s own intrinsic manner

of being but also by one’s attitude towards and perception of
others – a view that recalls Bourdieu’s habitus.
Skopos theory

It is related with the role of the

client, to the negotiations between
translator and client concerning
appropriate translation strategies,
and the reactions of the reader.
 Quality control procedures and multilingual documentation
management has not yet really become part of the

Quality control, the mainstream of Translation Studies and has been lacking
on the translation process.
translation market, Translation market: Key concepts here include job
satisfaction, conflict resolution (disagreements and
language planning clashing role perceptions between clients and translators),
and translation policy.

Language planning concerns language and/or translation

policies in multilingual countries or institutions, or for
minority languages.These issues have obvious relevance
for language rights, democracy, and political
development.
Translation practices • Translation is a social practice
and if we see translation as a
social practice we can feel the
gap between the sociocultural
and text-based theoretical
frameworks.
In short, with respect to translation, • Power relations and norms
we can say that the practice of
translation • Policy decisions
(in a given context) is made up of • Relations between
tasks whose performance takes place
via
translators and other agents
translation events (in that context).
 One sociological theory that, at first sight, might seem
eminently applicable to research on translation practice is
Actor-network theory actor-network theory (developed especially by the French
sociologists Bruno Latour and Michel Callon).

The central notion of an actor (or agent or actant) is

understood to include both human and non-human agents:
people interact with machines, computers, books etc., and
all these form part of the socio-technical network in which
science is done, or in which some new engineering project
is undertaken.

The network has no centre, all the elements are

interdependent. Important roles are played by knowledge
systems and by economic factors, as well as by people and
by technical aids.
 Outline for a
sociology of
translation
Current issues and
future prospects
Sociology of Translation
Johan Heilbron and Gisèle
Sapiro
Esra TEKER KOZCAZ
08.04.2021
 Three dimensions of translation in social context:
The article focuses on
1. As cross-national transfers, translations first
the group of translators, imply the existence of a field of international
relations of exchange.
its social profile and the 2. At a more specific level of exchange, one must
distinguish between political, economic and
stratification of their cultural dynamics.

craft. 3. Finally, the dynamics of translation depends on

the structure of the space of reception and on
the way in which relevant intermediaries
(translators, critics, agents, publishers) shape
social demand.
The sociology of translation practices The interpretative approach includes two opposite
is at odds with both the interpretative tendencies:

approach to the text and the economic the objectivist one arises from classic hermeneutics,
analysis of transnational exchanges. which underlies most literary and philosophical
studies of translation,

the subjectivist or relativist one has since the 1960s

developed most notably within the framework of
cultural studies.
the objectivist one: the subjectivist or relativist one
considers translation as the ‘art of
● deals with cultural study of translation
understanding’ and the hermeneutic movement
● insist on the various modes of appropriating
aims at gaining access to the meaning of the
texts,
text and to its uniqueness.
● insist on the instability of their meaning, and on
Mainly focuses on source language, text or
the mutual permeability of cultures.
culture. ● Mainly focuses on target language, text or
culture.

However, both kinds of

analyses, set aside the social
conditions of the
interpretative act.
The economic approach assimilates The relation between an original and its translation
translated books into the most general leads to a series of specifically sociological questions
about:
category of goods, identifying them as
merchandise produced, distributed and the stakes and functions of translations,
consumed according to the logic of national their agencies and agents,
and international markets.
the space in which they are situated and

To brake with both these reductive and the constraints, both political and economic, that
opposite approaches, a proper sociological circumscribe them.
analysis is needed in translation studies and
studies of cultural transfer.
A sociological approach to translation ● firstly, the structure of the field of international
must take into account several aspects cultural exchanges;
● secondly, the type of constraints – political and
of the conditions of transnational economic – that influence these exchanges;
circulation of cultural goods: ● thirdly, the agents of intermediation and the
processes of importing and receiving in the
recipient country.
 To understand the act of translating, one should in a
The international field first stage analyse it as embedded within the power
relations among national states and their languages.
These power relations are of three types

➔ political,
➔ economic,
➔ cultural – the latter split into two aspects:
1. the power relations between linguistic
communities
2. the symbolic capital accumulated by different
countries within the relevant field of cultural
production
In general, the more central a language is in the
translation system, the lower the proportions of
translations as compared to non translated texts.
While the dominant countries “export” their cultural
products widely and translate little into their
languages, the dominated countries “export” little and
“import” a lot of foreign books, principally by
translation.
➔ The proportion of translated books: Less than
4% in the USA and in the UK whereas 35% to
45% in Portugal and Greece respectively.
The more It is not by chance that translation studies has
the cultural production emerged in small countries (Netherlands,Belgium,
Israel), or that translations are more important there
of a country is central, than in countries that are found at the system’s center.

the more it serves as a Since the field of translation studies emerged in

smaller countries with high translation ratios, it is
reference in other possible that the cultural significance of translations
has been somewhat overestimated.
countries, but the less
material is translated
into this language.
 After the collapse of Socialist regimes, the
the power relations international position of Russian underwent such an

among languages also abrupt change:

the number of translations from Russian dropped very

allows us to better sharply, and this drop was accompanied by a sharp
rise in the number of foreign translations published in
understand historical Russia.

changes.
 International cultural exchanges are differentiated
The principles of according to three main factors:
Political relations between countries (political
differentiation in the ➔
ideology such as communist, liberal);
➔ Economic relations between countries
dynamics of exchange (international book markets, global
agreements);
➔ Cultural exchanges between countries
(relatively autonomous literary exchange).

● The two extreme constraints upon the

production and circulation of cultural goods are
politicization, for example, it can be seen in
transfer of literary works from Eastern Europe
during heavily state-controlled Communist
period and commercialization as it can be
observed in the USA where cultural goods
primarily considered as commercial products
that must obey the law of profitability such as
university press publishing or standardized
worldwide bestsellers.
The dominant languages,
due to their specific prestige,
their antiquity, and the number
of texts that are written in these
languages and that are
universally regarded as
important, possess
much literary capital.
 International cultural exchanges are organized by
The agents of means of institutions and individual agents, each

intermediation and the arising from different political, economic and cultural
dynamics.

dynamics of reception ➔ Formation of nation-states: embassies and

government agencies played key role in cultural
exchange
➔ Industrialization of book market: Emergence of
specialized agents in trade of translated books:
independent publishing houses with foreign
rights departments, literary agents, international
book fairs etc.
➔ Professional development and development of
professional associations characterized by
strong individualism and division in terms of
gender, ideology, political and social affiliations
and logic of completion.
The value of translation does not depend only on The translation into central languages constitutes a
the position of languages, but also on the consecration that modifies the position of an author in
positions of both translated authors and their his field of origin.
translators, and each of them in both the national
literary field and the global literary space. Authors who are dominated in a dominant field, for
example, may try to make better their position by
translating dominant authors of dominated fields.
Beginners or authors who have a relatively marginal
position, are often tempted to translate promising but
still unknown authors.