Last update:
9 February 2010
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Beyond Descriptive Translation StudiesInvestigations in homage to Gideon Toury
2008. xii, 417 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Hardbound
– In stock
978 90 272 1684 7 / EUR 110.00 / USD 165.00
e-Book
– Available from e-book platforms
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
“In the book, the diversity of the issues discussed in the various chapters, the validity of the combination of theoretical speculation and empirical evidence, and above all the intellectual independence with which the various issues are tackled, not stopping at pat solutions nor applying consolidated intellectual schemes, but rather looking at problems afresh, ignoring conventions and preconceived ideas, represent the best homage to Gideon Toury’s work. Apart from introducing new notions and categorizations that today have become common fare in any discussion in translation and interpreting research, his contribution to the development of DTS has had an impact that, on account its revolutionary rather than evolutionary nature, can only be effectively described by using Thomas Kuhn’s notion of “paradigm shift”, because it has led to the advent of a radically new “conceptual world” in translation research, opening up new perspectives and contributing to changing the way problems are formulated and solved in the discipline. Therefore, it can be stated with no fear of exaggeration that the book does accomplish its intended mission, delivering what its attractive title promises. It is certainly suitable to figure on the bookshelf of anyone who is interested in Translation Studies, as a useful instrument for updating one's knowledge of recent developments in the area of the complex dynamics of intercultural and interlinguistic relations.”
Giuliana Garzone, Full Professor of English Linguistics and Translation, University of Milan, Italy, in Israel Studies in Language and Society 1(2), 2008
Subject classification |
Linguistics