The study of cultural transfer in the literary fields of small language communities:
Some preliminary thoughts.
Reine Meylaerts
Gent 1-2/12/2006
I. Introduction:
“When it comes to the analysis of an autonomous literary field within smaller language
communities, one has to account for an additional particularity, namely the fact that these
communities hold a peripheral position within a global cultural system. This presupposes a
greater exposure to foreign influences and a stronger dependence on the cultural production in
larger languages, which in turn increase the importance of cultural transmitters who can introduce
foreign models (after Even-Zohar) to vitalize the home production”. (Peripheral autonomy?:1)
Why and how to study the essential role of cultural transfer in literary fields of small language
communities? Why and how to analyse the structure and evolution of these transfers? Below, I
will give an outline of a possible framework for the implementation of these questions. They are
to be considered as points of departure for a methodological discussion during the workshop.
Why?
The study of cultural transfer in peripheral literatures can contribute to the vital broadening of the
study of (‘national’ and other) literary identities and to new literary historiographies of peripheral
literatures. It may give insight in the fundamental and intricate role of intercultural contacts in the
dialectics of the construction of an autonomous (peripheral) literary field and more specifically in
the way literary self-definition takes shape and evolves through complex literary relationships with
other (allophone) literatures and cultures. At the same time, this intercultural focus can provide a
‘European’ and even ‘international’ dimension: which were, for the period under consideration, the
dominant partners of so-called ‘minority’ European (Dutch and Swedish) literatures? How did
literary contacts evolve and what does this reveal about cultural hierarchies in Europe and,
eventually, beyond? How do these hierarchical relations reflect (or not) broader patterns of sociopolitical, economic, cultural relationships and prestige?
How?
To these aims, three interrelated research angles can give insight in the mapping of intercultural
contacts and in their role in the construction process of an autonomous literary field:
1. The cartography and analysis of imported material, i.e. mainly translated texts, into the
peripheral literatures under study;
2. The analysis of the critical discourse on the ‘other’ literatures in the peripheral literatures
under study;
3. The analysis of the role of the (intercultural) actors and institutions which support these
transfer relations.
1
II. PST and the study of cultural transfer in peripheral literatures
The assets of Polysystem Theory in this three level approach are mainly situated at the level of
the study of texts (point 1). In the following paragraphs, I’ll sketch a brief overview of some of
Even-Zohar’s (2005) insights concerning cultural transfer in peripheral literatures. 1 After that, I’ll
zoom in on further developments of these views in Descriptive Translation Studies, dealing more
concretely with the study of the role and function of translated texts within a given literature.
Developped in the 1970s, Itamar Even-Zohar’s Polysystem hypothesis was originally designed as
a theoretical framework for the descriptive study of literature and language in their cultural
context. From the 1990s on, Even-Zohar turned the theory into a theory of culture. According to
its author,
it is a major goal, and a workable task for the Polysystem theory, to deal with the
particular conditions under which a certain culture may be interfered with by another
culture, as a result of which repertoires2 are transferred from one polysystem to another.
(Even-Zohar 2005:9)
In other words:
Why transfers take place in the first place, the reasons for specific transfers, and how
they are actualized (performed) (Even-Zohar 2005:5)
are basic questions with which Polysystem theory is occupied. Obviously, transfer affects
literatures and cultures unequally. Whereas, according to Even-Zohar, an ‘independent’ literature
doesn’t need an alien literature, for a ‘dependent’ literature, an alien literature is a condition for
its existence over some longer period of time. A ‘weak’, or dependent literature is indeed “unable
to function by confining itself to its home repertoire only” (Even-Zohar 1990:81).3 Literary
weakness doesn’t necessarily imply political or economic weakness, “although rather often it
seems to be correlated with material conditions which enable interference through pressure (such
as subjugation) or otherwise (such as majority-minority or vicinity relations)” (1990:80).
Nonetheless, political power alone is not a sufficient condition for cultural interference between
systems.
For Even-Zohar, Western peripheral literatures “tend more often than not to be identical with the
literatures of smaller nations” (1990:48); consequently, “within a group of relatable national
1
For a more elaborated view of PST, see Even-Zohar 1990, 2005. Within the limited scope of this paper, it is not
possible nor pertinent to present the theory and its concepts. For an interesting critical assessment see e.g. Codde
2003.
2
A repertoire is “the aggregate of rules and materials which govern both the making and handling or production and
consumption of any given product” (1997:20)
3
Cf. the ‘law of proliferation’ (Even-Zohar 1978: 43): “in order to fulfil its needs, a system actually strives to avail
itself of a growing inventory of alternative options. When a given system has succeeded in accumulating sufficient
stock, the chances are good that the home inventory will suffice for its maintenance and perseverance, unless
conditions drastically change. Otherwise, inter-systemic transfers remain the only, or at least the most decisive,
solution, and are immediately carried out in spite of resistance”. It has to be noted however that Even-Zohar doesn’t
offer a definition of the idea of “sufficient stock” which makes the formulation of the law of proliferation rather
tautological.
