1

Chapter 3: Translation Process +

Overview
In general, translation, as a process or product, is envisaged as a linguistic activity. However, scholars
divide translation theories into two main categories: literary theories, e.g., Dryden 1680/1992; Friedrich
1965/1992; Lefevere 1992; Steiner 1975; Even-Zohar 1990, and linguistic theories, e.g., Nida 1964;
Catford 1965; House 1977; Wilss 1982; Newmark 1981, 1988; Hatim and Mason 1990 (cf. Chakhachiro
2011).

Literary translation theories conceive translation as an art, and “view translation as an activity, which is
essential for a comparative study of literature” and lack the objectivity (Aziz and Lataiwish 2000: 14). In
this regard, Delisle (1982: 48) argues that literary translation theories “have tried to justify their own
concept of the art of translation rather than trying, through studies and empirical data, to deduce
general hypotheses and rules, hence their effort is unscientific” (Chakhachiro 2011: 79).

Linguistic translation theories, however, see translation as a scientific activity, seeking more objective
criteria for translation studies, by using various linguistic theories as well as empirical data to deduce
general hypotheses and claims. According to Nida (1976: 69), linguistic translation theories “are based
on a comparison of linguistic structures of source and receptor texts rather than on comparison of
literary genres and stylistic features”. Chakhachiro (2011: 79), building on Campbell’s (n.d.) views,
holds that linguistic theories of translation can be classified into: prescriptive, evaluative and
descriptive. He elaborates while prescriptive studies “advise translators on how a translation should be
done [and] evaluative studies review translation that has taken place, […] descriptive studies are based
on observation and empirical data” (ibid).

The analysis of the translation process entails a great deal of complexity. It is constrained by intrinsic
difficulties inherent in studies, which aim at tapping into any kind of cognitive processing: it is not
amenable to direct observation. Further, the difficulties related to the investigation of the translation
process are magnified by the different phases through which the process unfolds and by the complexity
of the interwoven abilities and forms of specialized knowledge which play an integral part in it. Several
attempts at describing the process of translation within the context of the general science of Translation
have been made. Scholars and researchers in the field of Translation Studies have put forward several
approaches of analysis about the translation processes carried out by translators.

Translating as a linguistic activity-a linguistic approach

As stated above, linguistic theories see translation as a question of replacing the linguistic units of the
ST with equivalent TL units without reference to factors, such as context (be it a context of situation
and/or a cultural context) or co-text in which those linguistic units used (cf. Catford 1965). The
proponent figures of the linguistic theories are E. Nida (1964), E. A. Nida and C. R. Taber (1969) and J.
C. Catford (1965). Nida (ibid: 66), being influenced by the American linguist Noam Chomsky (1957) who
stresses that the deep structures of language do not change, but what changes is only the surface
structure, introduces the concept of ‘kernel sentences’. By kernel sentences, Nida means the minimal
structures in a language “from which all other structures are developed by permutations,
 2

replacements, additions, and deletions” (ibid: 68). He further states that in the actual act of translation,
in order to determine the overall meaning adequately, translators need to focus on the deep structure,
rather than just adhering to the meaning in terms of the surface structure, hence the importance of
transferring the deep structure as an important factor in the translation process. Translation process,
according to Nida takes a U-shaped movement, starting from the surface structure of the source text
down to its deep structure, ‘kernel sentence’, which is transferred into a kernel sentence in the TL,
which, by addition, deletion, modification and other strategies results in the surface structure. In other
words, the surface structure of the ST is decoded first to the basic elements of the deep structure, then
transferred into the target language and, finally, encoded semantically and stylistically into the surface
structure of the TT.

Translating as a Hermeneutic motion- a hermeneutic approach

Hermeneutics is a term derived from the Greek verb ‘hermeneuein’, i.e. ‘to interpret’. It refers to the
methods and processes involved in interpreting texts with a view to figuring out the meaning of a text,
i.e. to understand the text. The proponents of this approach hold that texts are distant in time and
culture; therefore, interpretive methods, according to the hermeneutic approach, lay emphasis on how
understanding the meaning of the text is influenced by these factors. Further, the interpreter tries to
interpret textual meaning from an inside point of view (cf. Almanna 2013b).

The importance of the hermeneutic approach lies in the fact that there is no translation without
understanding and interpreting ‫ ـــ‬the initial steps in any kind of translation. Misunderstanding or
inappropriate interpretation inevitably results in inadequate translations, if not absolutely wrong
translations. However, such an understanding/ interpreting is subjective, relying on the interpreter’s
inner feeling and intuition (cf. Munday 2008, 2009; Almanna 2013b).

Originally, hermeneutics only referred to the interpretation of the Bible. However, the more modern use
of the approach can be traced back to the German Romanticists Schleiermacher (1768–1834) and
Dilthey (18331911). Schleiermacher argues that the processes of understanding include empathy as
well as intuitive linguistic analysis. He believes that understanding is not merely the decoding of
encoded information, and interpretation is built upon understanding ‫ ــــ‬understanding/interpreting has
a grammatical as well as psychological moment.

