UTF-8__0415396417Translation

1ISSUES IN TRANSLATION STUDIESJEREMY MUNDAY1.0 INTRODUCTIONThis volume sets out to bring together contributions on key issues intranslation studies, providing an overview, a definition of key concepts, adescription of major theoretical work and an indication of possible avenuesof development. This first chapter serves both as an introduction to the volumeas a whole and as a discussion of how the field itself has evolved, especiallysince the middle of the twentieth century.1.1 THE HISTORY OF TRANSLATION PRACTICE AND EARLY ‘THEORY’One of the characteristics of the study of translation is that, certainly initially, itwas based on the practice of translating; much early writing was by individualtranslators and directed at explaining, justifying or discussing their choiceof a particular translation strategy. In Western translation theory, which hasexerted a dominance over a subject that has evolved until recently mainly in theWest, these writings are traditionally felt to begin with the Roman rhetoricianand orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 to 43 BCE) and the Bible translatorSt Jerome (c.347–c.420 CE). In his essay, ‘De optimo genere oratorum’ (‘Thebest kind of orator’, 46 BCE), Cicero describes the strategy he adopted fortranslating models of classical Greek oratory:[S]ince there was a complete misapprehension as to the nature of their style oforatory, I thought it my duty to undertake a task which will be useful to students,though not necessarily for myself. That is to say I translated the most famousorations of the two most eloquent Attic orators, Aeschines and Demostenes,orations which they delivered against each other. And I did not translate themas an interpreter but as an orator, keeping the same ideas and the forms or asone might say, the ‘figures’ of thought, but in language which conforms to ourusage. And in so doing, I did not hold it necessary to render word for word, butI preserved the general style and force of the language.(Cicero 46 BCE, trans. H.M. Hubbell, in Robinson 1997a: 9,emphasis added)1