2
literatures, such as the literatures of Europe, hierarchical relations have been established since the
very beginnings of these literatures” (1990:48).
For peripheral literatures, “translated literature is not only a major channel through which
fashionable repertoire is brought home, but also a source of reshuffling and supplying
alternatives” (1990:48); thus they are often (totally) dependent on import. The import of
translated texts is seen as one of the privileged ways of transferring repertoires for literatures
whose ability for innovation is more reduced than that of larger literatures. For Even-Zohar, the
study of translation is therefore essential for the description and explanation of the literary
polysystem both in synchrony and in diachrony and this especially when dealing with peripheral
literatures.
Whether translated literature becomes central or peripheral, and whether this position is
connected with innovatory ("primary") or conservatory ("secondary") repertoires,
depends on the specific constellation of the polysystem under study. (…) When there is
intense interference, it is the portion of translated literature deriving from a major source
literature which is likely to assume a central position. (1990:46, 40)
The concrete implementation of the study of translation for the description and explanation of
literary polysystems was undertaken by Gideon Toury (Toury 1980, 1995). The Descriptive
Translation Studies’ paradigm introduced a double reorientation within Translation Studies:
towards the target text (instead of the source text) and towards description (instead of evaluation
or didactics). DTS wants to describe and to explain the interdependencies between the function of
a given translation (as an entity in a given sector of the target culture), the product itself and the
strategies that are at the basis of the translation process.4 In the last two decades the model has
been applied to numerous cases, some of them contributing to the verification, refinement or
refutation of its hypotheses.5
As was pointed out above, at the level of the object, DTS (as well as PST) is a model primarily
dealing with (groups of) translated texts. Let me give below (II.1 & II.2) an outline of possible
DTS based research questions for the analysis of the role of translated texts in peripheral
literatures, e.g. the Dutch and Swedish.
II.1. The cartography of literary translations in the period under investigation. This survey will
permit to identify the key sectors of translated literature: are specific periods and/or specific
literary sectors more characterized by literary import than others? Which are the privileged
source literatures, both synchronically and diachronically? What do they reveal about European
literary relationships and hierarchies and their evolution? What is, in this respect, the role of
possible intermediary literatures? In addition, these questions may also shed light on the reported
delocalising tendency whereby the respective target literary fields import translations made
elsewhere. What are the dominant genres? Who are the most successful authors to be translated?
How do these aspects evolve (or not) diachronically? The intended cartography must take into
account all of these (and other) factors to yield an ideally differentiated overview. This mapping
will enable to formulate research hypotheses about the structure and evolution of literary
4
5
For a more detailed outline, see Toury 1995.
See e.g. Lambert 1996; Pym 1998, 2000; Meylaerts 2004a, 2004b.
3
relationships in the literatures under investigation and to relate or differentiate them among each
other.
II.2. Depending on the tendencies yielded by the aforementioned analysis, the translation strategies
in the (most representative groups of) translations have to be scrutinised. Macro-structural aspects
(titles, chapters, paragraphs…), narratologic elements (narrator, space, point of view, character etc.)
as well as micro-structural ones (especially lexico-semantic elements) deserve attention here. As far
as the textual translation options are concerned, the analysis can focus, e.g., on strategies for
maintaining or highlighting the local colour (e.g. place names and proper nouns), on language
registers (popular, local language use, dialects), on references to the (problematic) socio-cultural
relations between languages and cultures (e.g. the presence or absence of heteroglossic elements in
the translated text), on syntactic interventions, on mechanisms of censorship…
The dynamic, hierarchical relations between the different languages and literatures involved, may
have an influence on translating modalities and functions. Which function do specific translation
strategies have in the construction of an autonomous literary field? How do such strategies evolve?
Are they genre-dependent? How do they interfere with similar stylistic characteristics in original
texts? etc. The answers to these questions are closely connected to the societal, socio-cultural and
literary contexts which define, in the construction of literary identity, the legitimacy of the
languages and literatures involved. The changing symbolic hierarchies between the various
languages, literatures and cultures are, as it were, magnified in the values they represent at a certain
point in literary translations. In short, translation carries great symbolic importance: it can
accentuate the ideological, socio-cultural fault lines of society and form a statement on cultural
identity. It can reveal, from a ‘regional’, ‘national’ or ‘supranational’ perspective, essential aspects
of the construction and the dynamics of peripheral autonomy.