1. the grammatical thrust places the text within a particular literature (or language) and reciprocally
uses the text to redefine the character of that literature (language); and
2. the psychological thrust is more naïve and linear. In it, the interpreter reconstructs and
explicates the subject’s motives and implicit assumptions.

As such, a successful interpreter, according to Schleiermacher, is an interpreter who can understand

the author better than the author understood himself/herself because the interpretation highlights
hidden motives and strategies.

Dilthey, however, takes the discussion a step further. He emphasizes that texts and actions are as many
products of their times as expressions of individuals, and their meanings are consequently constrained
by both. Therefore, meanings are delineated by the author’s worldview, thus reflecting a historical
period and social context. Understanding, the basis for methodological hermeneutics, thus involves
tracing a circle from text to the author’s biography and immediate historical circumstances and back
 3

again. Interpretation, or the systematic application of understanding to the text, reconstructs the world
in which the text is produced and places the text in that world (for more details, see Dilthey 1996:
233258).

Translating as an interpretive act- an interpretive approach

Interpretive approach (also known as the theory of sense) is originally designed to reflect the processes
which are involved in conference interpreting; it is associated with a group of scholars known as the
Paris School (cf. Salama-Carr 1998: 113-114; Lederer 2003: 23-35; Almanna 2013b: 36-39). The
interpretive approach is mainly because different languages conceptualize world experiences in
different ways. The proponents of this approach (e.g. Danica Selekovitch 1968, 1975 and Marianne
Lederer 1981, 1994/2003) argue that interpreting and/or translation is not merely reflecting what is
expressed by the original writer/speaker by using corresponding words/expressions in the TT as this will
result in a text that the target readers may or may not understand, depending on the availability of
correspondence in the TT (Lavault 1996: 97 cited in Shuttleworth and Cowie: 1997: 85).

The process of translation, according to the interpretive approach, takes the three interrelated stages,
namely: understanding, de-verbalization and re-expression (or reformulation):

1. the understanding stage in which the interpreter/translator tries to understand the ST by forming
a personal point of view (Ross 1980: 20), thus resorting to other cognitive inputs, such as
encyclopaedic knowledge and contextual knowledge (cf. Albir and Alves 2009: 55);
2. the de-verbalization stage in which the actual wording is divorced from the SL linguistic and
stylistic norms; and
3. the re-expression (or reformulation) stage in which the interpreter/translator starts searching for
an idiomatic means of expression that can render the sense of the original by complying with the
usage and customs of the TL.

To understand the text linguistic knowledge is not enough; rather understanding the text requires
translators/interpreters to interact with the text at hand (cf. Lederer 2003: 31; Munday 2008: 63; Albir
and Alves 2009: 55). Such an interaction requires them to activate their cognitive skills, conceptual
abilities, background knowledge as well as consulting pieces of information, ideas, attitudes and
beliefs stored in their memory. In this regard, Bell (1991: 235; emphasis his) holds: Interactive
processing combines bottom-up with top-down which permits processing to take place
simultaneously in both directions with each process 'feeding' the other with information and,
eventually, arriving at an agreed conclusion, unless the data is too degenerate to process or too
ambiguous, etc. To re-express the sense of the original, translators/interpreters need first to de-
verbalize the meaning as “the existence of an intermediate phase of deverbalization resulting from the
phase of understanding and the beginning of the phase of re-expression” plays a fundamental role in
the interpretive approach to translation process. This is because the reformulation or re-expression
stage is “achieved through deverbalized meaning and not on the basis of linguistic form” (Albir and
Alves 2009:55).

As far as written translation is concerned, Jean Delisle (1980/1988) adds a final phase, i.e. verification,
in which translators check and evaluate their final TT ‫ ـــ‬it can be “described as a process of back-
translation which allows the translator to apply a qualitative analysis of selected solutions and
 4

equivalents” (Salama-Carr 1998: 114). Further, the proponents of this approach distinguish between
‘correspondence’ and ‘equivalence’. They argue when correspondence is possible, the
interpreter/translator can move directly from understanding to re-expression/reformulation. If not, s/he
retrieves what the original text is saying, that is the sense, and looks for its equivalent in the TL (for more
details, see Almanna 2013b: 36-39).

To apply these stages, let us consider the following example:

People start smoking for a variety of different reasons. Some think it looks cool. Others start
because their family members or friends smoke.

verifying: People start smoking for different reasons. Some start smoking because they feel it is
attractive while others start because being influenced by one of their family members or friends.

Translating as a cognitive activity ‫ ــــــ‬a cognitive approach

Building on linguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives, Bell (1991: 20) states that the translation
process mainly happens within ‘memory’ in the sense that the transformation process involves two
main phases, namely: 1- semantic, syntactic and pragmatic “analysis of one language specific text (the
source language text…) into a universal (non language-specific) semantic representation”; and 2- the
synthesis of that semantic representation into the second language-specific text (the target language
text)” (Bell 1991: 20; emphasis his).

