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Jeremy Munday, Introducing Translation Studies -
Theories and Applications.
The English word “translation” derives either from Old French “translation” or from the Latin “translatio” (“transporting”). The process of translating involves the changing of an original written text (the source text , ST) in the original verbal language (the source language , SL) into a written text (the target text , TT) in a different verbal language (the target language , TL).
Roman Jakobson distinguished three categories of translation:
- Intralingual translation or “rewording” (riformulazione): an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language. For example, summary, or when we rephrase an expression.
- Interlingual translation or “translation proper”: an interpretation of verbal signs through some other language.
- Intersemiotic translation or “transmutation”: an interpretation of verbal signs through a non-verbal sign system. For example, when a written text is transformed into a piece of music, or a film or a painting. The study of translation as a real subject began in the second half of the 20th century. Thanks to James S. Holmes, in the English-speaking world, this discipline is now generally known as “translation studies”. Translation studies have become relevant in several fields. In specialized translating and interpreting programmes, such as MA courses that include scientific and technical translation, audiovisual translations etc. Another domain is that of conferences, books and journals which have been translated in many languages. Also the demand for general and analytical instruments like anthologies, databases, encyclopedias, has increased. International organizations have also prospered, like, for instance, the Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs or the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association. As for the early history of translation, Cicero, Horance (1st century BC) and St. Jerome (4th century BC) discussed the different ways of translating. Before the 20th century, translation was relegated to an element of language learning. Translation exercises were regarded as a means of learning a new language Grammar-translation started acquiring bad reputation with the rise of alternative forms of language teaching such as the direct method and the communicative approach (1960s, 1970s).
Both methods seek to have students gain competency in another language, and both methods have a teacher that functions as the final authority; however, the direct method starts with the teacher being the final authority. It is a very teacher-centered classroom, and it tends to teach language in a formal question-and-answer format. The direct method also tends to be much more focused on correct grammatical language skills. It is teacher-centered, and the teacher is an authority on the language. The communicative method is much more student-focused. The teacher serves as a guide, but students do much more communicating with each other in the target language. Another difference is that the communicative method is much more focused on students having the ability to communicate in the language rather than focusing on making sure that they are speaking the new language in grammatically correct ways. In the 1060s USA, literary translation was promoted by the translation workshops. They were intended as a platform for the introduction of new translations into the target culture and for the discussion of the principles of the translation process and of understanding of the text. Running parallel to this approach was that of comparative literature where literature is studied and compared transnationally and transculturally. Contrastive linguistics is another area in which translation became the subject of research. It is the study of two languages in contrast in an attempt to identity general and specific differences between them.
Holmes’s map.
In 1972, James S. Holmes he published a paper “The name and nature of translation studies”. He wanted to describe what translation studies cover and draws the attention to the limitation imposed at the time because translation research was dispersed across other disciplines. Holmes’s paper had a crucial role in the delineation of the potential of translation studies. The map is still often used as a point of departure. Holmes divides translation studies into pure and applied. The objectives of the pure areas of research are:
- the description of the phenomena of translation <— descriptive branch. The descriptive branch, known as descriptive translation studies (DTS), examines: the product, the function and the process. I. Product oriented descriptive translation studies examines existing translations. II. By function oriented DTS Holmes intended the description of the function of translations in the recipient sociocultural situation. It is a study of contexts rather than texts, which texts were translated when and where, and the influences that were exerted.
