Exploring literary translation practiceA focus on ethos

Peter FlynnLessius Hogeschool Antwerp

This article discusses findings from an ethnographic study of literary transla-tion practice in the Netherlands and Belgium The article focuses on one aspect of translation practice namely translatorial ethos It is argued that the forms of translatorial ethos visible in the data are complex in that they have a bearing both on textual and institutional practice and relations at one and the same time More specifically it is also argued that these complex professional stances and positionings need to be taken into account if we are to gain a better understand-ing of translational norms (Toury 1995 2000 and Chesterman 1993) or transla-tional habitus (Simeoni 1998) Furthermore it is argued in a more general sense that linguistic ethnography can provide clear indications of patterns of transla-tional practice and therefore forms a useful means of inquiry in the context of translation studies

Keywords linguistic ethnography translation practice positioning translational norms habitus

Introduction

The findings discussed in this article were taken from a doctoral dissertation on translation practice entitled a linguistic ethnography of literary translation Irish poems and Dutch-speaking translators (Flynn 2006) The purpose of the dissertation was to demonstrate the situated nature of translation practice and how it impacts on translation products It involved conducting an ethnographic inquiry among Dutch-speaking literary translators in Belgium and the Netherlands particularly those who have translated Irish literature which formed part of the research focus In approaching literary translation the writer was aware of the highly pertinent distinctions Toury makes in his discussion of the difference between lsquoTranslation of Literary Textsrsquo and lsquoLiterary Translationrsquo (Toury 1995 166ndash180) It is stressed

Target 191 (2007) 2ndash44issn 0924ndash1884 e-issn 1569ndash9986 copy John Benjamins Publishing Company

22 Peter Flynn

here that literary translation is understood as a process and the object is to explore further certain elements highlighted by Toury when he states that

The locus is rather what the texts can reveal as concerns the processes which give rise to them the options at a translators disposal the choices made by them and the constraints under which those choices were affected on the way to extracting such shared factors hellip (Toury 1995 174)

Though this article does not deal with translated texts as such it does focus on aspects of the textual and institutional processes and contexts in and through which they are generated For further clarification the term Irish literature applies equally to writings in English and Irish Irish literature is used here in an inclusive sense which perhaps does little justice to the complexity of the socio-cultural and political realities on the island of Ireland or outside of it nor to the often complex identities of those indexed as ldquoIrishrdquo writers

During the study thirteen translators were interviewed in Dutch All the ex-tracts from the interviews discussed further on have been translated in English for this article The interviewees ranged in age from plusmn30 to plusmn70 years old Seven of the interviewees are men and five are women Five have followed graduate courses in translation training and the others have followed language training at various levels Five work as full-time professional literary translators Four more work as part-time professional translators and are otherwise gainfully employed which al-lows them to continue to engage in literary translation The remaining four trans-late occasionally maintain a keen interest in literary translation in various ways and are otherwise gainfully employed The interviews ranged in length from one half hour to an hour and a half and in all yielded 177 A4 pages of transcription (single spaced) A corpus analysis of their translations was also conducted within the framework of the ethnography The findings of the first analysis of the ethno-graphic data were examined in the light of functional models of translation more specifically skopos theory (Flynn 2004) This article draws on a second thematic analysis of the same ethnographic data

While discussing the findings from the ethnography in more general terms this article will focus on one theme that emerged from the study namely trans-latorial ethos In what follows it is argued that the forms of translatorial ethos visible in the data are complex in that they have a bearing both on textual and in-stitutional practice and on relations at one and the same time More specifically it is also argued that these complex professional stances and positionings need to be taken into account if we are to gain a better understanding of translational norms (Toury 2000 and Chesterman 1993) or translational habitus (Simeoni 1998) Fur-thermore it is argued in a more general sense that ethnographic data provide clear

Exploring literary translation practice 23

indications of patterns of translational practice and as such are worthy of consid-eration in the broader context of Translation Studies

The following questionnaire was sent to the interviewees prior to the interview and after they had agreed to the interview and in the interests of interviewee pri-vacy all extracts quoted in this paper have been rendered anonymous