III. Beyond PST
As I pointed out above, the orientation towards translated texts is not sufficient. Insight in the
construction and dynamics of (peripheral) literary autonomy deserves a ‘multilevel’,
‘multimodel’ interdisciplinary approach. A combination of this text-oriented model with at least
two other research angles (section III.1. and III.2.) allows to implement the blind spots of DTS
and PST.
For PST, intercultural relations are never relations of equality; there is, in other words, no
reciprocity in cultural transfer. However, the model doesn’t elaborate on the way(s) in which
these power relations come into being. What is the basis of cultural hierarchies? Among other
things, institutional (section III.2.) and discursive (section III.1.) structures create and change
power relations, hierarchies. Cultural actors (section III.2.) , at their turn, internalize and act upon
these institutional and discursive structures in various and variable ways (habitus); they perceive
their (inter)cultural positions and develop their (inter)cultural position-takings in interaction with
institutional and discursive structures.
III.1. The analysis of the critical discourse on ‘other’ literatures and cultures: Translations operate
in conjunction with other social discourses. The translated texts acquire meaning only within the
discursive (and institutional) contexts into which they are integrated, read and propagated (or
4
censored). Hence the importance of a second line of research: the study of the ‘dicible’ (Angenot
1989) with reference to ‘other’ literatures and cultures, e.g. in (literary) magazines, newspapers,
media… More specifically, it is important to analyse critical discourse on literary relations and on
foreign literatures and cultures in view of the discovery of tropes and argumentation structures
that are representative of the tensions that characterize the construction of (a ‘national’) literary
identity, both synchronically and diachronically. This analysis will look for discursive strategies
and positions representative of the dichotomies that characterise intercultural discourse
synchronically and diachronically. At a given point in time and in a given context what
can/cannot/must be written about ‘other’ literatures and cultures in socio-cultural discourse in
general and in literary discourse in particular? How do these discourses interfere (or not) with the
construction of an autonomous literary field? Which positive/negative dichotomies are
responsible for structuring these discourses? How are they connected to the multilingual and
multicultural situation in which literary phenomena struggle for the definition of dominant
identities, esp. in the case of the Dutch-Belgian literature? Are there any media which are
characterised by a certain form of multilingualism, e.g., untranslated discursive elements? And do
they carry positive or negative values? etc. The position and evolution of the ‘dicible’ with
reference to the ‘other’ interferes with the dialectics and hierarchical relations between the
discursive and institutional construction of an autonomous identity.
III.2. Analysis of the roles and positions of the different institutions and actors (translators,
critics, authors, editors, publishers, magazines, publishing houses, translation policies) in these
intercultural contacts. Which are the leading publishing houses, magazines, subvention organisms
etc. promoting (or censoring) intercultural contacts? Who are the leading translators and critics,
from a quantitative point of view or with reference to symbolic prestige? Do they take on any
other functions (e.g. author) in the literary field and do they publish in various languages? All the
data on translators/authors/critics as biographical individuals, as literary and cultural agents in
specific institutions and contexts will allow both to fine-tune the interpretations of specific
translation strategies and/or discursive practices and to concretise specific mechanisms and
instances of interculturality.
In addition, an attempt has to be made to analyse the structured and structuring dimensions of the
(translation and intercultural) habitus (Bourdieu 1992) of these actors. How do they internalise
institutional and discursive structures and how is this expressed in perceptions and practices
regarding their intercultural activities? Each individual is a complex product of multiple
socialisation processes spread over an array of situations. An analysis using the habitus concept is
an essential part of the study of cultural transfer. To what degree do peripheral actors conform to a
certain internalised representation of the norms of the centre(s)? Are intercultural actors forced to
navigate between (at times extremely) discordant perceptions and practices about translation and
intercultural contacts? Who has the right to be a translator? How do one’s stylistic translational
choices relate to a certain (intercultural) habitus? The answers to these questions are closely
connected with the relations between the (more or less) individual side and the (more or less)
collective side, with the internalisation of (discursive and institutional) structures by individuals.
Consequently, the stands and discordant perceptions brought into life by intercultural agents form
one of the most relevant interpretation keys to literary historiography.