Bell’s approach accounts for translation in terms of information processing and requires both short-
term and long-term memories for the decoding of SL input and the encoding of TL output (for more
details, see Bell 1991: 43-76). Like Nida’s (1964) three-stage system of translation, Bell’s approach
takes a U-shaped movement, albeit using different terminologies. To put this differently, it follows a top
down/bottom-up structure as follows:

1. it starts with the visual recognition of the lexical items of the ST;
2. then it undergoes syntactic parsing in combination with mechanisms of lexical search
processed by a frequent structure analyzer;
 5

3. this is followed by semantic and pragmatic processing to generate a semantic representation

supported by an idea organizer and a planner.

Once the decision to translate is taken at the level of semantic representation (see the figure below),
the input is reprocessed by synthesizers distributed in pragmatic, semantic and lexico-grammatical
levels to be encoded in a new writing system, thus producing a TT as in the figure below quoted from
Bell (1991: 21):

5-encoding the input (the draft) semantically, pragmatically and lexico-grammatically in the
TL: As if she were certain of possessing him forever, she said while laughing: “I’ll put you in my
heart and lock it up on you”.

It is worth noting that although the input should be processed at the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic
levels, “no fixed order is established a priori and there is always the possibility of regression, which
allows for constant online revision and changes in previous decisions” (Albir and Alves 2009: 56).

Translating as a cross-cultural act ‫ ــــــ‬a cultural approach

Over the past three decades, the focus of translation studies has been shifted from endless debates
about equivalence to broader issues, including culture and its effect on both process and product of
translation. Further, recent studies (cf. Bassnett 1980/1991; Snell Hornby 1988; Vermeer 1989/2004)
have shown that the translation process can no longer be seen as being merely between two linguistic
systems. It is, however, envisaged as being between two cultures.

In this regard, Snell-Hornby (1988: 46), echoing Vermeer’s (1986) views, holds that translation is “a
cross-cultural transfer, and the translator should be bicultural, if not pluricultural”. This goes in line with
Bassnett’s (1998: 93) claim:
 6

Translation never takes place in a vacuum; it always happens in a continuum, and the context in
which the translation takes place necessarily affects how the translation is made. Just as the
norms and constraints of the source culture play their part in the creation of the source text, so
the norms and conventions of the target culture play their inevitable role in the creation of the
translation.

Culture is defined by Nida (1964: 157) as “the total beliefs and practices of a society. Words only have
meaning in terms of the culture in which they are used, and although languages do not determine
culture, they certainly tend to reflect a society's beliefs and practices”. Culture is not “a material
phenomenon”, consisting of “things, people, behavior, or emotion” (Goodenough 1964: 39-40). Rather,
it is

an organization of these things. It is the forms of things that people have in mind, their models
for perceiving, relating, and otherwise interpreting them. As such, the things people say and do,
their social arrangements and events, are products or by products of their culture as they apply
it to the task of perceiving and dealing with their circumstances (ibid: 39-40).

This entails that there should be an agreement among people in a given society to accept a new belief,
behaviour, custom, moral, habit, emotion and so on. It is this agreement that “seems to alienate any
attempt to introduce any new beliefs, emotions, behaviours, etc. which [do] not conform to the
society's communal memory” (Al Taher 2008: 60).

Katan (1999: 26), however, defines culture as a “shared mental model or map” for interpreting reality
and organizing experience of the world. This model of the world, according to him, is a “system of
congruent and interrelated beliefs, values, strategies and cognitive environments which guide the
shared basis of behavior” (ibid). Transferring a text from one language to another will not be without
difficulties, in particular when SL people and TT people conceptualize their experiences of the world in
a different way. Nida and Reyburn (1981: 2) hold that the difficulties that arise out of cultural differences
“constitute the most serious problem for translators and have produced the most far-reaching
misunderstandings among readers”. These cultural differences will definitely slow down translators’
progress while rendering the text at hand. This is because translating a text full of cultural expressions
is not simply a matter of substitution of lexical items and structures in the ST with TT ones, although this
type of interchange may be possible in certain circumstances (see the example below).