Interview questions A General questions 1 What brought you to translation 2 Have you translated many poets 4 Do you have a special affinity with Ireland

B Translating as such 1 How do you go about it 2 What do you do when you are stuck for a wordreference whatever Can you consult people on such matters 3 Do you work closely with the poets you translate (when possible) 4 Do publishers put you under a lot of pressure

C When the work is done 1 How do things go after you have submitted drafts of translated poems 2 What do the publishers do 3 Is there a lot of work for you during this part of the process

D After your work has been published 1 How do you feel 2 What about the critics 3 Are their comments useful in any way

The interview questions used for this study were mainly posed in terms of action relations and value within a given field ldquowhat do you do helliprdquo ldquowhat happens helliprdquo ldquodo you have an affinity helliprdquo ldquodo you work closely helliprdquo ldquoare their opinions useful helliprdquo etc The responses therefore were framed in the same terms The purpose of the interviews was to find out what translators actually did when translating and how they thought about their work The purpose of the second thematic analysis then was to discover patterns of approach to and reflection on this particular activ-ity that are sufficiently general to be worthy of consideration It was considered vital to conduct a second analysis in order to do justice to the wealth of responses provided by the interviewees which went far beyond set replies to the questions drawn up for the questionnaire Throughout all this the field of activity was taken for granted ie literary translation but the data clearly showed in passing that those practising literary translation even on a full-time basis often have to rely on

24 Peter Flynn

other forms of (translation) work to get by This does not mean that they do not possess and use different approaches to the various types of translation work they are involved in Though literary translation remains the focus in this paper it is nonetheless worth noting that it intersects in practice with other forms of transla-tion at least as far as the participants of this study are concerned This means that though a subfield of literary translation can be posited and identified it should be approached with circumspection when dealing with actual practices in the field

In analysing the findings from the qualitative data gleaned from the in-depth interviews it was asked whether the actions and expressions of value that belong to particular forms of translation work could be categorised into valid sets of pro-cesses and transformations It was noted that the socially and historically ground-ed nature of translation had already been amply argued in the literature on trans-lation (Pym 1998 Nord 1997) In pursuing this reasoning the data was explored for significant historically and socially grounded patterns of practice that were generalisable despite their being contingent these patterns in turn could help us gain insight into the complex nature of literary translation as practice It must be stressed in this respect that the point of departure in skopos theory is lsquoactionrsquo or lsquopurposeful activityrsquo as Christiane Nord (1997) puts it Likewise in relation to liter-ary works one of the basic tenets of polysystem theory (Even-Zohar 1979 2005) is that of dynamic interaction and change in the composition and distribution of such works including translations all of which implies practices and positionings by actors in the field and the impact in this case of such practices and position-ings on translation products Significantly in this regard related insights can be found in the literature on ethnography For example Hanks (1996 11) defines practice as comprising ldquothe law of system the quick of activity and the reflective gaze of valuerdquo In relation to translation this involves the (systematic character of) language use the specific actionscontexts involving or constructed by language use and the various positionings of those involved with respect to language and actioncontext Language use is understood here in the broadest sense as includ-ing various languages and varieties To return to the literature on translation the latter two factors are clearly encapsulated within Nordrsquos pre-modifier lsquopurposefulrsquo in ldquopurposeful activityrdquo and also dealt with in considerable detail by Toury (1981 1995) It must be stressed that though Hanks calls for separate modes of analysis for language system activity and value he regards them as forming a whole as none of the three aspects can be reduced to any of the others (Hanks 1996 11)

As was pointed out above the questions asked during the interviews did con-cern forms of language use action relations and value but what other form could these questions have taken At all times they concerned practical or working situ-ations As such these questions were not informed by an a priori notion of lsquoprac-ticersquo as understood by Bourdieu (1980) Hanks (1996) and others but rather by a

Exploring literary translation practice 25

desire to discover what translators actually do in practical terms which is not quite the same thing Again as such there was no unifying principle initially posited un-der which these disparate forms of translational action and value could be placed besides the fact that those who were engaged in them work to varying degrees on Irish literature within literary translation in the Netherlands and Belgium Hanks Bourdieu and others who use the concept of practice see it as drawing on and be-ing rooted firmly in empirical study In this sense practice is neither contrasted with nor set off against theory nor does it ignore lsquopracticersquo in the dictionary sense On the contrary it is a notion in which lsquotheoryrsquo and lsquopracticersquo meet or out of which they emerge It is as it were hypothesis put into action and activity theorised at one and the same time

