Reflections on a disciplinary trinity
Reflections on a disciplinary trinity
Andrew Chesterman
www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto
www.helsinki.fi/yliopisto
A disciplinary trinity
FOR: the applied view. TS for translators / trainers / society / an ideology? .... Prescriptive. Quality issues.
AS: the hermeneutic view. Seeing something as something. Metaphors of translation, translation as art / as narrative... > conceptual analysis, centrality of interpretation.
IF: the empirical view. What do I observe if I look here, in this way / under these conditions...? If this happens, why? With what effect?
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A classic source of the trinity idea: � Holmes’ The Name and Nature of TS � (Copenhagen, August 1972)
[I]n what has preceded, descriptive, theoretical, and applied translation studies have been presented as three fairly distinct branches of the entire discipline [...]. [T]he relation [between them] is a dialectical one, which each of the three branches supplying materials for the other two, and making use of the findings which they in turn provide it. Translation theory, for instance, cannot do without the solid, specific data yielded by research in descriptive and applied translation studies, while on the other hand one cannot even begin to work in one of the other two fields without having at least an intuitive theoretical hypothesis as one's starting point. In view of this dialectical relationship, it follows that, though the needs of a given moment may vary, attention to all three branches is required if the discipline is to grow and flourish.
(Section 3.31)
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�An example of relations between the three
Descriptive empirical TS research, using concepts like quality, translation solution, equivalence, reader type ... risk ... understanding ... accessibility ... (defined / classified as...)
can study the effects of different translations of a given text on given kinds of readers
and draw conclusions about correlations between features of the translations and features of the effects,
and hence suggest (prescriptive!) guidelines for how to translate...
– which is what all teachers do anyway:
>> “IF you translate like this, I predict (on the basis of ...) that the client will not like it or misunderstand! So don’t!”
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An opposition? � The Target Forum debate on “shared ground inTS” �(2000, Target 12.1 and f.)
With Rosemary Arrojo
Framed as “postmodern cultural studies” vs “an empirical, descriptive field”
and as essentialism (claims about objective meanings and invisible translators) vs non-essentialism (claims about non-stability of meaning, centrality of interpretation, and inevitable visibility of the translator)
Grand result: not much shared ground found...
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Another opposition? � Gile: two research traditions?�[http://www.est-translationstudies.org/resources/research_issues_index.html]
Liberal arts tradition (looser requirements on valid argument, evidence and testability; mainly qualitative; allows more creative speculation, to generate new ideas...)
vs
Natural science tradition (more rigorous demands on evidence, explicitness and inference, and more quantitative)
> Different academic norms?
[Or just issues of research quality control?]
[ >>> The role of conceptual analysis in empirical work >>> ]
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Are these oppositions necessary?
CRITT is an empirical project, but also has obvious applications,
and it makes use of conceptual analysis...
Indeed, we cannot do research at all without this!
>> Examples...
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Some purely conceptual issues arising from CRITT
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Some purely conceptual issues arising from CRITT (cont.)
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To what extent is categorrization culture-bound? (Cf. Whorf et al.)
Is Western culture more prone than the East to look for single causes rather than a holistic network of contextual factors?
Does Western culture perceive more in terms of categories, and the East more in terms of relationships?
(Richard Nisbett, The Geography of Thought, 2003)
Cf. Dawkins: our “obsession with discrete names” is an instance of “the tyranny of the discontinuous mind” (The Ancestor’s Tale, 2004: 252).
> a kind of reification fallacy?
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Some purely conceptual issues arising from CRITT (cont.)
• Model as structure (“architecture”)?
• Model of a process? (and what do we mean by ‘process’)?
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Some purely conceptual issues arising from CRITT (cont.)
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“More trees, better health, study finds”�(Guardian Weekly 17.7.2015)
Residents report feeling better and having fewer health problems when there are more trees on their street...
“While the study does not make clear what, if any, direct impact trees have on human health – or whether the link is merely correlational – Kardan [the lead author, U. of Chicago] said in real life ‘most things happen both ways’.
??
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Three ways of explaining – of “making sense”
Causality: (but: rarely nomic in the humanities!)
