Descriptive translation studies: a critical review

Abstract

The purpose of this article is twofold: (i) to review the major contributions of the theoretical framework known as Descriptive Translation Studies, developed in the mid-seventies by a group of European scholars concerned with the study of literary translations, and (ii) to discuss some theoretical gaps and flaws of the descriptive approach which have not been properly dealt with. The descriptive approach is based on the following assumptions: (i) a view of literature as a complex and dynamic system; (ii) a conviction that there should be a continual interplay between theoretical models and practical case studies; (iii) an approach to literary translation which is descriptive, target-oriented, functional and systemic; (iv) and an interest in the norms and constraints that govern the production and reception of translations, in the relation between translation and other types of text processing, and in the place and role of translation both in a given literature and in the interaction between literatures. In the last twenty-five years, the descriptive approach has been informing a great number of studies of the translated literature system in several cultures, particularly in Europe, but it still presents some flaws which should be resolved to improve the theory. Among such flaws there is the tendency to be too descriptive, to the point of failing to think critically, and the lack of explicit epistemological assumptions and redefinitions of key concepts.