“Translation Studies” by Lawrence Venuti
Attempted topoi: Whole/Parts
In his essay, “Translation Studies,” Lawrence Venuti argues that translation studies is cultural, and yet it embodies so many other parts. Venuti divides his argument of translation into three compartments–equivalence and shifts, cultural systems and norms, and ethics and politics–in order to give his reader a broad definition of translation studies. Throughout his argument, Venuti gives a variety of definitions regarding translation: a radical decontextualization, a polysystem, a communicative form, etc. Since translation embodies all of these theories and practices, what part of the whole is the heart of translation? I believe that ultimately, Venuti is stating that culture is at the true heart of translation and everything else is just compartments and departments that make up the greater translational definition. Venuti keeps on referring back to culture and how when translating a text the cultural and political ideologies cannot be excluded when translating because “studying translation norms requires both a close analysis of the translated text and a detailed reconstruction of the cultural situation in which it was produced” (300). The cultural analysis and interpretation of a foreign text is highly important, and even though cultural analysis is at the heart of a translated text, there are other factors (ethics, ideology, religion, language) that need to be addressed so that nothing gets “lost in translation.”