La theacuteorie de la pratique en tant que pratique rappelle contre le mateacuterialisme in-tellectualiste que les objets de la connaissance sont construits et non passivement enregistreacutees et contre ideacutealisme intellectualiste que le principe de cette construc-tion est le systegraveme des dispositions structureacutees et structurantes qui se constitue dans la pratique et qui est toujours orienteacute vers des fonctions pratiques (Bourdieu 1980 87)

To Bourdieu not only must practice be seen in its own terms it must also be understood as belonging within a certain habitus which it helps to construct and maintain and by which it is determined He defines habitus in the following way

Les conditionnements associeacutes agrave une classe particuliegravere de conditions drsquoexistence produisent des habitus systegravemes de dispositions durables et transposables struc-tures structureacutees preacutedisposeacutees agrave fonctionner comme structures structurantes (Bourdieu 1980 88ndash89)

Bourdieu warns his reader about being overhasty in stepping from practices ob-served in the field to a-temporal schemata that attempt to map out these practices (Bourdieu 1980 135ndash165) A similar stance is found in Goodwin who states that

[a]n event being seen a relevant object of knowledge emerges through the inter-play between a domain of scrutiny (a patch of dirt the images made available by the Rodney King video) and a set of discursive practices (dividing the domains of scrutiny by highlighting a figure against a ground applying specific coding schemes for the constitution and interpretation of relevant events etc) being de-ployed in a specific activity (arguing a legal case mapping a site planting crops etc) hellip It is not possible to work in some abstract world where the constitution of knowledge through a politics of representation has been magically overcome (Goodwin 1994 606)

Hence exploring translation practice or constituting knowledge on that practice involves an engagement with the field of translation in an empirical sense which

26 Peter Flynn

also means testing translation models against phenomena observable in the field It is asserted that an exploration of translatorial ethos could help us form a picture of what the habitus of translators might constitute

Given prior professional experience as a translator the interviewer regarded the profession under scrutiny in a matter-of-fact fashion as the interview ques-tions illustrate This perspective could best be framed in terms of a lsquocontainer meta-phorrsquo (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) which would index lsquoprofessionrsquo as the medium in which translators found themselves not unlike fish in water or the lsquobucketrsquo theory of context (Slembrouck 1998ndash2003) However the interview data clearly reveals that profession is something that is also lsquoinsidersquo the translator that translators do indeed embody a set of dispositions which clearly ties in with Bourdieursquos notion of habitus and hence of practice (Simeoni 1998) On the whole the data shows the interviewees speaking as professionals and as representatives of a profession both in social and in textual terms hence it was difficult to reduce their responses to professional or textualtranslational strategies separately or draw a clear line between the two

A thematic analysis of the interviewee data Orders of salience

Following the first analysis for which the interviews had been coded into question and answer segments per question questionnaire section and interviewee by using the qualitative data analysis program Kwalitan the data were then re-examined systematically on a number of occasions for salient statements of any kind The salience referred to here is not question or questionnaire section specific ie pat-terns in responses to question A1 for example but rather concerns unsolicited statements that cropped up throughout the whole questionnaire which were of a similar order The task then was to lay bare the common themes in these statements and then to find appropriate headings under which to classify the statements It emerged that the headings used for these themes built on and complemented the practical headings visible in the questionnaire while providing a fuller picture of aspects of translation practice visible in the data

In the search for orders of salience in the interview data one of the most strik-ing observations to emerge was how the translators used metaphorical and met-onymic expressions (Tymoczko 1999 Holt and Drew 2005) to describe what they do Though they were interesting and significantly frequent at first sight these metaphorical expressions seemed fuzzy and enigmatic and consequently of little use Moreover the lsquofuzzinessrsquo of these translatorial opinions seemed at variance with scholarly translation models which are based on well-considered reflection and textual observation On further examination however the responses did re-veal significant thematic patterning that begged further examination and contrast

