Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies: Investigations in homage to Gideon Toury

To go “beyond” the work of a leading intellectual is rarely an unambiguous tribute. However, when Gideon Toury founded Descriptive Translation Studies as a research-based discipline, he laid down precisely that intellectual challenge: not just to describe translation, but to explain it through reference to wider relations. That call offers at once a common base, an open and multidirectional ambition, and many good reasons for unambiguous tribute. The authors brought together in this volume include key players in Translation Studies who have responded to Toury’s challenge in one way or another. Their diverse contributions address issues such as the sociology of translators, contemporary changes in intercultural relations, the fundamental problem of defining translations, the nature of explanation, and case studies including pseudotranslation in Renaissance Italy, Sherlock Holmes in Turkey, and the coffee-and-sugar economy in Brazil. All acknowledge Translation Studies as a research-based space for conceptual coherence and creativity; all seek to explain as well as describe. In this sense, we believe that Toury’s call has been answered beyond expectations.

Table of Contents:
1. Preface; 2. Foreword; 3. To the memory of Daniel Simeoni; 4. Acknowledgements; 5. Popular mass production in the periphery: Socio-political tendencies in subversive translation (by Ben-Ari, Nitsa); 6. Arabic plays translated for the Israeli Hebrew Stage: A descriptive-analytical case study (by Amit-Kochavi, Hannah); 7. Interference of the Hebrew language in translations from modern Hebrew literature into Arabic (by Kayyal, Mahmoud); 8. Implications of Israeli multilingualism and multiculturalism for translation research (by Weissbrod, Rachel); 9. Yiddish in America, or styles of self-translation (by Simon, Sherry); 10. Strategies of image-making and status advancement of translators and interpreters as a marginal occupational group: A research project in progress (by Sela-Sheffy, Rakefet); 11. Translators and (their) norms: Towards a sociological construction of the individual (by Meylaerts, Reine); 12. Refining the idea of "applied extensions" (by Rabadan, Rosa); 13. Description in the translation classroom: Universals as a case in point (by Laviosa, Sara); 14. Sherlock Holmes in the interculture: Pseudotranslation and anonymity in Turkish literature (by Tahir Gurcaglar, Sehnaz); 15. When a text is both a pseudotranslation and a translation: The enlightening case of Matteo Maria Boiardo (1441-1494) (by Rizzi, Andrea); 16. The importance of economic factors in translation publication: An example from Brazil (by Milton, John); 17. Translation constraints and the "sociological turn" in literary translation studies (by Merkle, Denise); 18. Responding to globalization: The development of book translations in France and the Netherlands (by Heilbron, Johan); 19. Normes de traduction et contraintes sociales (by Sapiro, Gisele); 20. Exploring conference interpreting as a social practice: An area for intra-disciplinary cooperation (by Diriker, Ebru); 21. Cultural translation: A problematic concept? (by D'hulst, Lieven); 22. Status, origin, features: Translation and beyond (by Delabastita, Dirk); 23. Aux sources des normes du droit de la traduction (by Basalamah, Salah); 24. Downsizing the world: Translation and the politics of proximity (by Cronin, Michael); 25. Culture planning, cohesion, and the making and maintenance of entities (by Even-Zohar, Itamar); 26. Translation competence and the aesthetic attitude (by Malmkjaer, Kirsten); 27. On Toury's laws of how translators translate (by Pym, Anthony); 28. Norms and the state: The geopolitics of translation theory (by Simeoni, Daniel); 29. Translations as institutional facts: An ontology for "assumed translation" (by Halverson, Sandra L.); 30. On explanation (by Chesterman, Andrew); 31. Du transhistoricisme traductionnel (by Nouss, Alexis); 32. Interview in Toronto (an interview conducted by Daniel Simeoni at York University, Toronto, on September 16 and 18, 2003) (by Toury, Gideon); 33. Index