Avoiding certain taboos, reconciling cultural clashes, satisfying certain cultural preferences and so on
show how translators suffer while finalizing the draft of the TT (Mazid 2007: 39). Such cultural
asymmetries place extra efforts on the translators, requiring them to probe the “deep/symbolic level
[…] of the source language” to “capture the cultural implications meant by the source author” (Al-Masri
2004: 112). To this end, these cultural issues need be dealt with from “the perspective of cultural
insider” (ibid: 112). The term 'insider' or 'emic' as opposed to 'outsider' or 'etic' were first introduced by
linguist Kenneth Pike (1954). These two terms 'etic', derived from phonetic and 'emic', derived from
phonemic, were created as a response to the “need to include nonverbal behavior in linguistic
description” (Pike 1990: 18; also see Al-Masri 2004: 35). Anderson (2003: 391) highlights the importance
of considering both the 'etics', i.e. the superficial level of the language and 'emics', i.e. the symbolic level
of the language while dealing with the text at hand.
 7

your own two feet’ has a number of different meanings, depending on the context in which it is used. In
such a context, it does not refer to the physical activity of standing on two feet, rather, it is used
figuratively – it simply refers to teaching somebody how to depend on his/herself (cf. Abdel-Hafiz 2003:
231). As such, the translators have succeeded in being insiders in the source culture, i.e. understanding
the cultural experience in the SL, and being insiders in the target culture, i.e. encoding the cultural
experience in the TL. In this example, it so happens that both languages, Arabic and English,
linguistically conceptualize and utilize such a world experience in a similar way; therefore, a literal
translation is sufficient. However, at many times, the translator fails to be an insider in the TL culture
because of his/her over familiarity with the ST expression. In this regard, Al-Masri (2004: 140 41) rightly
comments:

The translator might sometimes fall into the trap of being a 'cognitive blinder'. That is, when the
translator's over familiarity with the source language leads him to assume/presuppose the target
readers' familiarity with what they read […]. In other words, this makes the translator blind to what
could be marked to target readers.

As such, one can conclude that the translator should be an insider in both source language culture
(SLC) and target language culture (TLC) while dealing with culture-bound expressions. In other words,
s/he should be an insider in the source culture using his/her knowledge to understand the SL culture-
bound expression on the one hand, and being an insider in the target culture to record such an
experience of the world in the TL. Let us consider the following rendition offered by Le Gassick and

Here, the translators have succeeded in being insiders in both the SLC and TLC. In general, the
translation of swearing is not an easy task as it “(a) refers to something that is taboo and/or stigmatised
in the culture; (b) should not be interpreted literally; [and] (c) can be used to express strong emotions
and attitudes” (Andersson and Trudigill 1990: 53). Being laden with these two types of constraints,
namely cultural constraint imposed by the use of such a culture-specific expression, and norm-
 8

imposed constraint, i.e. taking into account the TL expectation, the translators have opted for a
combination of both a cultural translation 'bastard', reflecting the swearing act plus a pragmatic
approach, maintaining the connotative meaning associated with the word 'fox', i.e. 'cunning'.

Here, considering that the use of literal translation, i.e. ‘gazelle’, would fail to capture the cultural
implications meant by the original writer and instead would linger within the bounds of literalness, the
translator has successfully opted for a functional equivalent, i.e. ‘handsome’, thus reflecting the
intended meaning semantically and pragmatically. To put this differently, the translator has succeeded
in being an insider in the source culture, i.e. understanding the cultural experience in the SL, and being
an insider in the target culture, i.e. encoding the cultural experience in the TL. However, the very terse
response ‫ شغلك؟‬is given a somewhat formal, lengthy and comparatively polite rendition in the TT, thereby
changing the register of the text. Had the translator given full consideration to the tenor and mode of
the discourse, he could have suggested something like: ‘None of your business!’.

This brief discussion shows translators’ sufferings while trying to finalize their own draft. After having
probed the deep symbolic levels of the original language and captured the cultural implications
meant by the original writer, the translators’ progress is automatically slowed down in an attempt to
decide on the available local strategies that would reflect such a cultural issue in the TL “in a way that
language and content will allow the [target] reader to interact in parallel fashion to the source text
reader” (Hall 2008: 224).

Translating as an ideological move – an ideological approach

Ideology has generally been used in negative political terms mostly within the scope of traditional
Marxist definitions whereby it is, “a form of cognitive distortion, a false or illusory representation of the
real” (Gardiner 1992: 60). Most researchers in translation studies and allied fields, however, see
ideology as “the tacit assumptions, beliefs, value system which are shared collectively by social
groups” at a certain time (Hatim and Mason 1997: 144). In a direct link to translation, ideology is viewed
by Lefevere (1998: 41) as an approach through which 'readers' in general and 'translators' in particular
approach texts, which is the view adopted in this study.

In approaching texts, translators are influenced, whether consciously or subconsciously, by their own
beliefs, backgrounds, assumptions and the like; hence their employment of certain linguistic devices,
such as 'transitivity', 'cohesive device', 'over-lexicalisation', 'style-shifting' and so on (Hatim and Mason
1997: 143-163). Farghal (2008: 1) sees translators’ ideological moves as “superimposing certain
directionality on the text in order to approximate it to, or even have it meet, their own or some other
agent’s goal”. Mazid (2007: 121) provides us with a clear example in which the translator does not
mention 'Israel' or 'Palestine' when translating the map of the Arab world, which contains Israel in the
 9

original. The translator simply uses 'Gaza Strip' and 'West Bank', i.e. ‫قطاع غزة والضفة الغربية‬. Hypothetically
speaking, giving the same text to another translator who is an Israeli to translate it into Arabic, we might
find Israel mentioned and Gaza Strip and West Bank ignored. Presumably, translators, being influenced
by their own beliefs, backgrounds, social and political commitments, opt for various types of local
strategies, such as naming strategy, i.e. the “choice of one type of name over another” (Simpson 1993:
141), addition, omission, style shift, viewpoint shift, modality shift, toning, euphemizing, dysphemizing,
 10

