ABSTRACT
System theory is more than polysystem theory, and the Manipulation paradigm also operates with system concepts of more recent and more flexible manufacture. The project’s complexity revealed both the strong points and the restrictions of polysystem theory. A Gideon Toury-style empiricism which regards as translation what is called translation or what we have reasonable grounds to assume is translated, becomes inadequate when confronted with systematically concealed and fragmented translations. Since the mass media affect and alter value systems, the occurrence of translation is also of political and ideological relevance. As a consequence, Andre Lefevere consciously differentiated his own systems concept from Itamar Even-Zohar’s, and devised his own categories and terms. The most important of these are patronage, ideology, poetics and ‘universe of discourse’. French science fiction feeds on translations of American originals, and Jean-Marc Gouanvic will read the translated status as constituting a particular form of cultural capital.
