Three Kinds of Norms

Toury outlined three kinds of norms in translation: Preliminary, Initial and Operational.Preliminary norms are those which influence the translation strategy, and decision as to which workto translate in a particular polysystem. Toury says that this norm is concerned with the existence of atranslation policy, and also that of the directness of translation. By translation policy he means “those factors that govern the choice of text types; or even of individual texts, tobe imported through translation into a particular culture / language at a particular point in time” (Toury, “The Nature and Role of Norms in Translation”, 202). This means that a lot of factors need to be taken into consideration before a work is translated into a particular culture. The literary preferences of a given language or culture are bound to have a major role in deciding the nature and choice of text to be translated. The concern of directness of translation involves questions of what sort of translations the receptor culture will tolerate. These are the preliminary norms in the process of translation, and lie outside the personal preference of the translator.

Initial norms are the personal decisions that the translator has to make with respect to translation strategy. For instance, should s/he remain close to the source text in her/ his translation method or should s/he be more loyal to the target language? Toury warns that one should not be carried away by the term ‘initial' to think that is chronologically the first step in the practice of translation. He clarifies that it is but an “explanatory tool”. Next are Operational norms, which are those that govern the actual practice of translation, or as Toury defines them, those “directing the decisions made during the act of translation itself” (202). This is influenced by the position occupied by the translated text in the target culture.