However, changing the direction of the text is not always motivated by the translator’s beliefs,
backgrounds, commitments and accumulated value systems, i.e. ideology; rather, the direction is
sometimes changed due to the translator’s inability to cope with the text. By way of explanation, let us
 11

consider the following example extracted from Greene’s The Bomb Party (1980: 9-10) and translated
into Arabic by a number of students (4th year, Department of Translation, Basrah University):

Translating as a norm-governed activity ‫ ـــــــ‬a normative approach

Norms, in general, are conventional, social, behavioural routines, according to which the members of
a certain culture behave when they find themselves under particular circumstances. This means that
in each community there exist such norms that regulate what is correct and what is not, what is
appropriate and what is not, and so on. Translational norms, however, “embody the general values and
expectations of a given community at a given time regarding the correctness and appropriateness of
both the process and product of translation” (Al-Khafaji 2006: 40). Toury and Hermans were the first to
seriously bring the concept of norm to the fore in translation studies.

Norms, according to Toury (1980: 51), are “the translation of general values or ideas shared by a certain
community ‫ ــــ‬as to what is right and wrong, adequate and inadequate ‫ــــ‬into specific performance-
instructions appropriate for and applicable to specific situations”. Norms therefore are “social
 12

regulation mechanisms which make certain choices and decisions by the translator more likely than
others” (Hermans 1998: 156). As such, norms consist of two main aspects: 1) a 'directive aspect', which
lays pressure on people to “behave in a certain way”, and 2) a 'content aspect', which is “an
intersubjective notion of correctness”, i.e. what is appropriate and correct and what is not in certain
situations (ibid). Toury (1995: 56-59) talks of three types of norms:

1. Preliminary norms which refer to the 'translation policy' and 'directness of translation'.
Translation policy covers the factors that determine the selection of the ST for translation.
Directness of translation deals with the question whether the translation is directly from the SL
or through another language;
2. Initial norms which refer to the general choices made by the translators when they make
decisions to either pay attention to the norms of the SL, guaranteeing the adequacy, or to take
into account the norms of the TT, achieving the acceptability of the ST in the TL; and
3. Operational norms which cover both 'matricial norms', referring to the completeness of the TT,
thereby questioning issues such as omission, addition, relocation, etc. and 'textual-linguistic
norms' related to the linguistic material, such as lexical items, phrases and stylistic features.

Translating as a socially-regulated game ‫ ـــــــ‬a sociological approach

As indicated in Chapter One, over the past five decades, there has existed a series of shifts from word
to sentence, from sentence to text, from text to context, from language to culture and/or society, hence
the growing interdisciplinary interest between Translation Studies and Sociology.

In this regard, Inghilleri (2005: 125) states that “the increased attention to sociological approach in the
last two decades is indicative of a paradigmatic shift within the discipline, toward more sociologically
and anthropologically-informed approaches to the study of translation processes and products”.
Viewing translation as a socially regulated activity has therefore opened up broader contexts, explicitly
giving ample room for studying the socio cultural factors which not only influence the selection,
representation, production and consumption of the foreign materials, but also cast some light on the
specific role of individual agents involved in the translation process at its macro level (be they
translators, ST authors, TT readers, editors, proof-readers, revisers, translation project managers,
translation quality controllers and so on).

In this regard, Inghilleri (2009: 282; emphasis in origin) holds that “unlike FUNCTIONALIST
APPROACHES, where the analysis of the translator’s role is concerned to describe this position in
largely neutral terms within a wider functional network, sociological approaches have identified
translators’ professional trajectories and social positionings as crucial to both the process and
products of translation activity”. Translation Studies, over the last two decades, has been characterized
by the increasing use of sociological theories, in particular those of Pierre Bourdieu, Niklas Luhmann
and Bruno Latour.

The serious attempt to conceptualizing a general translation sociology was in 2005 when one of the
leading journals in Translation Studies, The Translator, dedicated a special issue to the theme of
“Bourdieu and the Sociology of Translating and Interpreting” edited by Inghilleri as a guest editor as well
as an international conference with the title “Translating and Interpreting as a Social Practice” was held
 13

‫ ــــ‬the papers delivered in the conference wereselectively published in an edited book entitled
Constructing a Sociology of Translation edited by Wolf and Fukari (2007). Later, a number of individual
attempts have been made to describe translation by adopting sociological approaches (cf. Sela-Sheffy
2005; Chesterman 2006, 2009; Hanna 2006; Yannakopoulou 2008; Mialet 2010; Tyulenev 2012;
Almanna 2013b). However, to the best of our knowledge, only a few studies have adopted a sociological
approach to examine the translation process between Arabic and English (cf. Hanna 2005, 2006;
Almanna 2013b).

