Constructing a Sociology of Translation.pdf

Locating systems and individuals in translation studies 129Mediating between systems and individuals: LocalismThe contingent nature of the various agencies and institutions involved in translationpractices can be investigated with the help of the notion of localism. I havederived the concept of localism from the work of Tymoczko (1999: 31–32), anddeveloped it in my own book on eighteenth-century women and translation(Agorni 2002), 6 as a complement of the systemic approach I employed. Accordingto Tymoczko, “localized” research into specific translation phenomena (providinga careful and detailed reconstruction of their social, linguistic, historical, andcultural contexts) allows individual case studies to avoid the danger of generalisation.In this perspective case studies are definitely brought to the fore: theirrole is no longer perceived as marginal, but rather acquires a fundamental significancein their role as a testing-ground for the discovery (and implementation) ofgeneral patterns of translation behaviour. The fact that case studies provide thevital setting that makes translation activities “real” may appear obvious, and yettheir primary function is neglected by those approaches which create a rigid dichotomybetween the metaphorical and practical dimensions of translation phenomena.7 Rather than reinforcing old divergences in translation studies, it wouldseem more productive to consider translation as a set of symbolic and materialistpractices, each side of the coin giving substance and weight to the other, and bothunited in the effort of performing a fundamental cultural activity.Localism is a concept which focuses on the local, circumscribed aspects ofcultural phenomena, and aims at mapping the details of the historical, social andlinguistic contexts of translation activities. This approach works effectively by. The notion of localism has been used in my research as a theoretical basis for a minuteand detailed historical analysis of the cultural production of eighteenth-century British women(Agorni 2002). A distinctive focus on the local allowed translation activities to display theirspecificity (for example by means of a close textual analysis, see Chapter 3) and, at the sametime, provided the details for an accurate socio-cultural contextualization (see the long discussionon the social and cultural position of eighteenth-century women and the effects of this ontranslation in Chapter 1 and 2). On methodological terms, localism is committed to registerevery act of translation, irrespective of its significance, without forcing it into a coherent, meaningfulpattern. My work attempts to demonstrate that even apparently unimportant translationminutiae, such as the eighteenth-century translation of an Italian handbook on Newton’stheory of light and colours, may acquire a fundamental role once appropriately contextualizedagainst the broad backdrop of intercultural activities in the period concerned.7. Michael Cronin has argued that some poststructuralist approaches do not take into properconsideration the materialist side (i.e. linguistic nature, in his examples) of translation phenomena(2000: 103). However, the increasing sophistication of poststructuralist criticism is effectivelyworking to reduce such a risk (for a discussion on this topic see Agorni 2002: 90–91).