Influence of Formalism
Edwin Gentzler in his book Contemporary Translation Theories has argued that the roots of translation theories lie in the Russian Formalist school. Russian Formalism refers to an early 20 th century literary movement in Russia whose theoreticians believed that a literary text has to be considered by itself based on its intrinsic qualities. Naturally they concentrated on the aspects that went into the making of the text rather than the context out of which it arose. which meant that they were more interested in the structure of the text. Translation theory's focus on the translated text similarly paid attention to structural aspects of language and grammar without the preoccupations with the intrinsic meaning or deep structure of a text. Initially they also seemed to subscribe to the concept of ‘defamiliarization' popularized by the Formalists. They believed that the literary quality of a text is determined by the language that it uses, and its ability to ‘defamiliarize' – which is the ability to make even the most ordinary of events or things new by its special use of language. Early translation theory also believed in defamiliarization in that they did not take efforts to smoothen the translation by catering to TL readers.
Elements of Formalism can be discerned in the American critical school of New Criticism propounded by I.A. Richards. His work Practical Criticism published in 1929, sought to dissociate the text from extraneous factors like the author and the times he wrote in; Richards believed that a text has an intrinsic meaning and there exists a set of criteria by which a reader can arrive at that meaning. This can be seen as somewhat similar to the belief in translation that there is a meaning hidden in a text that is waiting to be carried across. Richards's contribution to translation theory is his essay “Toward a Theory of Translating” published in 1953. By this time the notion of a stable text and unified meaning were being increasingly questioned. Yet he adhered to his primary belief by saying that a translator could arrive at the meaning of a text if s/he had his/her purpose clearly outlined. This premise appears naive and uninformed today, but it still is the guiding principle for most translators who believe that their task is to communicate meaning from one language to another and that it can be done, provided one understood what the ‘real' meaning of that text is. |
