Conclusion

Thus Lefevere and others like him placed translation in the larger cultural context, and enlarged its scope by raising many related issues. It is not as if translation theories in the past had not considered these, but it was the first time that extra-literary factors were seriously looked at. The focus on culture and ideology also helped to pinpoint the socio-political underpinnings of translation which appears to be a simple, scholarly linguistic exercise that is largely confined to the academies. One drawback of the cultural turn, however, is that it tends to wander away from the empirical field of translation, on to regions of abstract theorizing. This results in a shift of focus from the actual practice of translation, which had never been the case so far in the field of translation studies. But this cultural turn seems to be in keeping with the globalized world of today and equips translation studies to meet the challenges and goals of a rapidly changing world.

Assignments

1. Do you think the cultural turn in translation studies is a welcome trend? Why?
2. Who are the patrons of translations in today’s world? How would you evaluate their role in the production and consumption of translations?

References

Gentzler, Edwin. Contemporary Translation Theories. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2001.

Lefevere, Andre. “Mother Courage’s Cucumbers: Text, System and Refraction in a Theory of Literature”, The Translation Studies Reader. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. London: Routledge, 2000: 233 – 250

Lefevere, Ed. Translation, History, Culture: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 1992.