- Approaches^ (e.g. cultural, linguistic approach),
- Theories^ (e.g. general translation theory, polysystem theory),
- Research methods^ (e.g. descriptive, empirical),
- Applied translation studies^ (criticism, didactics, institutional environment). Alongside, there is also a map of translation strategies (like comprehension strategies, production strategies, training strategies…) and translation procedures (like imitation, interchange, paraphrase, reformulation, omission, compensation, calque, direct transfer etc.). A strategy is the overall orientation of a translated text (for example, literal translation). A procedure is a specific technique used at a give point in a tex (for example borrowing, calque etc.). Interdisciplinarity challenges the current conventional way of thinking by promoting and responding to new links between different types of knowledge and technologies. It has the potential for a primary relationship with disciplines such as linguistics, modern languages and language studies, comparative literature, cultural studies, philosophy (of language and meaning). the relationship of translation studies to other disciplines is not fixed. Some sees interdisciplinarity as a threat because the partnerships established with other disciplines can be unbalanced. 2. One of the Romantics’ interest was in how translation could be a menas for improving German literature and culture. They centered on the issues of translatability or untranslatability and the mythical nature of translation. Friedrich Schleiermacher distinguishes two different types of translator working on two different types of text: the ‘Dolmetscher’ , who translates commercial texts, and the ‘Übersetzer’ , who works on scholarly and artistic texts. Schleiermacher sees the second type as being on a higher creative plane. Although it may seem impossible to translate scholarly and artistic texts, since the ST meaning is rooted in language that is very culture-bound and to which the target language can never fully correspond, he was interested in how to bring the ST writer and the TT reader together. He considers that there are only two paths open for the “true” translator: “Either the translator leaves the writer in peace as much as possible and moves the reader toward him, or he leaves the reader in peace as much as possible and moves the writer toward him”. Schleiermacher’s preferred strategy is to move the reader towards the writer. He wants to give the reader, through the translation, the impression he would have received as a German reading the work in the original language. To achieve this, the translator must adopt an alienating (foreignizing) method of translation. This emphasize the value of the foreign. Some of the consequences of this approach: if the
translator wants to communicate the same impression which he or she received from the source text, this impression will also depend on the level of education and understanding among the target tex readership. Furthermore, a special language of translation may be necessary. 3.
Saussure distinguished between the linguistic system (“ langue ”) and specific
individual utterances (“ parole ”). He differentiated between the ‘ signifier ’ (the spoken and written signal) and the ‘ signified ’ (the concept), which together create the linguistic ‘sign’. For example, the English the word cheese is the acoustic signifier which ‘denotes’ the concept ‘food made of pressed curds 1 ’ (the signified). The sign is arbitrary or unmotivated. Instead of cheese , the signifier could easily have been bread, soup, thingummyjig or any other word. Jakobson also stresses that it is possible to understand what is signified by a word even if we have never seen or experienced the concept or thing in real life. Examples he gives are ambrosia and nectar , words which modern readers will have read in Greek myths even if they have never come across the substances in real life; this contrasts with cat , which they almost certainly have encountered first-hand in some form. Jacobson considers the problem of equivalence in meaning between words in different languages (part of Saussure’s “parole”). He points out that there is no full equivalence between code-units. Thus, the Russian syr is not identical to the English cheese (or, for that matter, the Spanish queso , the German Käse ) since the Russian ‘code-unit’ does not include the concept of soft white curd cheese known in English as cottage cheese^2. In Russian, that would be tvarog and not syr. This general principle of interlinguistic difference between terms and semantic fields also has to do with a basic issue of language and translation. On the one hand, linguistic universalism considers that, although languages may differ in the way they convey meaning and in the surface realizations of that meaning, there is a shared way of thinking and experiencing the world. On the other hand, linguistic relativity or determinism claims that differences in languages shape different conceptualizations of the world. This is the hypothesis of Sapir-Whorf. They make the example of a native American tribe who had no words or grammatical categories to indicate time. Another claim that is often made is that Eskimos have more words for snow because they perceive or conceive of it differently. This claim, and indeed linguistic (^1) curd= latte cagliato. (^2) cottage cheese= fiocchi di latte.
surface structures are derived from deep structures by a series of transformations. Deep and surface structure are often used as terms in a simple binary opposition, with the deep structure representing meaning, and the surface structure being the actual sentence we see. According to Chomsky, the structural relations described in this model are a universal feature of human language. The most basic of such structure are kernel sentences , which are simple, active, declarative sentences that require the minimum of transformation (e.g. “the wold attacked the deer”). Chomsky’s key features are incorporated by Nida into his “science” of translation. In particular, Nida sees that this idea provides the translator with a technique for decoding the source text (ST) and a procedure for encoding the target text (TT). Therefore, the surface structure of the ST is analyzed into the basic elements of the deep structure; these basic elements are ‘ transferred ’ in the translation process and then ‘ restructured ’ semantically and stylistically into the surface structure of the TT. It’s a three-stage system of translation (analysis, transfer, restructuring). Kernels are a key term in this model. Just as kernel sentences were the most basic structures of Chomsky’s initial model, so, for Nida and Taber. Kernels are the basic structural elements out of which language builds its surface structures. Kernels are obtained fro the ST surface structure by a reductive process of back transformation^3. There are four types of functional classes: 1) events: often but not always performed by verbs (e.g. run, fall, grow, think ); 2) Objects: often but not always performed by nouns (e.g. man, horse, table ); 3) Abstracts: quantities and qualities, including adjectives and adverbs (e.g. red, lenght, slowly ). 4) Relationals: including affixes, prepositions, conjunctions and copulas (e.g. pre-, into, of, and, because, be ). Nida and Taber claim that all languages have between six and a dozen basic kernels. Kernels are the level at which the message is transferred into the receptor language before being transformed into the surface structure in a process of literal transfer - minimal transfer - literary transfer : (^3) surface structure: will of God back transformation: B (object, God ) performs A (event, wills ) surface structure: creation of the world back transformation: B (object, the world ) is performed by A (event, creates).