Exploring literary translation practice 27

with models extant in the literature Paradoxically it is known that translators are not generally privy to such models and if they are (through schooling or training for example) they seldom use them over-consciously or explicitly when translat-ing Nonetheless it was important to make sense of the salience that had emerged following various re-readings of the interview data

The metaphorical expressions referred to above were couched in stretches of mainly lsquomatter-of-factrsquo discourse on the various topics at hand (see questionnaire) and were often accompanied by changes in voice quality which seemed to indicate a quickening of emotion mdash indicating that the speaker had arrived at clarity of vision or formulation on the topic concerned On closer examination it emerged that these metaphors formed pivotal moments in the discourse and focused the translatorrsquos perspective or position on the topic under discussion It also emerged from an examination of these metaphors that the speakers who used them were performing and achieving several things at the same time Take the following ex-tract for example

Interviewee XX1 hellip but itrsquos fantastic Thatrsquos thatrsquos Banville so itrsquos all been put together and composed so sharkily (yeah yeah yeah) and thatrsquos comparable to poems (ah hah) but then itrsquos on a much grander scale beautiful hellip and thatrsquos why I translated him I recognise that

Extract 1 lsquoSharkyrsquo composition

This short statement is consistent with the many others found in the data and in itself is noteworthy for the complexity of its positioning though it is not the purpose here to provide a full discourse analysis of each interview extract The basic purpose was to uncover categories which suggest themselves from the data in which to place salient features gleaned from the interviews It is important to state therefore that lsquorawrsquo interview data would not be (and cannot be) contrasted with existing translational categorisations as the balance of scholarly precision is tipped too far in favour of the latter To comply with the old adage kind can only be compared with kind so the task was firstly to identify comparable kind as it emerged from the data To illustrate the importance of the metaphors found in the data let us now turn to a brief analysis of the above extract The lsquosharkyrsquo extract discussed here and those examined in the subsections below have been translated from Dutch into English for the purposes of this paper

In this extract the interviewee comments on a particular novel by the Irish writer John Banville two of whose books he had already translated in the past Banvillersquos work is described as being lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid in Dutch) or craftycunning in its composition and structure This lsquosharkinessrsquo is emblematic of why the transla-tor found it so intriguing and why in fact he identified with the writer and wanted to translate his work Furthermore the lsquosharkinessrsquo of the work is also compared

28 Peter Flynn

to the intricacies of poetry mdash another point of identification for the translator So lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid) a word that seems slightly out of place in the original Dutch in that it bears mainly negative overtones and is cognate with slyness and cunning indexes

i positive personal empathyii textual complexity andiii the identification of a genre (poetry)

at one and the same time It bears witness to a desire to translate which stems from that empathy and

reveals that the translator recognises something personal in Banvillersquos work that is related both to his perceptions of how language and texts work and how the translator ldquoticksrdquo The statement as a whole and the metaphor lsquosharkyrsquo in particular encapsulate elements of reference recognition apperception and reflexivity all at the same time The complexity visible in the above extract is echoed in Mertz and Yovelrsquos discussion of the structure of spoken exchanges

The fascinating insight here is that languagersquos basic structure is fundamentally multifunctional talk that purports to be referential simultaneously performs metalinguistically And as metalinguistic talk is always a matter of linguistic ex-change and communication power is involved as much in shaping the linguistic aspects of the exchange as in formulating its non-linguistic aspects Performative metalinguistic talk is not morphologically distinguished from referential talk Ec-clesiasticsrsquo maxim does not hold here there is no lsquotimersquo (or medium or locus) for seemingly-separate things to be performed separately inter alia because in the complexity of communication things are never that separate (Mertz and Yovel 2000 9)

Once my attention had been drawn to these metaphors and metonyms (some of which are lexicalised in the original Dutch) I began to encounter them regularly in the data Logically the statements containing these metaphors also emerged from and further corroborated the findings gleaned from the questionnaire responses as such Seen within and alongside the general discourse these metaphorical con-structions permitted a first attempt at categorising salient features in the data Ini-tially four main types of statement were identified which related to

ndash The profession of the translator both in the broadest and in the most specific textual sense

ndash Language (use) including the characteristics of (national) varieties and lan-guages and other context-specific aspects of use etc

ndash Text type and genre including what could be called the lsquopolitics of aestheticsrsquo relating to various genres