5
IV. Concluding remarks: some theoretical-methodological implications
IV.1. Research on cultural transfer in peripheral literatures allows to elaborate on (the relations
between) key concepts in DTS and can lead to new insights of relevance for translation theory. Up
to now DTS has used a largely binary cultural model in which translations take place between
cultures which are conceived as geographically separated from each other. The general assumption
was one of an absolute language barrier between cultures and of a target text which had no bearing
on the source culture. There was a (careful) reaction to this binary, geo-linguistic thinking inside
DTS mainly from research into media translation and globalisation (Lambert 1996,
Gambier&Gottlieb 2001, Cronin 2003). However, more traditional research objects such as the
structure and evolution of intra- and international literary relationships in Dutch-Belgian literature
until the first half of the twentieth century can reveal similar, if not more fundamental, corrections
to the aforementioned premises and in doing so increase the descriptive power of DTS. The various
and variable relationships of the Dutch-Belgian literature with the Francophone-Belgian literature
on the one hand as well as with the Dutch literature on the other hand constitute the multifaceted
background against which intercultural contacts take shape and become meaningful. Important
aspects highlighted, in this respect, by the study of cultural transfer in Dutch-Belgian peripheral
literature are: the possible belonging of ‘source’ and ‘target’ literatures to the same geo-political or
linguistic frame (respectively Belgium and Holland), the active participation and presence of
exogenous (Dutch and French) actors or institutions in the receiving pole, the (socio-economic,
linguistic, political, …) balance of powers between the cultures involved, the degree of
monolingualism vs. multilingualism of the society and its institutions, the perception of all these
aspects by the members of society, the dynamic interaction between these aspects etc. The
distinction between ‘source culture’ and ‘target culture’ will reveal at times extremely vague, at
times precisely defined. Intercultural communication crosses territorial, linguistic and socio-cultural
borders, at times to question them, at times to confirm them. Consequently, this type of research
discusses one of the most debated DTS statements (“translations are facts of target cultures” (Toury
1995:29)) and allows for the fine-tuning of insights into intercultural relations in these and other
situations. It will thus allow to reconsider and test key concepts in Translation Studies as to their
applicability within multilingual and other societies.
IV.2. The increased attention to multilingualism and translation as a result of internationalisation
and globalisation also made literary sociology (a.o. Bourdieu’s field theory) assign a more central
position to the role of translation in international literary dynamics (Meylaerts&Boyden 2004). At
the same time, research into the social aspects of translation is being regarded as a new challenge
in DTS: it deals with the up-to-now neglected question about the positions and roles of actors
(Simeoni 1998 has at first not been further developed). By focusing on the various and variable
norms which govern the translation strategies, DTS has privileged ‘collective structures’ instead
of ‘individual actors’ and has lent itself to research into texts and their discursive embedding in a
broader socio-cultural, political… context. The sociological models neglect this textual and
discursive component, privileging a more actor- and institution-oriented analysis. The two
paradigms find themselves in too strong an either/either relationship (cf. Gouanvic 2002,
Heilbron&Sapiro 2002, Inghilleri 2003&2005). To achieve true integration DTS, just like all
disciplines in the humanities, must ask itself the following question: how are the relations
established between the (more or less) individual side and the (more or less) collective side,
between actors and structures? Autoreferentiality does indeed have its limitations in social
systems: communication-oriented paradigms should not neglect the human factor whilst actor6
oriented paradigms should analyse the conditions and conventions of communication analysis
(Fokkema 1997). It is therefore necessary to use recent theoretical developments of the habitus
concept (a.o. Lahire 2001&2004, Corcuff 2003) in order to propose a sociological analysis of a
thus far neglected category of ‘literary agents’, i.e. translators. In examining their intercultural
habitus, this type of study can offer a much-needed correction to P. Bourdieu’s theory, which is
still more ‘national’ than ‘intercultural’ in nature and turn the habitus concept into an intercultural
construct valid for less “homogenous” situations. The large diachronic approach of the current
project turns it into an excellent test case for these hypotheses and makes it possible to better
integrate DTS and sociology from a methodological-theoretical point of view. In doing so it can
aim to ‘sociologise’ DTS without turning it into a ‘sociology without (translated) texts’.
The historiography of cultural transfer in peripheral literatures also provides insight into certain
methodological aspects of Literary Studies. Until recently, literary historiography payed little to
no attention to interculturality, to multilingualism because its concepts are based on monolingual
premises. In doing so it loses sight of the (often discordant) identity potential, which can
accompany translations and intercultural relations. Through the so-called ‘multilingual turn’ and
its focus on linguistic diversity and on pluriform, multilingual identities, new insights into the
dynamics and continuous (re)defining of literatures in a globalised world are gained (PMLA
2001&2003; Sollors 1998). Not only the national and temporal paradigms but also the linguistic
paradigm of literary research is revised. Translation is a key concept in research into
multilingualism and multiculturalism, into literary and cultural traditions and their dynamics. It
sheds light on the interactions between ‘(national) languages’ and ‘(national) literatures’ in the
(re)defining of present and past literary worlds. How have globalising, multilingual tendencies in
Literary Studies contributed to a better understanding of the functioning of ‘literature’? To what
degree do the models and institutions we use to study literary phenomena create the illusion of
‘unified national literary cultures’? With these lines of questioning the analysis of cultural
transfer in peripheral literatures can enter into the existing dialogue and gain new insights.
7
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