The translator's habitus and shifts : a study on modulations in the Persian translations of Faulkner's 'The Sound And The Fury', 'Go Down Moses' and 'Absalom! Absalom!'

The present study enquires into the fundamental issue of the translator's habitus(Bourdieu 1990). We take up John B. Thompson's synthetic translation of the concept ofhabitus (1991) while exploring descriptive explanatory interpretive hypotheses about thetranslator's text production activity. The knowledge underlying these hypotheses isderived from the domain of both conceptual and empirical research. The conceptualresearch involves accumulating knowledge from providing "logical connections"(Hewson and Martin 1991:23) between culturalist approaches to the study of translatingactivity. Heuristic approaches (Nida and Taber 1982, Toury 1995, Chesterman 1997,Nord 1997, Reiss and Vermeer 1984) and variable-oriented approaches (Bell 1991, Hatimand Mason 1997, Neubert and Shreve 1992) are reviewed to identify 'context variables'(Williams and Chesterman 2002) enlightening the translator's activity. It is concludedthat within the cultural semiotic nature of the translating activity involvingcommunicative turbulence (Hatim and Mason 1991), the occurrence of shifts intranslations turns into a natural condition of the translating activity. Moreover, there is aneed to consider the interaction of 'context variables' in shedding light on the study of thetranslating activity (Hewson and Martin 1991). The decision-making nature (Levy 1967)of the translating activity is established while pointing out the relation between thestructuring and structured power of norms (Bartsch 1987) in forming the translator'shabitus.To incorporate our conceptualizations of the translating activity and the translator'shabitus into a coherent whole, the role of textuality standards in denoting the text worldpertinent to the translating activity is explored and exemplified. Moreover, Blum-Kulka'sdistinction between shifts in cohesion and shifts of coherence (1986/2000) is reviewedand exemplified to represent the relation between text-focused shifts of cohesion andreader-focused shifts of coherence. Various models of shifts analysis (Vinay and Darbelnet 2000, Popovic 1970, Van Leuven-Zwart 1984, Toury 1980 and 1995, Frank1987) are assessed to determine the analytical tools of our study. Modulation (Vinay andDarbelnet 2000) is taken as a kind of shift which well represents the relation betweentext-focused shifts of cohesion and reader-focused shifts of coherence while sheddinglight on the translator's habitus. Accordingly our corpus analysis consists of two partsfocusing on identification of modulations in the actual translations from the domain ofEnglish-Persian literary translation.Part I of our analysis involves identification of modulations in the two different Persiantranslations of 'The Sound and the Fury' (Faulkner 1929). One of the translators, SalehHosseini, is known as a professional translator in the community of Iranian translators.There is 41 years difference between the earlier translation done by Bahman Shoelevar(1950) and the later translation produced by Saleh Hosseini (1991). The major concern ofthis part of the analysis is to redefine the concept of modulation and show its interpretivepower in inferring descriptive explanatory hypotheses regarding the translator's textproduction activity and his habitus. These descriptions will be carried out by consideringthe translators' stylistic differences and choices. Accordingly, two types of modulationare distinguished namely obligatory vs. optional modulation as changes representing thetranslators' attempt to denote the text world pertinent to the translating activity for the TTreaders and stylistic choices respectively. Comparison of the translators' choices ofobligatory and optional modulations will yield regularities enlightening their translatorialbehaviour.Part n of the corpus analysis concerns analysis of two other Persian translations ofFaulkner's novels by Hosseini to infer regularities of translatorial behaviour in terms ofidentifying optional modulations. These modulations will be called stylistic modulationsas they represent the regularities of translatorial behaviour pertinent to the translatingactivity of a particular translator (Hosseini). The descriptive explanatory interpretivepower of such regularities of behaviour will be concluded by reviewing current accountsof translation norms in Iran and the background to Hosseini's translatorial behaviour. The results of our analysis will be further confirmed by providing examples from translationcritiques pertinent to the domain of literary translation in Iran while differentiatingbetween the degree and manner of translator's manipulation of the source text.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral (Level 8)

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Taghavi, M

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1336951

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1336951