Microsoft Word 05 descriptions doc

starting analysis from the translation
rather than from the source text; he thus creates 
space for research that takes no account of the source text at all. For example, you can 
simply compare different translations, or compare translations with non-translations 
within the target system. That kind of full-frontal opposition helped to make Toury the 
enfant terrible
of his day.
The notion of norms, however, allowed a kind of prescriptivism to be introduced 
into descriptive studies, almost through the back door. Even if the role of theory was not 
to tell translators how to translate, a descriptive approach could identify the norms by 
which a translation could be considered good by people in a certain place and time. This 
has allowed for a certain application of descriptive studies in the training of translators 
and interpreters. Toury (1992) has suggested, for example, that trainees be asked to 
render the same text according to different norms (e.g. translate as one might have done 
in twelfth-century Toledo, or under conditions of censorship). The trainee will thus be 
made aware that there are many different ways to translate, each with certain advantages 
and disadvantages. Of course, the same kind of exercise can be recommended within the 
purpose-based paradigm: translate the one text in different ways in order to achieve 
different purposes. The different paradigms can lead to the same kind of training 
activity.
Seeking an alternative mode of compatibility, Chesterman (1999) proposes that 
the study of norms will enable the teacher and learner to predict the relative 
market 
success of one strategy or another
. No teacher can tell any student there is only one 

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way to translate (since many norms are available), but empirical research can make it 
possible to predict success or failure when dominant norms are met or violated. 
Chesterman (1999) formulates his compatibilist position as follows:
Statements like “In principle, in authoritative and expressive texts [original 
metaphors] should be translated literally” (Newmark 1988: 112), or “translations 
should aim to have the same effect on their target readers as the source texts had 
on the source readers,” or “translators should translate transgressively, not 
fluently”) can be paraphrased approximately like this: “I predict that if translators 
do 
not
translate in the way I prescribe, the effect will be that readers will not like 
their translations / that the publisher will reject the text / that intercultural relations 
will deteriorate” or the like. 
In all these ways, the concept of norms has helped bridge some of the gaps between 
descriptivism and prescriptivism.
A more methodological problem concerns