Microsoft Word 05 descriptions doc

the way norms can be discovered
. A 
bottom-up approach might gather together many translations, look for the shifts, and 
regard any high-frequency patterning of the shifts as a “norm.” That is a lot of work; it 
cannot say very much about why the norms are there; but it might be a valuable 
contribution. Alternatively, Toury (1995a) pays special attention to 
“
pseudotranslations
,” understood as texts that are presented as translations but are in 
fact original creations. In Hungarian, for example, science fantasy novels are usually 
presented as translations from American English, even though they are written straight 
in Hungarian, with invented authors, invented biographies, and all the trappings of a 
foreign product (Sohár 1999). Such pseudotranslations are found in a wide range of 
cultures, with numerous different functions (Santoyo 1984). Their particular interest for 
Toury, however, is that they can indicate what a target culture expects translations to be 
like, and often how that culture relates to other cultures in terms of prestige. This may 
provide a short-cut to the identification and possible explanation of norms.
A more top-down approach to the discovery of norms would start from peri-
textual data such as reviews and critiques, which would tell us about the expectancy 
norms involved in the reception of a translation. More highly focused research can 
economize resources by concentrating on particular public debates about norms and 
norm-breaking, thus identifying and analyzing moments when norms are undergoing 
change (cf. Pym 1997). Such an approach helps connect descriptive theory with more 
dynamic (and perhaps less systemic) views of cultural history. 
The concept of norms has thus helped bring several approaches closer together, 
at the same time as the empirical discovery of norms has undoubtedly increased our 
historical understanding of the way translations operate. The fundamental concept, 
however, is not as clear-cut as it may seem. Consider, for example, the way the German 
sociologist