ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to approach Berman’s Retranslation Hypothesis (1990) from an alternative perspective by using a quantitative method, namely Francis H. Aubert’s Translation Modalities Model (1998) to see whether a quantitative method can be used to explore aspects of retranslation that otherwise remain tentative in qualitative studies. The chapter maintains that a comparative analysis of translations always needs to be interpreted within a socio-historical context dealing with questions such as why a work was retranslated, what strategies were used, and who the publishers and translators were. I applied the Translation Modalities Model to verify Antoine Berman’s argument that first translations are more domesticating than retranslations in a case of two English translations of Clarice Lispector’s A Paixão Segundo G.H. by (1964) by Ronald W. Sousa (1988) and Idra Novey (2012). Both translations are very literal with some differences possibly due to the translators’ subjectivity and demands of the editors. However, I identified the amount of domestication in the translation to be statistically higher than in the retranslation and therefore in line with Berman’s hypothesis.
