The Communicative Act Of Literary Translation In The Post-structural Theories Of Translation

Résumé: The present paper is to shine a bright light on how the major post structural theories of translation perceived the nature of the communicative act of literary translation. It is worth noting that such novel views came as a reaction to the structural theories that were exclusively centered on the source text. The study examines Christiane Nord's functionalism and Gideon Toury's target-oriented descriptive model as examples of this shift. It also discusses the ethical implications of prioritizing the communicative act in literary translation as challenged by Antoine Berman and Lawrence Venuti. The study found that both Toury's target-oriented model and Nord's functionalist approach focus on achieving effective communication in translation. While they both agree on the non-centrality of the source text, they differ on the conceptualization and the place of the other communicative aspects. For Nord the translator is an interpreter of meaning whose task is to adapt the source text with its intended function in the target language, Toury is more concerned with the target literary and social norms and constraints that shape the translator’s role. On the other hand, Berman and Venuti regard the communicative in literary translation as a guise for ethnocentric and acculturation propensities that have pervaded the history of translation, particularly in the Western world.

Publié dans la revue: Aleph