Constructing a Sociology of Translation.pdf

128 Mirella Agorni1995; Hermans 1996; Chesterman 1997), a concept which gives prominence tothe social environment of translation.Generally used to map socially acceptable behaviour, norm theory envisagestranslation as a socially patterned type of linguistic communication. Norms are tobe understood as codes employed to “decipher” translators’ strategies and choices.Not only do they play a fundamental role at the production pole, but they are alsoof vital importance at the reception end/pole, where they establish “what a particularcommunity will accept as a translation” (Hermans 1999: 77–78).No longer focusing merely on their apparent prescriptive nature, scholarsprogressively have stressed the productive aspect of norms (Toury 1998). 4 Bypresenting a regulated choice of behaviour, norms do not impinge on translators’agency; on the contrary, they assist translators in their process of decisionmaking.Translators’ room for manoeuvre also appears to be guaranteed by thediachronic flexibility of norms: since they are produced by social and historicallyspecificcommunities, they are subject to change over time.The strength of norm theory lies in its capacity of bringing together socialand individual features of translation, as they ultimately offer the practitioner asocially acceptable repertoire, from which s/he can select their choices. However,there is an important aspect which has to be clarified: as has been pointed out,the definition of norms depends on social groups and institutions, conventionallynamed “communities”. Communities are socially-culturally- and historically-specific,and can be visualised in systemic terms. 5 In order to integrate norm theoryinto a methodology capable of dealing with the complexity of translation phenomena,we still need some theoretical instruments which would enable us totackle the materialist specificity (i.e. the contingent social and historical nature)of the forces at play in translation.. In this article (Toury 1998), which deals at length with the social nature of the norms concept,Toury lays special emphasis on those aspects of norms, which are produced by social andhistorically-specific communities in order to regulate (and facilitate) translators’ processes ofdecision-making.5. Rakefet Sela-Sheffy has provided a very useful description of the complex forces involvedwith translation practices: “editors, publishing houses or commercial companies, and their policyof encouraging or discouraging translation, translation criticism, prizes and grants, translators’associations and clubs” etc. (2000: 353). The author stresses the fact that these heterogeneousforces are hierarchically ordered, in a state of dynamic interaction. Side-by-side withthis materialist description of the forces at play in translation, we should not forget anotherinterpretation of “community”, the “imagined communities” seminally described by the historianBenedict Anderson (1983). In spite of their fictitious character, “imagined communities”brought about very concrete effects, such as the rise of a sense of national identity in certainhistorical periods (such as the eighteenth century).