When it comes to analyzing individual words, Nida describes various scientific approaches to meaning. Nida criticizes the idea that a word has a fixed meaning. Meaning is broken down into:
- linguistic meaning : the relationship between different linguistic structures. Nida provides examples to show how the meaning crucially differs even where similar classes of words are used. For instance, the following three expressions with the possessive pronoun his all have different meanings: his house means ‘he possesses a house’, his journey equals ‘he performs a journey’ and his kindness is ‘kindness is a quality of him’. 2) Referential meaning : the denotative dictionary ( son denotes a male child). 3) Emotive or connotative meaning : the associations produced by a word. (in the phrase ‘Don’t worry about that, son ’, the word son is a term of endearment or may in some contexts be patronizing).
receptor-oriented approach considers adjustments of grammar, of lexicon and of cultural references to be essential in order to achieve naturalness. Nida suggests that a translation should aim for ‘ equivalent effect ’, that is to say, to provide the same effect on the target language audience as the ST had on the source language audience. For Nida, the success of the translation depends mostly on achieving an equivalent effect. It is one of the four basic requirements of a translation, which are: 1) making sense, 2) Conveying the spirit and the manner of the original, 3) Having a natural and easy form of expression, 4) Producing a similar response. Nida’s theory was criticized as it was too much concerned with the word level and because the equivalent effect was considered by some to be impossible. In the early 90s, Meta , a journal of translation studies, published a series of five papers whose aim was to demonstrate the implausibility of equivalent response: it is impossible to achieve equivalent effect when meaning is bound up in form. [For the translation of the Bible Nida applied the equivalence theory. He thought that the Bible was written in a language that was too much close to the original one, and so it wasn’t very useful for its aim of evangelization. According to the dynamic equivalence, it is not important to respect the grammatical structure, the accuracy; it aims to transfer the message to the receptor by adapting it depending on its needs and expectations. An opposite effect is obtained by the formal equivalence which aims to produce a translation that respects the accuracy of the grammatical structure. Both of these techniques are used in Biblical translation]. 4.1. Fedorov, Pym, Vinay and Darbelnet carried out a comparative stylistic analysis of French and English. They look at texts in both language, noting differences between the languages and identifying different translation ‘strategies’ and ‘procedures’. A strategy is an overall orientation of the translator (e.g. towards ‘free’ or ‘literal’ translation, towards the TT or ST, towards domestication or foreignization) whereas a procedure is a specific technique or method used by the translator at a certain point in a text (e.g. the borrowing of a word from the SL, the addition of an explanation or a footnote in the TT).
The two general translation strategies identified by Vinay and Darbelnet are
direct translation (literal translation) and oblique translation (free translation). Moreover, they propose 7 procedures , the first 3 covered by direct translation and the remaining 4 by the oblique 4. 1) borrowing : the SL words is transferred directly to the TL ( computer ). 2) Calque: the SL expression is transferred in a literal translation (the French calque science-fiction for the English). 3) Literal translation : word-for-word translation ( English ST: I left my spectacles on the table downstairs. French TT: J︎ ’ ai laissé mes lunettes sur la table en bas ). 4) Transposition : a change of one part of speech without chaining the sense. Transposition can be obligatory ( Dès son lever (upon her rising)> as soon as he got up ), or optional: in the reverse direction, the English as soon as she got up could be translated into French literally as dès qu’elle s’est levée or as a verb-to- noun transposition in dès son lever [‘upon her rising’]. Another kind of transposition can concern verbs ( They have pioneered > They have been the first ), adverbs etc.. 5) Modulation : it changes the semantics and point of view of the SL. Abstract > concrete, particular > general, effect > cause, whole > part ( she shut the door in my face > she shut the door in my nose ), change of symbol (including fixed and new metaphors): Fr. La moutarde lui monta au nez [‘The mustard rose up to his nose’] > En. He saw red [‘he became very angry’] etc. 6) Équivalence or idiomatic translation : when languages describe the same situation by different stylistic or structural means. It’s particularly useful in translating idioms and proverbs. Équivalence is particularly useful in translating idioms and proverbs: the sense, though not the image, of comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles [lit. ‘like a dog in a game of skittles’] can be rendered as like a bull in a china shop. 7) Adaptation : changing the cultural reference when a situation in the source culture doesn’t exist in the target culture. E.g. reference to cricket (English text) > reference to Tour de France (French text). This solution doesn’t always work: it would made little sense to change the domain cricket to that of cycling in phrases such as that isn’t cricket (‘that isn’t fair’). (^4) In those cases where literal translation is not possible, Vinay and Darbelnet say that the strategy of oblique translation must be used.