Exploring literary translation practice 29

ndash Culture including national cultures and their differences literature as (an ex-pressionrepresentation of) culture etc

On further reflection these four main types of statement were placed under the following categorisations which I consider to be more pointed and yet more gen-eral and inclusive than the previous four as the former seemed more of the order of description than categorisation

ndash Ethos as the term also covered individual perceptions of the profession of translation including social and textual practices taken together and as such formed a recognised category in a variety of disciplines (anthropology sociol-ogy psychology language studies communication studies etc)

ndash Language ideologies also because it could include individual perceptions of language and hence could also be seen within the framework of current think-ing on language and ideology that is visible in important work in this area (Schieffelin et al 1998)

ndash Genre (including text type) also because of the versatility of more recent ap-proaches that regard genre as a mode of social action (Hanks 1987) and not merely as a set of discursive features and hence can include individual stances and perceptions

ndash Versions of culture again because this could house and ground individual per-ceptions of culture and what the notion embraces while bringing them into play with the other three categories above

As the analysis of the lsquosharkyrsquo extract has shown there is a clear overlap between the four categories outlined above in that no particular utterance made by the in-terviewees can be said to relate solely to one category and to one category only The utterances gleaned from the data were therefore categorised according to the pre-dominance of a given salient feature and not because of the absence of the other three categories of salient feature in the utterances As can be seen from Table 1 the number of utterances grouped under the first heading (ie Ethos) is greater by far than those under the other three

Table 1 Number of utterances groupable under each of the four categories

Ethos 136 Language ideologies 54 Genre 47 Versions of culture 40

This difference in number of occurrences of the various themes in the interview data stems in part from the way the interview questions were formulated and pitched With regard to the utterances that fall under the other three categories it could be argued that they form evidence of responses emerging from the interac-tions that were not specifically solicited by the questionnaire Nonetheless it goes without saying that those interviewed would speak from within their profession

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

22 Peter Flynn

here that literary translation is understood as a process and the object is to explore further certain elements highlighted by Toury when he states that

The locus is rather what the texts can reveal as concerns the processes which give rise to them the options at a translators disposal the choices made by them and the constraints under which those choices were affected on the way to extracting such shared factors hellip (Toury 1995 174)

Though this article does not deal with translated texts as such it does focus on aspects of the textual and institutional processes and contexts in and through which they are generated For further clarification the term Irish literature applies equally to writings in English and Irish Irish literature is used here in an inclusive sense which perhaps does little justice to the complexity of the socio-cultural and political realities on the island of Ireland or outside of it nor to the often complex identities of those indexed as ldquoIrishrdquo writers

During the study thirteen translators were interviewed in Dutch All the ex-tracts from the interviews discussed further on have been translated in English for this article The interviewees ranged in age from plusmn30 to plusmn70 years old Seven of the interviewees are men and five are women Five have followed graduate courses in translation training and the others have followed language training at various levels Five work as full-time professional literary translators Four more work as part-time professional translators and are otherwise gainfully employed which al-lows them to continue to engage in literary translation The remaining four trans-late occasionally maintain a keen interest in literary translation in various ways and are otherwise gainfully employed The interviews ranged in length from one half hour to an hour and a half and in all yielded 177 A4 pages of transcription (single spaced) A corpus analysis of their translations was also conducted within the framework of the ethnography The findings of the first analysis of the ethno-graphic data were examined in the light of functional models of translation more specifically skopos theory (Flynn 2004) This article draws on a second thematic analysis of the same ethnographic data

While discussing the findings from the ethnography in more general terms this article will focus on one theme that emerged from the study namely trans-latorial ethos In what follows it is argued that the forms of translatorial ethos visible in the data are complex in that they have a bearing both on textual and in-stitutional practice and on relations at one and the same time More specifically it is also argued that these complex professional stances and positionings need to be taken into account if we are to gain a better understanding of translational norms (Toury 2000 and Chesterman 1993) or translational habitus (Simeoni 1998) Fur-thermore it is argued in a more general sense that ethnographic data provide clear

