Translation Universals.pdf - ymerleksi - home

16 Gideon Toury
1. Introduction
Even though a deliberate search for regularities has long been recognized as an
inherent feature of the endeavor of science, the quest for universals is anything
but common practice among translation scholars. In fact, it is almost the other
way around: there have been, there are, and there will probably always be
many who would value differences over similarities any time. Some would even
declare not mere lack of interest in, but even hostility towards the very idea of
searching for recurrent patterns, purporting as they do to show what is unique
to whatever they set their heart on, at a particular moment.
It is not difficult to sympathize with them either. After all, we have all been
in their shoes once. At the same time, I cannot but wonder how those who
subscribe to such a position think they are ever going to know what is truly
unique (and I do not doubt it that, although some instances of translation
are certainly less unique than others, there is a measure of uniqueness in all
of them) unless they have at least some idea of what their immediate object
of study shares with other possible objects. Or is there anyone who would
still maintain that translation is erratic in its nature, so that shared features, if
and when encountered, represent a mere accident? – Because, sooner or later,
shared features, at one level or another, are bound to emerge.
True, the first cases one studies often seem fraught with revelations. At
times, almost everything may look like a genuine discovery. However, this
is just an optical aberration, the reflection of a beginner’s lack of previous
experience, not to say naïveté. Thus, as one increases one’s knowledge, or
expands the field one takes into account, certain phenomena start repeating
themselves and gradually become more predictable than others. Any further
expansion of the object of study, especially if it is done systematically (i.e. on
the basis of an explicit criterion, or set of criteria, which also lend themselves
to control), would contribute towards undermining the (evidently erroneous)
first impression of uniqueness, until it is finally reversed. Unfortunately, by
that time, many would have stopped doing active research in translation or left
academia altogether, surrendering the field to (inevitably naïve) newcomers.
The latter would go through the same initiation process again, albeit (probably)
at a somewhat quicker pace, due to some permanent impressions left in the
field by previous generations of scholars. Those few who would stay with us, on
the other hand, will no longer experience too many surprises. For them, almost
everything, certainly everything of essence, will have become highly predictable.
Be the balance between the two positions among translation scholars as
it may, I wish to proceed from a naïve assumption myself; namely, that all