Turning points in Translation Studies

The major change that occurred in the last century in translation as a practice and a theoretical field of study was its conceptualization as a literary activity that went beyond the linguistic discipline. Till then, the field was dominated by linguists who studied translation purely from their point of view. This began to change with the 1960s when various schools of thought began to make their presence felt in the area of translation. However, there was no synthesis of these multiple strands; people worked in their respective areas with no attempt to incorporate other viewpoints. The literary approach to translation developed in the 1970s especially with James Holmes, who tried to map out an academic methodology for the disciplinary study of translation. But he was not really understood at that time when the field was dominated by linguists. It was around this time that Derrida’s deconstructive approach was applied by himself to translation. However all these streams of thought flowed parallel to each other, without any attempt to build bridges across them.

It is this trend that is slowly disappearing in the field of translation studies. Since the last decade of the twentieth century and especially with the promotion of the cultural turn, these schools have tried to coordinate among themselves, and approach translation through paths which are not isolated from each other. José Lambert who started working in the 1980s, is of the view that translation is more of an intercultural than interlinguistic activity. In keeping with many others like Susan Bassnett, he locates translations in their socio-cultural contexts. Lambert goes to the extent of considering every word as ‘translated’ and the source text as a heterogeneous entity which is a mixture of multiple codes and discourses, many of which remain untranslated. He focuses on these untranslated elements (non-translation) as well. For him, translation is “both a target-oriented empirical science and a transfer-oriented semiotic practice” (Gentzler, 192). Translation is thus liberated from the boundaries of languages and national literatures, and could be intersemiotic as well. This extended the scope of the field to media studies and mass communication. Gentzler points out that this had two consequences: “First it tends to explode the concept of national literature as a useful distinction; secondly, it breaks down distinctions between written and other discursive practices; and finally it opens up the possibility of exploring non-Western discursive practices” (193).