Exploring literary translation practice 23

indications of patterns of translational practice and as such are worthy of consid-eration in the broader context of Translation Studies

The following questionnaire was sent to the interviewees prior to the interview and after they had agreed to the interview and in the interests of interviewee pri-vacy all extracts quoted in this paper have been rendered anonymous

Interview questions A General questions 1 What brought you to translation 2 Have you translated many poets 4 Do you have a special affinity with Ireland

B Translating as such 1 How do you go about it 2 What do you do when you are stuck for a wordreference whatever Can you consult people on such matters 3 Do you work closely with the poets you translate (when possible) 4 Do publishers put you under a lot of pressure

C When the work is done 1 How do things go after you have submitted drafts of translated poems 2 What do the publishers do 3 Is there a lot of work for you during this part of the process

D After your work has been published 1 How do you feel 2 What about the critics 3 Are their comments useful in any way

The interview questions used for this study were mainly posed in terms of action relations and value within a given field ldquowhat do you do helliprdquo ldquowhat happens helliprdquo ldquodo you have an affinity helliprdquo ldquodo you work closely helliprdquo ldquoare their opinions useful helliprdquo etc The responses therefore were framed in the same terms The purpose of the interviews was to find out what translators actually did when translating and how they thought about their work The purpose of the second thematic analysis then was to discover patterns of approach to and reflection on this particular activ-ity that are sufficiently general to be worthy of consideration It was considered vital to conduct a second analysis in order to do justice to the wealth of responses provided by the interviewees which went far beyond set replies to the questions drawn up for the questionnaire Throughout all this the field of activity was taken for granted ie literary translation but the data clearly showed in passing that those practising literary translation even on a full-time basis often have to rely on

24 Peter Flynn

other forms of (translation) work to get by This does not mean that they do not possess and use different approaches to the various types of translation work they are involved in Though literary translation remains the focus in this paper it is nonetheless worth noting that it intersects in practice with other forms of transla-tion at least as far as the participants of this study are concerned This means that though a subfield of literary translation can be posited and identified it should be approached with circumspection when dealing with actual practices in the field

In analysing the findings from the qualitative data gleaned from the in-depth interviews it was asked whether the actions and expressions of value that belong to particular forms of translation work could be categorised into valid sets of pro-cesses and transformations It was noted that the socially and historically ground-ed nature of translation had already been amply argued in the literature on trans-lation (Pym 1998 Nord 1997) In pursuing this reasoning the data was explored for significant historically and socially grounded patterns of practice that were generalisable despite their being contingent these patterns in turn could help us gain insight into the complex nature of literary translation as practice It must be stressed in this respect that the point of departure in skopos theory is lsquoactionrsquo or lsquopurposeful activityrsquo as Christiane Nord (1997) puts it Likewise in relation to liter-ary works one of the basic tenets of polysystem theory (Even-Zohar 1979 2005) is that of dynamic interaction and change in the composition and distribution of such works including translations all of which implies practices and positionings by actors in the field and the impact in this case of such practices and position-ings on translation products Significantly in this regard related insights can be found in the literature on ethnography For example Hanks (1996 11) defines practice as comprising ldquothe law of system the quick of activity and the reflective gaze of valuerdquo In relation to translation this involves the (systematic character of) language use the specific actionscontexts involving or constructed by language use and the various positionings of those involved with respect to language and actioncontext Language use is understood here in the broadest sense as includ-ing various languages and varieties To return to the literature on translation the latter two factors are clearly encapsulated within Nordrsquos pre-modifier lsquopurposefulrsquo in ldquopurposeful activityrdquo and also dealt with in considerable detail by Toury (1981 1995) It must be stressed that though Hanks calls for separate modes of analysis for language system activity and value he regards them as forming a whole as none of the three aspects can be reduced to any of the others (Hanks 1996 11)

