constructing pathways to translation - Higher Education Commission

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second is Foreignizing method, “an ethno deviant pressure on those values to register
the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text, sending the reader abroad”.
Thus, foreignizing translation in English can be a form of resistance against
ethnocentricism and racism, cultural narcissism and imperialism, in interest of
democratic geopolitical relations (Venuti,1995: 19).
In practice both ‘domestication’ and ‘foreignation’ may be done selectively to differing
degrees, according to the constraints of translation and the translator’s choice. Neither
should lead to alienation from the original, as only fidelity to it can preserve its
quintessential originality.
Venuti is of the view that there is a need to develop a theory and practice of translation
that resists the dominant target language’s cultural values, so as to signify the linguistic
and cultural differences of foreign text. Such a translation strategy can be called
Resistancy, not only because it avoids fluency, but because it challenges the target
language’s culture and even it enacts its own ethnocentric violence on the foreign text.
“Critical categories like fluency and resistancy, domesticating and foreignizing can only
be defined by referring to the formation of cultural discourses in which translation is
produced and in which certain translation theories and practices are valued over others”
(Venuti, 1995:23-38).
Berman deplores the general tendency to negate the foreign in translation by the
translation strategy of naturalization. Berman considers that there is generally a ‘system
of textual deformation’ in the TT that prevents the foreign coming through. His
approach of the forms of deformation is termed ‘negative analytic’. “The negative
analytic is primarily concerned with ethnocentric, annexationist translations and hyper
textual translation (pastiche, imitation, adaptation, free writing) where the play of
deforming forces is freely exercised” (Munday, 2001:149).
Berman feels that it is only by psychoanalytic analysis of the translator’s work, and by
making the translator aware of these forces, that such tendencies can be neutralized. His
main attention is centered on the translation of fiction: “The principal problem of
translating the novel is to respect its shapeless polylogic and avoid an arbitrary
homogenization” (Munday, 2001:150).