According to sociological approaches, the process of translation is seen as a social game referring to a
collective belief shared by the members of any social game that indicates the game is “worth playing
and that the stakes created in and through the fact of playing are worth pursuing” (see also Hanna 2006:
87-88; Almanna 2013b: 46-51). As such, in order to be part of a game or accept to be invested in a game,
people need to agree with the current members to be in the field and get involved in its conflicts on the
one hand, and accept the terms and conditions of the social game on the other. Such acceptance of
the terms and conditions of the game and the familiarization with the current members are termed by
Bourdieu )1990): ‘habitus’. In this regard, Yannakopoulou (2008: 7) comments that habitus

gives the agents a ‘feel for the game’, a prism through which to perceive reality, a guideline on how
to act and react in a way that is considered proper in each circumstance. It should be noted here
that the habitus does not determine one’s actions, but merely guides them. All this is not done in
a conscious and deliberate manner. Rather, it is moulded through a long process of inculcation
according to the agents’ personal trajectories through institutions, such as their family and
school, their class, as well as the position they hold within the particular field.

Accepting the terms and conditions of the social game, in the case of translation, and familiarizing
themselves with the current members of such a game at times require translators to adopt global
and/or local strategies that they are not quite happy with or reluctantly accept the amendments and
modifications made by editors, revisers, translation project managers, translation quality controllers or
publishers to their translations. On the other hand, translators, translation project managers, or
translation quality controllers sometimes remove some parts of the text or manipulate the text, i.e.
changing the direction of the ST in order to be in line with their target readers’ expectations (expectancy
norm and/or translatorial habitus) and/or their own accumulated value system, beliefs and
assumptions (ideological moves and/or translatorial habitus).

A good, individual example is Nawal El-Saadawi’s novel ‫ الوجه العاري للمرأة العربية‬A Hidden Face of Eve' in
which two chapters, namely 'Women’s Work at Home' and 'Arab Women and Socialism' have been
completely omitted (Amerieh 2000: 224). El-Saadawi in these two omitted chapters criticizes
capitalism in favour of socialism, thereby annoying the publisher or translation project manager who
has decided to omit the two chapters entirely. Further, a whole passage in which El Saadawi encourages
Arab women to stop thinking that Arab traditions, culture and society are more oppressive, and to start
thinking that they are in an equal position to their Western counterparts, has been deleted completely.
Both the author and the translator, Sherif Hetata, have accepted the deletion of these two chapters and
the passage most likely because of their desire to stay in the social game and acquire, maintain, or
redistribute some sort of capital, be it cultural, social or economic.
 14

System Theories
System theories, such as Polysystem theory, Manipulation theory and Norm theory, have focused
almost exclusively on literary translation. They have moved the study of translations out of a static
linguistic analysis of shifts (cf. Catford 1965) and equivalents (Nida 1964 and Nida and Taber 1969)
towards the “investigation of the position of translated literature as a whole in the historical and literary
systems of the target culture” (Munday 2008: 122). Polysystem theory envisages translated literature as
a system that is ever evolving and in a constant struggle to occupy the central position within competing
social, literary and historical systems of the TL culture. Proponents of Manipulation theory, however,
argue that the ST is sometimes manipulated through the nexus of translation for different reasons,
superimposing certain directionality on the text, thus aligning it with a particular model which should
secure social acceptance in the target culture (Hermans 1985: 11). In the 1970s, Toury shifted the focus
of attention towards finding a methodology for descriptive translation studies with a view to identifying
“the patterns of behaviour in the translation and thereby to ‘reconstruct’ the norms at work in the
translation process” (Munday 2008: 122).

Polysystem theory
In 1978, Polysystem theory was first introduced by the Israeli scholar Itamar Even-Zohar in Papers in
Historical Poetics. The main contribution of the theory was the concept of system, which can be
understood as a structure with different levels whose related elements interacted with one another. In
this regard, Even-Zohar (1978a: 22) states:

The idea of the literary polysystem need not detain us long. I first suggested this concept in 1970
in an attempt to overcome difficulties resulting from the fallacies of the traditional aesthetic
approach, which prevented any preoccupation with works judged to be of no artistic value.
Polysystem theory holds that a literary system, covering various types of literary works, functions
under a variety of social constraints (ibid).

Even-Zohar distinguishes between two forms in literature: 'high' or 'canonized' forms (such as poetry)
and 'low' or 'non-canonized' forms (such as children’s literature, thrillers and translated literature).
Despite his position of low forms of literary systems, Polysystem theory claims that it is important to
take into account “the so-called 'low' forms as well as 'high' forms in dealing with the literature of any
nation” (Hatim 2001: 67). Although the Polysystem theory proffers a general model for understanding,
analyzing and describing the function and evolution of literary systems, it focuses particularly on
specific applications to the study of translated literature (Shuttleworth 1998: 176).

