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Risking conceptual maps Mapping as a keywords-related tool underlying the onlin

Risking conceptual maps Mapping as a keywords-related tool underlying the online Translation Studies Bibliography Luc van Doorslaer Lessius University College, Antwerp / CETRA, University of Leuven The Holmes/Toury map is a monument in Translation Studies. It is often re ferred to but only very few attempts have been made to complement it, let alone to draw completely new maps of the discipline, especially after the simplicity of relationships suggested by maps was severely denounced by Anthony Pym. Nev ertheless, in the last years a new conceptual map has gradually been developed as an underlying tool for the online Translation Studies Bibliography. This TSB map has an open and descriptive character and tries to bring an added value to the conceptualization and the interrelationships between concepts that are often used ambiguously or even in an idiosyncratic way. This contribution describes the development and construction of that new map and concludes by calling for criticism, changes and additions. Keywords: bibliography, mapping, Translation Studies, transfer 1. Making bibliographies on translation and Translation Studies The scope of such an undertaking raises a number of problems, even if it were to be confined to the chief languages of Europe. Indeed, the sources likely to provide useful information for such a history are so numerous and so varied that one can hardly imagine the amount of research it would involve… Admittedly, the under taking is a tremendous one. (Van Hoof 1972: VI) When representatives of EST (the European Society for Translation Studies), CETRA (the Centre for Translation Studies at the University of Leuven), Les sius University College (Antwerp) and John Benjamins (the publisher) started talks about a new online Translation Studies Bibliography in 2001, they all were aware of the risks and pitfalls inevitably linked to such an undertaking as already Target 19:2 (2007), 217–233. issn 0924–1884 / e-issn 1569–9986 © John Benjamins Publishing Company 218 Luc van Doorslaer described in the above quote from the early seventies about a project involving a general history and bibliography of translation. Making (research) bibliogra phies is always based on the need to systematize existing but often fragmented knowledge in a given area. Already at the very beginning of its history, Transla tion Studies apparently felt an urgent need for a systematizing tool, even in a phase where its knowledge was not yet as widespread as it is today. Eugene Nida’s Toward a science of translating (1964) is generally considered to contain the first ‘bibliography’ , even if it is mainly an extended list of references appended to a monograph. Nonetheless, Nida explicitly introduces a bibliography as a tool “not only to provide the reader with data on the scores of books and articles cited in the text” , but also as “a wide selection of source materials dealing with many dis tinct but ultimately related phases of translating” (p. 265). Some of the sources mentioned by Nida are related to linguistic structure, psychology, anthropology, information theory, machine translation, theology, stylistics and literary criti cism, illustrating that an awareness of the interdisciplinary or at least the multi disciplinary nature of Translation Studies has existed from the outset. Nida’s work is explicitly mentioned as a point of reference in The science of translation: An analytical bibliography (1962–1969) by Bausch et al., published in 1970. The edi tors begin the first paragraph of their preface with the recognition that since Nida “no up-to-date comprehensive bibliography of translation has been published” (p. I). The prestigious International bibliography of translation (Van Hoof 1972) was then published in the early seventies. More than 4600 titles are listed there, dealing exclusively with written translation. This bibliography has seven subdivi sions: general, history of translation, theory of translation, teaching in transla tion, the translator’s profession, typology of translation (including religious, liter ary and technical-scientific translation), machine translation and bibliographies. These works are to be considered the first initiatives taken to compile a general bibliography on translation or Translation Studies. In addition to these general bibliographies, there have been several partial bibliographic initiatives in the realm of translation: first of all bibliographies of translated books (like UNESCO’s Index Translationum), but also bibliographies on translation dictionaries, on interpreting, on dissertations about translation topics, on specific domains related to translation etc. In most of these cases, the bibliogra phies are limited on explicit geographical, chronological or thematic grounds (or based on a combination of these limitations): – geographically or