ABSTRACT
Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory moves the study of translations out of a purely linguistic analysis of shifts and a one-to-one notion of equivalence and into an investigation of the position of translated literature as a whole in the historical and literary systems of the target culture. Toury then focused attention on finding a methodology for descriptive translation studies. His TT-oriented theoretical framework combined linguistic comparison of ST and TT and consideration of the cultural framework of the TT. His aim was to identify the patterns of behaviour in the translation and thereby to ‘reconstruct’ the norms at work in the translation process. The ultimate aim of descriptive translation studies is to discover probabilistic laws of translation, which may be used to aid future translators and researchers. The exact form of ST–TT comparison remains to be determined; scholars of the related Manipulation School led an interplay of theoretical models and case studies in the 1980s, among which was Lambert and van Gorp’s systematic ‘scheme’ for describing translations. Chesterman has later developed the concept of norms.
