The Manipulation School: André Lefevere
The Manipulation School: André Lefevere
On every level of the translation process, it can be shown that, if linguistic considerations enter into conflict with considerations of an ideological and / or poetological nature, the latter tend to win out. (André Lefevere)
One of the criticisms that has, sometimes, been levelled at the polysystem theory is that it tends to disregard the ideological factors, which have a considerable impact on the translators' decisions. It is true that they are mentioned by the translation scholars working within polysystem, and Toury's preliminary norms refer to translation policies carried out by different institutions favouring the selection of particular literary works for translation on ideological grounds. Yet, it was rightly felt, even in the "early" days of Translation Studies, that ideological manipulation through translations could well become a fundamental area of investigation of its own, providing a considerable amount of data for the development of the discipline. As has been shown, the name of "Manipulation School" was given by the title of an anthology of essays edited by Theo Hermans (1985), The Manipulation of Literature. Studies in Literary Translation, which gathers a number of studies by scholars such as José Lambert, van Gorp and André Lefevere, sharing the conviction that both translators and readers are manipulated. In the preface, the editor claims that
From the point of view of the target literature, all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose. (1985: 9)
However, the translation scholar who has contributed in most significant ways to research along these lines is André Lefevere, whose name is closely related to the beginnings of Translation Studies and the Low Countries Group. He subsequently moved to the United States and continued to be extremely active in the field until his untimely death in 1996.
In fact, Lefevere defines translation in terms of
On every level of the translation process, it can be shown that, if linguistic considerations enter into conflict with considerations of an ideological and / or poetological nature, the latter tend to win out. (André Lefevere)
One of the criticisms that has, sometimes, been levelled at the polysystem theory is that it tends to disregard the ideological factors, which have a considerable impact on the translators' decisions. It is true that they are mentioned by the translation scholars working within polysystem, and Toury's preliminary norms refer to translation policies carried out by different institutions favouring the selection of particular literary works for translation on ideological grounds. Yet, it was rightly felt, even in the "early" days of Translation Studies, that ideological manipulation through translations could well become a fundamental area of investigation of its own, providing a considerable amount of data for the development of the discipline. As has been shown, the name of "Manipulation School" was given by the title of an anthology of essays edited by Theo Hermans (1985), The Manipulation of Literature. Studies in Literary Translation, which gathers a number of studies by scholars such as José Lambert, van Gorp and André Lefevere, sharing the conviction that both translators and readers are manipulated. In the preface, the editor claims that
From the point of view of the target literature, all translation implies a degree of manipulation of the source text for a certain purpose. (1985: 9)
However, the translation scholar who has contributed in most significant ways to research along these lines is André Lefevere, whose name is closely related to the beginnings of Translation Studies and the Low Countries Group. He subsequently moved to the United States and continued to be extremely active in the field until his untimely death in 1996.
In fact, Lefevere defines translation in terms of