between people”. According to Nord, this means that the target text purpose should be compatible with the original author’s intention, but she’s also aware that not always it is possible to be sure of those intentions. The skopos theory allows the possibility that the same text may be translated in different ways depending on the purpose of the TT and on the commission which is given to the translator. In order for the translatorial action to be appropriate for the specific case, the skopos needs to be stated explicitly or implicitly in the ‘ commission ’ or ‘brief’. Vermeer describes the commission as comprising a goal and the conditions under which that goal should be achieved (including deadline and fee). The nature of the target text is determined by its skopos or commission and adequacy comes to prevail over equivalence as the measure of the translatorial action. According to Reiss and Vermeer, adequacy describes the relations between ST and TT as a consequence of observing a skopos during the translation process. In other words, if the TT fulfills the skopos outlined by the commission, it is functionally and communicatively adequate. Skopos theory is part of the model of translatorial action also proposed by Holz- Mänttäri, who places professional commercial translation within a sociocultural context, using the jargon of business and management. Translation is viewed as a communicative transaction involving initiator, commis- sioner, and the producers, users and receivers of the ST and TT. In this model, the ST is ‘dethroned’ and the translation is judged not by equivalence of meaning but by its adequacy to the functional goal of the TT situation as defined by the commission. 7- 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.2.1, 7.2.2, case study and summary. Polysystem theory saw translated literature as a system operating in the larger social, literary and historical systems of the target culture. Up to that point, translated literature had usually been dismissed as a derivative, second-rate form. Polysystem
theory was developed in the 1970s by the Israeli scholar Even-Zohar , who
borrowed some ideas from the Russian Formalists of the 1920s and the Czech Structuralists of the 1930s and 1940s who had worked on literary historiography and linguistics. For the Formalists, a literary work was not studied in isolation but as part of a literary system. So, literature is part the social, cultural, literary and historical framework and the key concept is that of the system, in which there is an ongoing dynamic of ‘mutation’ and struggle for the primary position in the literary canon. Although influenced by the Formalists, Even-Zohar reacts against the traditional aesthetic approach which had focused on high literature and had disregarded and
excluded literary systems or genres such as children’s literature, thrillers, and translated literature, as defined unimportant. Even-Zohar emphasized that translated literature operates as a system in itself: in the way the TL culture selects works for translation and in the way translation norms, behavior and policies are influenced by other co-systems. He defined the polysystem as a multiple system where the systems intersect with each other yet functioning as one structured whole whose members are independent. The interaction of these systems occurs in a dynamic hierarchy where the innovatory and conservatory systems are in a constant state of flux and competition. On the other hand, if the conservative forms are at the top, innovation and renewal are likely to come from the lower strata. Otherwise a period of stagnation occurs. Because of this flux, the position of translated literature is not fixed, it may occupy a primary or a secondary position in the polysystem. If it is primary, ‘it participates actively in shaping the centre of the polysystem’; it is likely to be innovatory and linked to major events of literary history as they are taking place. Even-Zohar gives three major cases when translated literature occupies the primary position :
1. When a “young” literature is being established and looks initially to more established literatures for ready-made models. For example, the Hebrew Enlightenment of the 18th and 19th centuries which arose in Germany and used German models. Or literature in Finnish which developed in the 19th century using the models of the realist novels from France and Britain. 2. When a literature is “peripheral” or “weak” and it imports those literary types which it is lacking. This can happen when a smaller nation or language is dominated by the culture of a larger one. Even-Zohar sees that ‘all sorts of peripheral literature may in such cases consist of translated literature’. For example, in modern Spain regions such as Galicia import many translations from the dominant Castilian Spanish, while Spain itself imports canonized and non- canonized literature from the English-speaking world. 3. When there is a critical turning point in literary history at which established models are no longer considered sufficient, or when there is a vacuum in the literature of the country. Where no type has an influence, it is easier for foreign models to assume primacy. This can be domain specific, as occurred with the early twentieth-century translations of new German psychoanalytic work (Freud, Jung etc.) into languages such as English and French. And in India, the popularity of science-fiction writing began with the importation of models from English. If translated literature assumes a secondary position , then it represents a peripheral system within the polysystem. It has no major influence over the central system and even becomes a conservative element, preserving conventional forms and conforming
