tc dokuz eylül university institute of social sciences translation and ...

literature takes a position on the periphery, it employs secondary models which
are already established in the home literary system, and it is a factor of
conservation. When the translated materials fulfill a place in a literature,
translation as an act becomes important in the literary polysystem. What
translators do is to search for new models and methods in translating. These
models and methods, then, are foreign for the home literature. They mostly apply
to foreignization (Schleiermacher). If the home literature accepts this, then it will
be enriched and be more flexible. When translated literature is found in the
central position, it does not mean that it will remain there forever; it may go back
to the periphery later on.
Polysystem theory is important for Translation Studies because (a)
polysystem theory positions translation together with all manner of other texts, (b)
polysystem extends the horizon of the researcher to the interaction between
canonized and non-canonized literature, (c) historical research can be realized both
synchronically and diachronically. (d) Also, it gives the opportunity to study the
relations between translations and non-translations, between translations and
discourses on translations and between translations and ideology or power on
translating, and (e) it helps to understand why translators behave in this or that way
and what is the position of translations in the target culture and also to determine
strategies and positions of translations (Zohar, 1990).
Norms are like an extension of the polysystem theory, which functions as a
general umbrella for norms, and they are a kind of tool to determine the translation in
the polysystem. In it, not only the texts but also religion, ideology, literature and
culture are interrelated with each other. Everything in the world affects other things.
Norms are actually not found but reconstructed. The norms have always been there.
When translated texts are analyzed, it is seen that norms have already been there and
then they are reconstructed.
By studying a certain period in culture, lots of information can be obtained
about that period from translated materials. These are both textual and extra-textual
sources. What is specifically observed is not what the translator has chosen, but why
s/he has made such a choice.
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