Even-Zohar contends that low or non-canonized forms, such as thrillers, detective stories, sentimental
novels, pornographic literature, and children’s literature, are unimportant literary systems or genres;
arguing that their translation “has no influence on major processes and is modelled according to norms
already conventionally established by an already dominant type in the target literature” (Even-Zohar
1978b: 195). Translation achieves primary position in terms of playing an innovative role in the target
culture: a) when a polysystem has not yet been crystallized, that is to say, when a literature is “young,”
and in the process of being established; b) when a literature is either “peripheral” or “weak,” or both; c)
when there are turning points, crises, or literary vacuums in a literature (for more details, see Even-
Zohar 1978b: 192-197).
 15

Even-Zohar further explains the position of translation, whether it be primary or secondary in the
system, in this theoretical translation model. He argues that if the translation, for one of the above
reasons, occupies a primary position, translators do not stick to the target-language literature models,
thus producing an accurate and adequate TT, i.e., text-/author oriented (see Chapter Two for more
details). However, when translation is secondary in the system, translators “tend to use existing target-
culture models for the TT”, thereby producing an acceptable and readable TT, i.e., a domesticated TT to
borrow Venuti’s (1995) term (Munday 2001/2008: 109).

Translation Brief: Macro Factors

Translators, when deciding on the most appropriate global strategy, are “required to ask several
questions that determine the genre aims and properties, the TT audience, the intended function(s) of
the TT and all the information needed to form the strategic decision before embarking on translation”
(Sharkas 2009: 48). It is of crucial importance for translators “to know why a text is translated and what
the function of the translated text is” (Xiao-jiang 2007: 64). This is in line with Vermeer's (1989/2004:
223) Skopos rule, which requires translators to translate the original text in a way that makes it function
in the situation where it is used and with the people who intend to use it in the way they want it to
function. In this regard, Hatim and Mason (1997: 11) remark: “Translators’ choices are constrained by
the brief for the job which they have to perform, including the purpose and status of the translation and
the likely readership and so on”. Parallel to these, the publisher’s attitude, or the agency’s policy, the
presence of the ST in a bilingual edition, and the relationship between the source and target cultures
(self and other) are often of equal influence in deciding the appropriateness of a particular global
strategy. Venuti (2004: 468) comments:

Translation never communicates in an untroubled fashion because the translator negotiates the
linguistic and cultural differences of the foreign text by reducing them and supplying another set
of differences, basically domestic, drawn from the receiving language and culture to enable the
foreign to be received there.

In sum, translators do not work randomly, but are rather influenced by particular constraints and
parameters that are of a macro nature. The translator sometimes receives some information (the
translation brief) from the translation commissioner (client, agent, translation project manager or
publisher), which implicitly or explicitly gives indications as to what global strategy to adopt. Cast in
less practical terms, the translation commissioner, be it a client, translation agent, publisher and so on
sometimes provides the translator, whether implicitly or explicitly, with certain information that would
help him/her in adopting a certain global strategy. Such information is labelled by Fraser (1996) as
translation brief, which includes, whether implicitly or explicitly, the text function, the TT readership, the
time and place of text reception, the tenor of text and the purpose of translation (cf. Nord 1997; Sager
1989; Munday 2001/2008; Sharkas 2005, 2009). Sharkas (2005), echoing Nord (1997: 31), states that
although the translation brief “helps the translator draw profiles of the ST and the required TT as well as
decide from the very beginning what type of translation is needed” (p.26), it “is not intended to tell the
translator what translation strategy or type to choose” (p.27).
 16

This is precisely what Hervey and Higgins (1992: 14) mean when they write: Strategic decisions are
decisions which the translator makes before actually starting the translation, in response to such
questions as 'what are the salient linguistic characteristics of this text?'; 'what are its principal effects?';
'what genre does it belong to and what audience is it aimed at?'; 'what are the functions and intended
audience of my translation?'; 'what are the implications of these factors?'; and 'Which, among all such
factors, are the ones that most need t o be respected in translating t his particular text?' Dickins et al
(2002: 230) stress the importance of such information, and “its role as a parameter in assessing the
relevance of ST and TT textual features”. By knowing what the client (be it a publisher or other
commissioner) exactly wants, the translator can formulate a clear picture of the future user of the
translated text.

Purpose of translation
The translation purpose or skopos (as it is known in the literature) is a crucial parameter that
determines the final shape of the translation. Drawing on the theory of Translational Action introduced
by the Finland-based German, Justa Holz-Manttari, Skopos theory claims that the crucial factor that
determines the final shape of the TT is the purpose of the translation. Skopos theory “relies on key
concepts in pragmatics, such as intention and action” (Hatim 2001: 74). According to Skopos theory
(cf. Nord 1997: 27-28; also discussed in Hatim 2001: 74), there are three types of purpose: a)

The general purpose, i.e. the purpose of the translator in translating the text, i.e. the translator’s
motivation, such as gaining reputation, earning a living and so on; b) The communicative purpose, i.e.
what is the purpose of the TT? Is it for persuading, instructing or just for information; c) The purpose of
the translation strategy, i.e. why is a certain strategy adopted while others are excluded?

