Constructing the role of human agents in translation studies : translation of fantasy fiction in Taiwan from a Bourdieusian perspective

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the translation phenomenon of fantasy fiction in Taiwan, with the help of Pierre Bourdieu's sociological model. The application of a sociological approach to translation studies allows an examination of the social and cultural nature of translation by locating this activity within social structures. One of the aims of the thesis is to discover to what extent Bourdieu's sociological model can elucidate a translational phenomenon when compared with other models in translation studies. To fulfil this aim, the similarities and differences between Bourdieu's theoretical framework, Even-Zohar's polysystem model and Toury's concept of translational norms are discussed. It is postulated that the imposition of the concept of norms on Bourdieu's notion of habitus would reinforce the explanation of translation agents' practices in both the micro-structural and macro-structural investigation of the translation of fantasy fiction. The micro-structural investigation was conducted by employing a parallel corpus study of fantasy translations: J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone and Philip Pullman's Northern Lights. The aim of this comparison is to examine translation agents' textual translatorial habitus when dealing with culture-specific items (CSIs). The results revealed a source-oriented tendency when translating CSIs. The evidence from the textual analysis was interpreted and discussed in terms of the interaction between the translatorial habitus and the constraints and opportunities determined by the literary field. This thesis also aims to understand the production mode of fantasy fiction translation in Taiwan by means of a macro-structural investigation. The focus in this phase of the research is on how translation agents tend to develop particular choices and directions for texts, and which socio-cultural determinants govern their decision-making process. Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital and habitus were deployed in placing the translation activity within the broader and complex social and institutional network in which translation agents operate. The strategies of the producers of fantasy fiction translations and the tensions exerted in this cultural field were examined through in-depth interviews with translation agents. The data indicated that the production of translation of fantasy fiction in the literary field in Taiwan was conditioned by the logic of the market which is inherited by the heteronomous struggles from other fields outside of the literary field, so that a tendency toward prioritising the profitability of the translated products emerged.