culturally, like Tradbase, the Portuguese bibliography of Trans lation Studies, a project of Lisbon University confining itself to Portugal; – chronologically, like Van Bragt’s Bibliographie des traductions françaises (1810–1840); Risking conceptual maps 219 – thematically, like A bibliography on machine translation (Shiu-Chang and Hing-Sum 1978) or a bibliography of audiovisual communication (Gambier 1997). A more recent phenomenon is the online research bibliographies, which are either comprehensive or partial in their orientation. These regularly updated bibliogra phies not only give voice to the development of cultural and social phenomena within translation, but also to the discipline of Translation Studies. Some examples are Daniel Gile’s CIRIN Bulletin (for conference interpreting), Tradbase just men tioned, Bitra (Javier Franco’s bibliography at the University of Alicante), St Jerome’s Bibliography of Translation Studies, the International bibliography of sign language (Interpreting) at the University of Hamburg or Benjamins’ Translation Studies Bib liography (TSB). This last initiative is very interesting from a conceptual and meta lingual point of view. From the very beginning, the Editorial Board of the TSB project (consisting in those first years of Javier Franco, Yves Gambier, Daniel Gile, José Lambert, Gideon Toury and Luc van Doorslaer) explicitly aimed at establish ing a structuring principle in the inherent conceptual complexity of the keywords system of the bibliography. It was decided to integrate (most of) the keywords into a conceptual map. In this article, I will not go into the selection and organizational principles of the keywords anymore since that has been done in several conference presentations over the last few years as well as in van Doorslaer 2005. The main topic of this publication is the development of the conceptual map. 2. Mapping In the last few years we have seen a flood of TS publications with a wide range of values, standards, and concepts. Much more than ever before, the discussion of translation issues tends to develop into endless controversies over the ‘relevant’ points of reference, with the result that TS finds itself in a virtual supermarket of reflections and ideas. (Wilss 1999: 132) The desire or otherwise necessity to structure knowledge and concepts derives from this impression that the field of study has become a supermarket. It is not a coincidence that Translation Studies has experienced the publication of several sets of terminologies, dictionaries and encyclopaedias at this stage in its history. The mapping principle is also first and foremost a systematizing, organizational and structuring, sometimes even a structuralist principle. The prototype of the Translation Studies map is the one originally conceived by James S Holmes in 1972 and further developed by Gideon Toury, which has come to be known as the Hol mes/Toury map. It mainly distinguishes pure and applied Translation Studies, and 220 Luc van Doorslaer also comprises theoretical, descriptive, general and partial approaches as further sub-classifications (see Toury 1995: 10 or Munday 2001: 10–13 for a developed map of the applied branch). Despite Toury’s reference to the “controlled evolution” of the discipline (and hence of the map) or Munday’s remark that “these advances still require considerable further investigation” (2001: 13), the publications that have accepted the invitation to deepen and broaden research have been strikingly few in number. This might stem from the severe and fundamental criticism of mapping raised by Anthony Pym (1998). First of all, he criticizes the absence of the historical study of translation in Toury’s map. But more fundamentally, as far as mapping is concerned, he also points to the simplicity of relationships suggested by maps (“little arrows all over the place” — p. 2) and above all the implicit ambi tion regarding authority and power suggested by any kind of map. Despite its many virtues in its day, I suggest the map is no longer a wholly reliable guide… Whatever we do now, it seems, should be located somewhere within the schemata inherited from the past. To do otherwise, claims Toury, would be to risk compromising the “controlled evolution” of translation studies. Yet is there any reason to suppose that the Holmes map is automatically suited to what we want to do in translation studies now? … Exactly who is doing the controlling, and to what end? … No matter how pretty the maps, if a branch of scholarship fails to address socially important issues, it may deserve to disappear or to be relegated to academic museums… Maps are peculiar instruments of power. They tend to make you look in certain directions; they make you overlook other directions. (Pym 1998: 2–3) After such severe words, one can imagine that some scholars were no longer tempted to draw new or adapted maps of the discipline, and uploads/Philosophie/ sek-2-doorslaer-risking-conceptual-maps.pdf