The general rules of Skopos can be summarized as follows:

1. It is the skopos of the translation that determines the shape of the translation. Knowing the purpose
behind the translation enables the translator to opt for a certain global strategy, thereby excluding
other available strategies;
2. There should be 'intertextual coherence' or 'fidelity' between the TT and the ST as long as the TT is
“an offer of information about an existing offer of information”, i.e. the ST and TT should be
intertextually coherent with each other. The TT is “judged to be intertextually coherent to the extent
that there is consistency between the intentionality of the source text producer, the way this is
interpreted, and the way it is reexpressed with target language” Hatim (2001: 75-6);
3. The third rule addresses the integrity of the TT itself, i.e. the TT must be intratextually coherent.

It follows that each of these skopos rules exerts certain constraints on the translator. Firstly,
adopting a global strategy will undoubtedly affect the local strategies taken by the translator, i.e.
reasoned decisions, such as addition, omission, deviation, lexical choice, maintaining or ignoring
some stylistic features, reflecting or changing the register concerning specific problems of
grammar, punctuation, syntax, style, comprehension and accuracy. Secondly, as long as the
relationship between the ST and the TT is considered, the fidelity rule is related, to a considerable
extent, to the accuracy of the translation or 'the relation norm' (cf. Chesterman 1997/2000). Thirdly,
the rule of the integrity of the TT brings to the fore notions such as acceptability, accessibility and
naturalness (for more details, see readership below).
 17

Readership
Another factor that plays a crucial role in determining the final shape of the translation is the translator’s
need to take into account the target reader’s expectations. This requires translators to take a number
of fundamental decisions concerning the levels of acceptability and accessibility. In this regard, Baker
(1992: 219) states that the TT acceptability does not “depend on how closely it corresponds to some
state in the world”, but rather on how the target readers access the TT and decide on its reality “whether
believable, homogenous or relevant”. To this end, the translator needs to render the “exact contextual
meaning of the ST [...] through the medium of a TL which is acceptable to the TL reader and easily
understood by him” (Adab 1997: 9-10). Hall (2008: 23) writes:

To achieve effective communication, the translator needs to take account of the cognitive and
cultural environment of the targeted language community and its likely expectations of the
transmitted text and make his/her translation as informative and accessible as possible.

This brings to mind two notions, viz. naturalness and explicitness vs. implicitness. To begin with, the
salient features of naturalness, according to As-Safi and Ash-Sharifi (1997: 60-1), are 'well formedness',
'acceptability', 'idiomaticity', 'authenticity', 'contemporaneity', 'intelligibility', 'accessibility' and
'readability'. The retention of a certain level of naturalness sometimes requires the translator to take a
wide variety of fundamental decisions in this regard, such as skewing the SL syntactic structure to
conform to the TL syntax; slackening and/or lightening the ST propositional contents for the TT version;
coordinating between obligatory and optional information and so on. As for explicitness vs.
implicitness, it is very much related to “assumptions about the universe” (Bell 1991: 188), i.e. the
amount of information that the text producer, in our case the translator, assumes that s/he shares with
the text receiver, i.e. the TT reader. As such, when the translators assume that the amount of information
is shared between them and their intended readers, they do not need to make every piece of information
explicit in the surface structure.

Actually, the translator’s decisions on what is relevant to the target reader are “based on his intuitions
or beliefs” (Gutt 1991: 112). Gutt holds that “the translator does not have direct access to the cognitive
environment of his audience, he does not actually know what it is like ‫ ــــ‬all he can have is some
assumptions or beliefs about it”. Building on such assumptions or beliefs they have about their target
readers, translators opt for certain local strategies in order to live up to the target readers’ expectations
and realize global strategies. For instance, the English translation of Fu'ad al-Takarlī’s ‫' خزين االمرئيات‬A
hidden Treasure' exhibits fundamental changes whereby elements of ambiguity and culture-specific
elements in the original have been omitted and/or modified to cater for the target readers’ expectations:

married'. The translators, being aware of this culture-specific segment, have resorted to deletion as
rendering it literally would be unidiomatic and, indeed, nonsensical in English. However, from a stylistic
perspective, the translators should have taken this fatalistic shade of meaning into account offering
 18

something like 'her luck changed, and she got married' or 'Life smiled on her and she got married'.
Therefore, this is a case where the translators have followed a reductionist strategy whereby a culture-
specific shade of meaning has been deleted. It is true that the target reader would not feel a gap in the
translation but, nonetheless, a significant aspect of the original utterance is lost.