combines linguistic comparison of ST and TT and consideration of the cultural framework of the TT. His aim is to identify the patterns of behaviour in the translation and thereby to ‘reconstruct’ the norms at work in the translation process. The ultimate aim of DTS is to discover probabilistic laws of translation, which may be used to aid future translators and researchers. The exact form of ST–TT comparison remains to be determined His theory could be seen as a continuation of Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory. For Toury, translations occupy a position in the social and literary system of the target culture and their position determines the translation strategies that are employed. He proposed a three-phase methodology for systematic DTS : 1) Situate the text within the target culture system, looking at its significance and acceptability, 2) Undertake a textual analysis of the ST and the TT in order to identify the relationships between corresponding segments in the two texts. He calls these segments “coupled pairs”. 3) Attempt generalizations about the patterns identified in the two texts. This helps to reconstruct the process of translation for this ST-TT pair. An important additional step is the repeating of these phases for other pairs of similar texts. This replicability allows the corpus to be extended and a descriptive profile of translation can be built according to the genre, period, author etc. The aim is to state laws of behavior for translation in general. The second step of Toury’s methodology is a controversial one. According to him, the decisions on which ST and TT segments to examine, and what is the relationship between them, is an apparatus that he thinks should be supplied by translation theory. However, linguistic translation theory is far from reaching a consensus as to what that apparatus should be. Most controversially, Toury believed in the use of a hypothetical intermediate invariant, a terbium comparationis (denominatore comune), as an “adequate translation”. However, at the same time, he also admits that no translation is ever fully adequate. For this contradiction, and for considering the hypothetical invariant to be a universal given, he has been roundly criticized. In his 1995/ book, Toury drops the invariant concept. Instead, the model ‘maps’ the TT onto the ST, comparing the two to see where the two texts correspond and differ. His TT-oriented theoretical framework combines linguistic comparisons of ST and TT and considerations of the cultural framework of the TT. His aim is to identify the patterns of behavior in the translation and to reconstruct the norms at work in the translation progress. These norms are sociocultural constraints specific to a culture,
society and time. An individual is said to acquire them from the general process of education and socialization, learning what kind of behavior is expected in a given situation. Norms are generally agreed forms of behavior. Toury considers translation to be an activity governed by norms. He wants to identify the decision-making process of the translator. In terms of their potency, Tory places norms between rules and idiosyncrasies:
- (^) Rules are the strongest constraints since breaking a rule will normally lead a formal legal penalty or caution. In a professional translation context, this could be the breaking of a confidentiality agreement; or, in textual terms, committing a gross grammatical error in a translation test, where such accuracy is highly valued and which would usually lead to the loss of marks. - (^) Norms , as generally agreed forms of behavior, are partly prescriptive in nature but weaker than rules. Violating them (for instance, writing a very informal translation commentary in an academic setting) might well lead to negative evaluation. - Conventions are more informal and may be acquired by trial and error. Toury considers translation to be an activity governed by norms and these norms determine the type and extent of equivalence manifested in actual translations. Toury hypotheses that the norms that have prevailed in the translation can be reconstructed from two types of source: 1) from the examination of texts; 2) From the explicit statements made about norms of translators, publishers, reviewers and other participants in the translation act. However, Toury warns that such explicit statements may be incomplete or biased. Toury sees different kinds of norms operating at different stages of the translation process (initial, preliminary and operational norms): 1) the initial norm : it refers to a general choice made by translators. Translators can subject themselves to the norms realized in the ST or to the norms of the target culture. If it is towards the ST, then the TT will be adequate. If the target culture norms prevail, then the TT will be acceptable. For example, a translation of a scientific text from Portuguese to English may reproduce the complex sentence
