THE STRUCTURE OF PURE

TRANSLATION STUDIES
ACCORDING TO J. HOLMES -
G. TOURY
PREPARED BY YURII VAKULCHYK
GROUP MA-51
PLAN

1. HOLMES’ OVERALL FRAMEWORK, DESCRIBING TRANSLATION STUDIES

2. BRANCHES OF 'PURE' RESEARCH
3. THEORIES OF TRANSLATION
4. CONCLUSION
THE HOLMES/TOURY ‘MAP’

• HOLMES LAYS US AN OVERARCHING FRAMEWORK FOR WHAT TRANSLATION

STUDIES ENTAILS. GIDEON TOURY, A FAMOUS ISRAELI TRANSLATION
RESEARCHER, HAS SINCE PROVIDED THIS THEORY IN DIAGRAMMATIC FORM.
THE GOALS OF THE 'PURE' AREAS OF RESEARCH, ACCORDING TO HOLMES'S
DESCRIPTIONS OF THIS FRAMEWORK, ARE: 1 THE DESCRIPTION OF
TRANSLATION PHENOMENA (DESCRIPTIVE TRANSLATION THEORY); 2 THE
CONSTRUCTION OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES TO EXPLAIN AND FORECAST SUCH
EVENTS (TRANSLATION THEORY).
BRANCHES OF 'PURE' RESEARCH

'theoretical' “descriptive” “applied”

branch branch branch
'THEORETICAL' BRANCH

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF HYPOTHESES IN THE

'THEORETICAL' BRANCH: GENERAL AND PARTIAL
THEORIES.
BY 'GENERAL,' HOLMES REFERS TO WORKS THAT
ATTEMPT TO DESCRIBE OR ACCOUNT FOR EVERY SORT
OF TRANSLATION AND OFFER BROAD GENERALIZATIONS
THAT WILL APPLY TO ALL TRANSLATIONS.
‘PARTIAL’ THEORETICAL STUDIES ARE RESTRICTED
ACCORDING TO THE CERTAIN PARAMETERS
THE RESULTS OF DTS RESEARCH CAN BE FED INTO THE THEORETICAL BRANCH
TO EVOLVE EITHER A GENERAL THEORY OF TRANSLATION OR, MORE LIKELY,
PARTIAL THEORIES OF TRANSLATION ‘RESTRICTED’ ACCORDING TO THE
FOLLOWING SUBDIVISIONS.