Generalization: (See Croft [1990] 2003: 284-5)
Unification: (Salmon 1998)
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Unification
Wesley Salmon (1998)
Aim: to show how the explanandum fits into a wider context; to “colligate facts under a new concept”
> a kind of contextualization...
showing a pattern with an organizing principle
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Unification
Wesley Salmon (1998)
Aim: to show how the explanandum fits into a wider context; to “colligate facts under a new concept”
> a kind of contextualization...
showing a pattern with an organizing principle
E.g. eco-translatology: translation as adaptation and selection; texts and actors in an environment > ecology of translation... (Cf. e.g. Hu Gengshen, 2003)
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Multiple explanations
• Causal chain? A >> B >> C >> D >> E ...
E.g. Why this textual feature?
< translator’s cognition
< social factors (publisher policy, censureship, time and resources available, client’s choice of translator etc....)
< cultural factors (ideology, language status etc...)
• Cluster of conditions? A + B + C + D >> E
• Combine different types of explanation?
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“When discussing scientific explanation, it is important to avoid thinking and talking about the unique correct explanation of any given phenomenon. There may, in general, be several different correct explanations of any such phenomenon. There will normally be many different sets of explanatory facts from which to construct a correct explanation. […] A given fact may have correct explanations of different types, in particular correct causal explanations and correct unifying explanations.”
(Salmon 1998: 360, emphases original.)
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Multiple explanation example: Pym 2008
A study (Gile 1989) on omissions in interpreting argues that omissions are ways of coping with cognitive overload... Even when the experiment is repeated, there are still omissions.
But
Pym argues that of these omissions, some carry low communicative risk and some high communicative risk. When the experiment is repeated, omissions tend to be low-risk ones. This shows that interpreters do some “context-sensitive risk analysis”, which highlights influence of context (not just cognitive capacity).
> Explanation for omissions: both cognitive and contextual...
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Explaining means “showing relations”...
• of similarity
e.g. metaphorical
generalization
correlation
• of cause
• of context
... and then showing how these relations fit into a theory (or theories)... (e.g. re cognition, ideology, norm theory, risk management theory...)
... and then, in order to convince, testing the proposed explanation!
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In principle, �the answers to all these conceptual questions about definitions, interpretations, classifications, models and explanations etc.�are��interpretive hypotheses���Basic form: � X can be (usefully) interpreted as Y
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� Interpretive hypotheses are not empirical. They have a different status.��In principle they are� – not falsifiable� – tested pragmatically � (are they useful? consequences? ) � – revisable agreements� – indispensable!���[Actually not so often recognized and tested as hypotheses... but should be! See e.g. Føllesdal 1979.]��Here too, DOUBT is important!�
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Holmes original map:
Theoretical Descriptive
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Holmes original map:
Theoretical Descriptive
An alternative map:
Theoretical Empirical
Descriptive Applied
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Holmes original map:
Theoretical Descriptive
An alternative map:
Theoretical Empirical
Descriptive Applied
BUT better:
Theoretical + Empirical + Applied
– which is what CRITT has done...
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CONGRATULATIONS!
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Some references
Chesterman, A. 2008. On explanation. In Anthony Pym et al (eds), Beyond Descriptive Studies. Investigations in homage to Gideon Toury. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 363–379.
Chesterman, A. 2008. The status of interpretive hypotheses. In G. Hansen et al. (eds), Efforts and Models in Interpreting and Translation Research. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 49-61.
Croft, William 1990. Typology and Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Second edition 2003.)
Føllesdal, D. 1979. “Hermeneutics and the Hypothetico-Deductive Method”. Dialectica 33 (3-4): 319-336. Also in Readings in the Philosophy of Social Science, M. Martin and L.C. McIntyre (eds), 1994, 233-245. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Holmes, James S. 1988. The Name and Nature of Translation Studies. In J.S. Holmes, Translated! Papers on Literary Translation and Translation Studies. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 67-80.
Hu Gengshen 2003. Translation as Adaptation and Selection. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 11, 283–291.
Pym, Anthony 2008. On omission in simultaneous interpreting. Risk analysis of a hidden effort. In Gyde Hansen et al (eds), Efforts and Models in Interpreting and Translation Research. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 83–105.
Salmon, Wesley C. 1998. Causality and Explanation. New York: Oxford University Press.
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