| This dissertation examines the question of difference in translation and the strategies used to handle it in the target language. It revolves around the advocacy of foreignizing translation in some recent translation theories (especially in the work of Lawrence Venuti and postcolonial critics) as a practice that does not minimize the alterity of the foreign text, and could, therefore, be an antidote to ethnocentrism and cultural insularity. A major component of these theories is the argument that foreignizing translation can be subversive in that it reveals the relativity of the dominant discourse in the target culture, which tries to disguise what is a cultural construct as the natural, normal, or universal order of things.; I use case studies of various translation projects to test foreignizing hypotheses and reveal their limitations. Focusing on the social and political realities that surrounded these projects and influenced their reception, it is argued that their impact in the target culture was far more problematic and complex than the question of the strategy with which they treated the foreignness of the translated text. The first two chapters provide counterexamples to the notion of foreignizing as a way of embracing the Other. On the other side of the dichotomy, Chapter Three reveals the potential of domesticating translation as non-ethnocentric, and even subversive.; My contention is that the foreignizing-domesticating model is too limited to account for the social and political function of translation, which is governed, in addition to the translator's techniques and individual intentions, by the larger context of reception, and the relation of the translated text to other texts in its cultural environment. Rather than attempting conclusive answers, this dissertation tries to expand our understanding of the management of difference in translation by examining this issue in various situations and from different angles. It is my hope that this will help us attain a broader view of the foreignizing-domesticating problem beyond the normative either-or context in which it is often considered. |
