Microsoft Word 05 descriptions doc

sociological turn
,” for some kind of alliance with a discipline better equipped to 
handle contextual variables. 
Theo Hermans
(1999), for example, closes his account of 
the paradigm by pointing the way to the sociologies of 
Bourdieu
and 
Luhmann
. And 
so one turns that corner; but what do we find? Usually a plethora of data, on numerous 
levels, with very few categories able to organize the data in terms of cross-cultural 
communication. The great Modernist sociologies are based on the same structuralism 
that informed the history of the descriptive paradigm itself, albeit now with more scope 
for self-reflexivity (the sociologist can do the sociology of sociologists). More 
problematic, these sociologies are overwhelmingly of single societies only, of systems 
in the “one side or the other” sense that has reigned within the paradigm. They fit in so 
well with the target-side orientation of descriptive approaches that they risk bringing in 
little that is new. Indeed, the descriptive literary studies of the 1970s and 1980s were 
already doing systematic sociology of a kind. A new “sociological turn” could risk 
bringing us back full-circle.
Summary 
This chapter has sketched out the historical and intellectual background of the descriptive 
paradigm of translation theory. The paradigm was mainly developed by literary scholars 
working in relation to smaller cultures. Although based on empirical research, it has a set of 
properly theoretical concepts, many of which can be traced from the Russian Formalists to 
work done in central Europe, to the Tel Aviv School, and to scholars in Holland and Flanders. 
The academic discipline of Translation Studies began to take shape from the exchanges 
between those groups. In general, the descriptive theories oppose the equivalence paradigm in 
that they aim to be non-prescriptive, their prime focus is on “shifts” rather than types of 
equivalence, and they do not undertake extensive analysis of the source culture. They tend to 
be like purpose-based 
Skopos
approaches in that they emphasize the target-culture context 
and the 
function
of translations within that context. They nevertheless differ from purpose-
based approaches in that they see functions in terms of the positions occupied by translations 
within the target 
systems
, rather than with respect to a client or a brief. Descriptive theories 
also tend to concern what translations are 
usually
like in a particular context, rather than he 
ways in which particular translations might differ. They are thus able to talk about the 
consensus-based “norms” that inform the way translations are produced and received. The 
paradigm is thus relativistic in that it is very aware that what is considered a good translation in 
one historical context may not be rated so highly in a different context. The research based on 
those concepts has done much to reveal the vast diversity of translation practices in different 
historical periods, different cultures, and different types of communication.

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