Medium- Area- Rank- Time-

restricted restricted restricted restricted
theories theories theories theories

Text-type Problem-
restricted restricted
theories theories
• MEDIUM-RESTRICTED THEORIES SUBDIVIDE ACCORDING TO
TRANSLATION BY. MACHINE AND HUMANS, WITH FURTHER SUBDIVISIONS
ACCORDING TO WHETHER THE MACHINE/COMPUTER IS WORKING ALONE OR
AS AN AID TO THE HUMAN TRANSLATOR, TO WHETHER THE HUMAN
TRANSLATION IS WRITTEN OR SPOKEN AND TO WHETHER SPOKEN
TRANSLATION (INTERPRETING) IS CONSECUTIVE OR SIMULTANEOUS.
• THEORIES THAT ARE RESTRICTED TO SPECIFIC LANGUAGES OR SETS OF
LANGUAGES AND/OR CULTURES ARE KNOWN AS AREA-RESTRICTED
THEORIES. LANGUAGE-RESTRICTED THEORIES, ACCORDING TO HOLMES,
ARE STRONGLY TIED TO WORK IN CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS AND
STYLISTICS.
• LINGUISTIC THEORIES THAT HAVE BEEN CONSTRAINED TO A SPECIFIC LEVEL
OF (USUALLY) THE WORD OR SENTENCE ARE KNOWN AS RANK-RESTRICTED
THEORIES. THERE WAS ALREADY A TENDENCY TOWARD TEXT LINGUISTICS,
I.E. TEXTRANK ANALYSIS, AT THE TIME HOLMES WAS WRITING, WHICH HAS
SINCE GROWN IN POPULARITY.
• TEXT-TYPE RESTRICTED THEORIES FOCUS ON SPECIFIC TYPES OR GENRES
OF DISCOURSE, SUCH AS LITERARY, BUSINESS, AND TECHNICAL
TRANSLATION. IN THE 1970S, TEXT-TYPE METHODS BECAME POPULAR
THANKS TO THE WORK OF ARTISTS SUCH AS REISS AND VERMEER, AMONG
OTHERS.
• THE PHRASE "TIME-RESTRICTED" REFERS TO THEORIES AND
TRANSLATIONS THAT ARE CONSTRAINED TO SPECIFIC TIME FRAMES AND
PERIODS. THIS CATEGORY INCLUDES THE HISTORY OF TRANSLATION.
• PROBLEM-RESTRICTED THEORIES CAN REFER TO SPECIFIC ISSUES LIKE
EQUIVALENCE, WHICH WAS A HOT TOPIC IN THE 1960S AND 1970S, OR TO A
BROADER DEBATE ABOUT WHETHER UNIVERSALS OF TRANSLATED
LANGUAGE EXIST.
THE OTHER BRANCH OF ‘PURE’ RESEARCH IN
HOLMES’S MAP IS DESCRIPTIVE. THE MAIN POINTS OF
RESEARCH ARE: PRODUCT, FUNCTION AND PROCESS.
• PRODUCT-ORIENTED DTS EXAMINES EXISTING TRANSLATIONS. THIS CAN
INVOLVE THE DESCRIPTION OR ANALYSIS OF A SINGLE ST–TT PAIR OR A
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SEVERAL TTS OF THE SAME ST. THESE
SMALLER-SCALE STUDIES CAN BUILD UP INTO A LARGER BODY OF
TRANSLATION ANALYSIS LOOKING AT A SPECIFIC PERIOD, LANGUAGE OR
TEXT/DISCOURSE TYPE. LARGER-SCALE STUDIES CAN BE EITHER
DIACHRONIC (FOLLOWING DEVELOPMENT OVER TIME) OR SYNCHRONIC (AT
A SINGLE POINT OR PERIOD IN TIME) AND, AS HOLMES SUGGESTS, ‘ONE OF
THE EVENTUAL GOALS OF PRODUCT-ORIENTED DTS MIGHT POSSIBLY BE A
GENERAL HISTORY OF TRANSLATIONS – HOWEVER AMBITIOUS SUCH A GOAL
MIGHT SOUND AT THIS TIME’.
• BY FUNCTION-ORIENTED DTS, HOLMES MEANS THE DESCRIPTION OF THE ‘FUNCTION OF
TRANSLATIONS IN THE RECIPIENT SOCIOCULTURAL SITUATION: IT IS A STUDY OF
CONTEXTS RATHER THAN TEXTS’ . ISSUES THAT MAY BE RESEARCHED INCLUDE WHICH
BOOKS WERE TRANSLATED WHEN AND WHERE, AND WHAT INFLUENCES THEY EXERTED.
THIS AREA, WHICH HOLMES TERMS ‘SOCIO-TRANSLATION STUDIES’ – BUT WHICH WOULD
NOWADAYS PROBABLY BE CALLED CULTURAL STUDIES-ORIENTED TRANSLATION – WAS
LESS RESEARCHED AT THE TIME OF HOLMES’S PAPER BUT IS MORE POPULAR IN CURRENT
WORK ON TRANSLATION STUDIES.
• PROCESS-ORIENTED DTS IN HOLMES’S FRAMEWORK IS CONCERNED WITH THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF TRANSLATION, I.E. IT IS CONCERNED WITH TRYING TO FIND OUT WHAT
HAPPENS IN THE MIND OF A TRANSLATOR.
 THE ‘APPLIED’ BRANCH OF HOLMES’S
FRAMEWORK CONCERNS
• TRANSLATOR TRAINING:
TEACHING METHODS, TESTING
TECHNIQUES, CURRICULUM DESIGN;
• TRANSLATION AIDS: SUCH AS
DICTIONARIES, GRAMMARS AND
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY;
• TRANSLATION CRITICISM: THE
EVALUATION OF TRANSLATIONS,
INCLUDING THE MARKING OF
STUDENT TRANSLATIONS AND THE
REVIEWS OF PUBLISHED
TRANSLATIONS.
CONCLUSION
THE DIVISIONS IN THE ‘MAP’ AS A WHOLE ARE IN MANY WAYS ARTIFICIAL,
AND HOLMES HIMSELF IS CONCERNED TO POINT OUT THAT THE
THEORETICAL, DESCRIPTIVE AND APPLIED AREAS DO INFLUENCE ONE
ANOTHER. THE MAIN MERIT OF THE DIVISIONS, HOWEVER, IS – AS TOURY
STATES– THAT THEY ALLOW A CLARIFICATION AND A DIVISION OF LABOUR
BETWEEN THE VARIOUS AREAS OF TRANSLATION STUDIES WHICH, IN THE
PAST, HAVE OFTEN BEEN CONFUSED. THE DIVISION IS NEVERTHELESS
FLEXIBLE ENOUGH TO INCORPORATE DEVELOPMENTS SUCH AS THE
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES OF RECENT YEARS, ALTHOUGH THESE
ADVANCES STILL REQUIRE CONSIDERABLE FURTHER INVESTIGATION. THE
CRUCIAL ROLE PLAYED BY HOLMES’S PAPER IS THE DELINEATION OF THE
POTENTIAL OF TRANSLATION STUDIES.
THANK YOU FOR ATTENTION!