József Tóth, László V. Szabó (eds): Übersetzung und kulturelles Gedächtnis – Translation and Cultural Memory
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Translation of Realia and Irrealia in Two Pop-Culture-Related Movies • Nóra Estélyi-Tala, Ildikó Hortobágyi
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1. Main Trends in Translation: Domestication and Foreignisation
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1.2. Measuring domestication and foreignization

1.2. Measuring domestication and foreignization

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As we can see, most scholars seem to agree that a kind of scale between the two poles of domestication and foreignisation exists, but their opinions differ in several respects, namely, as to where to place different translation methods on the spectrum between domestication and foreignisation.

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Van Poucke, however, attempts to provide “a quantitative model for assessing translations on a foreignization–domestication scale, based on the different existing taxonomies of translation shifts” (Van Poucke 2012: 139). He raises the question whether it is “possible to make a distinction between strongly foreignizing, slightly foreignizing, slightly domesticating, strongly domesticating and perhaps even neutral translation shifts” (Van Poucke 2012: 140). He assumes, however, that constructing a pure continuum would be a utopian attempt, as it is not always easy or possible to define why a certain strategy is more domesticating than foreignising, or vice versa.

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Therefore, as opposed to other taxonomies that clearly set an order between methods on the axis, Van Poucke opts for positioning the methods into 5 categories, similar to a Likert-scale: Strong Foreignization (F), Moderate Foreignization (f), Neutral Translation (0), Moderate Domestication (d), Strong Domestication (D) (see Table 3). He considers changes not only on a lexico-semantic, but also on a syntactic-stylistic level, but in our case, with realia and irrealia, the latter one is not relevant. Therefore, the present paper only focuses on lexico-semantic changes.
 

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Table 3. Van Poucke’s categorisation of translation methods (Van Poucke 2012)

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In what follows Van Poucke’s theoretical concepts are tackled in detail, with the relevant underlying quotations. In his interpretation, Strong Foreignisation is “a set of shifts that retain both form and meaning of the translated ST items and, in other words, stay as closely as possible to the ST”, and he includes “all forms of borrowing” (that is, both with and without changing in spelling) on the lexico-semantic level, and explicit or marked retention of structure on the syntactic-stylistic level (Van Poucke 2012: 145).

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His definition of Moderate Foreignisation is not quite definite: it “includes shifts that cause minor changes in either form or meaning, but nevertheless stay close to the ST” (Van Poucke 2012: 146). “Deliberate” literal translation (where a more idiomatic alternative exists, yet the translator decides not to use it), specification, explicitation (in our case, paraphrase), or addition are rendered here. What is really relevant to us is that according to Van Poucke, “the retention of stylistic features, such as alliteration, repetition, rhythm and rhyme” also belong here. Solutions where formal characteristics are preserved will fall under the category formal focus.

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While Van Poucke does not find it obvious whether to include Neutral Translation in the list or not, with the translation of realia and irrealia, we find it absolutely necessary. According to him, those cases are fit into this category, “whenever the translation remains unmarked, i.e. those cases where the translator did not really meet a translation problem and was able to use the most obvious choice of words”. In our taxonomy, neutral solutions to wordplays will also be included, where the meaning was originally of little to no importance, as opposed to form, yet the translator chose content over form, as well as cases when the meanings of idioms were translated directly, without the use of another target language (TL) idiom.

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Van Poucke defines Moderate Domestication as the largest set of shifts, including “all shifts that adapt the original text to some idiomatic and stylistic norms of the TL” (Van Poucke 2012: 147). In our categorisation (see Table 4), generalisation and paraphrase are assigned here, as well as the loss of alliteration, repetition, rhythm or rhyme. In the case of paraphrase, we agree with him – as opposed to Mujzer-Varga’s categorisation, where she includes this strategy much closer to the foreignisation end of the spectrum. However, as the exact goal of this strategy is to bring the original concept (SC) notion closer to the concept (TC) audience, we are inclined to have it in the Moderate Domestication category. Based on different taxonomies, he also includes translation strategies that other scholars call as substitution (Pedersen) or cultural substitution (Baker) here, we argue that these belong to strong domestication, as it results in major shift toward the TC.

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We can talk about Strong Domestication, “[w]hen no trace of the ST can be found in the translation, neither of the original form, nor the original meaning” (p. 147). He considers omission to belong here. As mentioned above, we will consider cultural substitution, that is, the switch of a culturally specific item from the SC with a notion in the TC, as a strongly domesticating one. Actually, his definition for strong domestication (“in those cases when information is added to the original text or when the meaning of the original is radically changed, we can safely consider the translation shift to be Strongly Domesticating”; Van Poucke 2012: 147) would and should allow for the inclusion of cultural substitution – it is unclear why he fails to add it in this category.

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To give weight to the extremities, instead of the instinctive measures 1 and -1, and 2 and -2, Van Poucke opts for assigning 5 and -5 to the strongly foreignising and strongly domesticating methods, respectively, and 2 and -2 to the moderately foreignising and moderately domesticating methods, respectively. Neutral translation is assigned 0. We use this very same strategy.

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Also, in some cases names of the same methods preferred in other literature seemed more logical to use, therefore, the taxonomy applied in the present study is presented in Table 4.
 

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Table 4. Taxonomy applied with the numbers assigned to the strategies
FOREIGNISATION
Borrowing (5)

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Borrowing with modification (5)
Addition (2)
Partial translation (2)
Formal focus (2)
“Deliberate” literal translation (2)
Neutral translation (0)
Paraphrase (-2)
Generalisation (-2)
Specification (-2)
Omission (-5)
DOMESTICATION
Cultural substitution (-5)
 

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As can be seen, the translator can – or rather, has to – choose from a variety of translation methods, which are situated at some point on the axis between the two extremes, thus either bringing the TL text closer to the target culture (TC) – domestication –, or keeps the distance from them – foreignisation. According to some, the translator has to decide which approach to apply at the beginning of the whole translation process, as this will affect the reaction of the TL audience to the TL text.

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“[T]he initial decision between which procedure to adopt, either a domesticating or a foreignising one, may affect the whole translation process, leading either to a target text that is easily recognizable and thus readily accessible to the target readership, or to a text that constantly reminds target readers of cultural difference.” (Espindola & Vasconcellos 2006: 46)
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