when a new term (e.g. benchmarking ) is borrowed into the TL or when a collocation is calqued from the ST and creates an unusual collocation in the TT (e.g. Vinay and Darbelnet’s example of Normal School from the French élite École Normale ). Or the interference may be ‘ positive ’. That is, the existence of features in the ST that will not be abnormal in the TL makes it more likely they will be used by the translator. For instance, subject–verb–object (SVO) order may tend to be selected by a translator working from English into a more flexible TL (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish) where SVO is possible but where VSO order is more standard. In this way, the common SL patterns are reinforced in the TT. According to Toury, tolerance of interference depends on sociocultural factors and the prestige of the different literary systems. Thus, there would be greater tolerance when translating from a prestigious language or culture, especially if the target language or culture is considered to be more ‘minor’. Case study: translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone into Italian and Spanish. Following Toury’s three-phase methodology, we shall:
- place the TTs in their TT cultural systems;
- ‘map’ TT segments onto the ST equivalents;
- attempt to draw some generalizations regarding the translation strategies employed and the norms at work. Following the three-step model, it is noticed that:
- Both the Italian and Spanish TTs are presented and accepted as translations, the translators’ names and the original titles being published on the copyright page. Both TTs are direct translations from English. Even though both target cultures have strong native children’s literature traditions themselves, the decision to select this book for translation is not surprising given its huge success in the UK and the USA where it became the best-selling book in the country among both adults and children. In the Italian title page the book is describes as a romanzo (novel). The use of this word indicates the way in which the book is marketed as adult literature in Italy. There is a strong suggestion, therefore, that the Spanish and Italian publishers were prepared to make modifications, even perhaps including a modification of the genre, in order to ensure its full acceptability, including to more sophisticated adult readers.
- The TTs are full translations of the ST with no major additions, omissions or footnotes. One of the most striking features of the book concerns the names of characters and elements related to the school of magic and sorcery of which Harry Potter is a pupil. The school itself has the sonorous and Anglo-Saxon sounding name of Hogwarts. Along the old English boarding school model, it is
divided into houses with suggestive names such as Slytherin, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. The names of the characters are similarly sonorous and suggestive: Hagrid, Hedwig, Snape, Draco Malfoy, Argus Filch and the headmaster Albus Dumbledore. The two TTs deal with these names in very different ways. The Spanish TT, almost without exception, retains these names in the translation, although the first time Draco Malfoy appears, the translator adds an explanation of his name in brackets: ‘Draco (dragón) Malfoy’. On the other hand, the Italian TT, although transferring some of the names such as Hogwarts, Hagrid and Hedwig directly into the TT, makes an attempt at translating the sense of others: Slytherin is Serpeverde (‘green snake’), Ravenclaw is Pecoranera (‘black sheep’), Snape is Piton (‘python’), Argus Filch is Argus Gazza (‘Argus Magpie’), and so on. Where the sound of the name is more impor- tant and where the original would be difficult for the TT readers to pronounce (as happens with Gryffindor ) the Italian translator adapts (in this case to Grifondoro ). She goes further with the headmaster’s name: he becomes Albus Silente , and one of his titles, Supreme Mugwamp , is rendered by the colloquial and humorous supremo Pezzo Grosso (‘Big Fish’). Names of crucial features of life in the school – such as the ball-game Quidditch and the term Muggles for non-magicians – are retained in Spanish, although italicized to emphasize their foreignness. In Italian, Quidditch is retained, but Muggles is replaced by the neologism Babbani. Some of the most playful names are those of the authors in the list of textbooks which the children receive before the start of term. Typical is Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling. The Spanish does not change the author’s name, while the Italian attempts to suggest the play on words with Adalbert Incant.
- From these findings, certain generalizations can be proposed concerning the translation norms that have been in operation: A) the Spanish adopts a more ST- oriented translation strategy, retaining the lexical items of the English original, even when this means that the TT reader will encounter pronunciation problems and/or not under- stand the allusion. B) the Italian adopts a more TT-oriented translation strategy, modifying many of the names to create new humorous sound patterns, plays on words and allusions. By adopting Toury’s methodology, an attempt is made to place translation within its target-culture context. It is a relatively simple methodology to follow and it’s replicable. However, there are some flaws. For example, the choice of ST–TT coupled pairs (segments that are analysed) is still far from systematic. Also, while the findings from the study of the translation of proper names are enlightening, names might be expected to be the most culturally bound items. It does not necessarily mean that the findings reflect the overall translation strategy.
