Constructing a Sociology of Translation.pdf
Constructing a Sociology of Translation.pdf
Constructing a Sociology of Translation.pdf
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Outline for a sociology <strong>of</strong> translation 103factors, and depends on the functioning <strong>of</strong> its institutions: controls over printpublication, specialized book series, the editorial policy <strong>of</strong> each publishing company,the space <strong>of</strong> journals and periodicals, the modes <strong>of</strong> consecration (literaryprizes and awards), etc.In his article on the “social conditions <strong>of</strong> the international circulation <strong>of</strong> ideas”,Pierre Bourdieu, taking up Marx’s proposition, reminded us that “texts circulatewithout their context”, a fact which <strong>of</strong>ten generates misunderstandings (Bourdieu2002: 4). Reception is in part determined by the representations <strong>of</strong> the culture<strong>of</strong> origin and by the status (majority or minority) <strong>of</strong> the language itself. Recipientsreinterpret translated texts as a function <strong>of</strong> the stakes prevailing in the field<strong>of</strong> reception. Translated works may be appropriated in diverse and sometimescontradictory ways, as a function <strong>of</strong> the stakes proper to the intellectual field <strong>of</strong>reception (Pinto 1995; Kalinowski 1999).In a more general way, translation has multiple functions: an instrument <strong>of</strong>mediation and exchange, it may also fulfil political or economic functions, andconstitute a mode <strong>of</strong> legitimation, in which authors as much as mediators may bethe beneficiaries. The value <strong>of</strong> translation does not depend only on the position <strong>of</strong>languages, but also on the positions <strong>of</strong> both translated authors and their translators,and each <strong>of</strong> them in both the national literary field and the global literaryspace (Casanova 2002). The translation into central languages constitutes a consecrationthat modifies the position <strong>of</strong> an author in his field <strong>of</strong> origin. Inversely, it isa mode <strong>of</strong> accumulation <strong>of</strong> literary capital for groups, such as German Romantics,and for national literatures in the course <strong>of</strong> being constituted, as is illustrated by thecase <strong>of</strong> translations into Hebrew in the 1920s: these translations aimed to create “anorganic readership” even though the community <strong>of</strong> Hebrew speakers was still verynarrow and the great majority <strong>of</strong> them spoke another language (Shavit 2002).One re-encounters this double function <strong>of</strong> translation at the level <strong>of</strong> bodiessuch as publishing houses and journals: while publishers endowed with significantliterary capital have a power to consecrate authors whom they translate, thetranslation is a means <strong>of</strong> accumulating symbolic power for a publisher lackingeconomic and cultural capital (Serry 2002). The strategies <strong>of</strong> authors represent alarge continuum <strong>of</strong> possibilities. Authors who are dominated in a dominant field,for example, may try to ameliorate their position by translating dominant authors<strong>of</strong> dominated fields. Beginners or authors who have a relatively marginal position,are <strong>of</strong>ten tempted to translate promising but still unknown authors: one thinks <strong>of</strong>Larbaud translating Joyce’s Ulysses, to name one canonical example. At the level <strong>of</strong>mediators, too, the uses <strong>of</strong> translation vary from the consecration <strong>of</strong> the translatedauthor to the self-consecration <strong>of</strong> the translator (Kalinowski 2001).Finally, literary translation may play a role in the creation <strong>of</strong> collective identities.Literature, art, and music have played an important part in the creation <strong>of</strong>