As was pointed out above the questions asked during the interviews did con-cern forms of language use action relations and value but what other form could these questions have taken At all times they concerned practical or working situ-ations As such these questions were not informed by an a priori notion of lsquoprac-ticersquo as understood by Bourdieu (1980) Hanks (1996) and others but rather by a

Exploring literary translation practice 25

desire to discover what translators actually do in practical terms which is not quite the same thing Again as such there was no unifying principle initially posited un-der which these disparate forms of translational action and value could be placed besides the fact that those who were engaged in them work to varying degrees on Irish literature within literary translation in the Netherlands and Belgium Hanks Bourdieu and others who use the concept of practice see it as drawing on and be-ing rooted firmly in empirical study In this sense practice is neither contrasted with nor set off against theory nor does it ignore lsquopracticersquo in the dictionary sense On the contrary it is a notion in which lsquotheoryrsquo and lsquopracticersquo meet or out of which they emerge It is as it were hypothesis put into action and activity theorised at one and the same time

La theacuteorie de la pratique en tant que pratique rappelle contre le mateacuterialisme in-tellectualiste que les objets de la connaissance sont construits et non passivement enregistreacutees et contre ideacutealisme intellectualiste que le principe de cette construc-tion est le systegraveme des dispositions structureacutees et structurantes qui se constitue dans la pratique et qui est toujours orienteacute vers des fonctions pratiques (Bourdieu 1980 87)

To Bourdieu not only must practice be seen in its own terms it must also be understood as belonging within a certain habitus which it helps to construct and maintain and by which it is determined He defines habitus in the following way

Les conditionnements associeacutes agrave une classe particuliegravere de conditions drsquoexistence produisent des habitus systegravemes de dispositions durables et transposables struc-tures structureacutees preacutedisposeacutees agrave fonctionner comme structures structurantes (Bourdieu 1980 88ndash89)

Bourdieu warns his reader about being overhasty in stepping from practices ob-served in the field to a-temporal schemata that attempt to map out these practices (Bourdieu 1980 135ndash165) A similar stance is found in Goodwin who states that

[a]n event being seen a relevant object of knowledge emerges through the inter-play between a domain of scrutiny (a patch of dirt the images made available by the Rodney King video) and a set of discursive practices (dividing the domains of scrutiny by highlighting a figure against a ground applying specific coding schemes for the constitution and interpretation of relevant events etc) being de-ployed in a specific activity (arguing a legal case mapping a site planting crops etc) hellip It is not possible to work in some abstract world where the constitution of knowledge through a politics of representation has been magically overcome (Goodwin 1994 606)

Hence exploring translation practice or constituting knowledge on that practice involves an engagement with the field of translation in an empirical sense which

26 Peter Flynn

also means testing translation models against phenomena observable in the field It is asserted that an exploration of translatorial ethos could help us form a picture of what the habitus of translators might constitute

Given prior professional experience as a translator the interviewer regarded the profession under scrutiny in a matter-of-fact fashion as the interview ques-tions illustrate This perspective could best be framed in terms of a lsquocontainer meta-phorrsquo (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) which would index lsquoprofessionrsquo as the medium in which translators found themselves not unlike fish in water or the lsquobucketrsquo theory of context (Slembrouck 1998ndash2003) However the interview data clearly reveals that profession is something that is also lsquoinsidersquo the translator that translators do indeed embody a set of dispositions which clearly ties in with Bourdieursquos notion of habitus and hence of practice (Simeoni 1998) On the whole the data shows the interviewees speaking as professionals and as representatives of a profession both in social and in textual terms hence it was difficult to reduce their responses to professional or textualtranslational strategies separately or draw a clear line between the two

A thematic analysis of the interviewee data Orders of salience

Following the first analysis for which the interviews had been coded into question and answer segments per question questionnaire section and interviewee by using the qualitative data analysis program Kwalitan the data were then re-examined systematically on a number of occasions for salient statements of any kind The salience referred to here is not question or questionnaire section specific ie pat-terns in responses to question A1 for example but rather concerns unsolicited statements that cropped up throughout the whole questionnaire which were of a similar order The task then was to lay bare the common themes in these statements and then to find appropriate headings under which to classify the statements It emerged that the headings used for these themes built on and complemented the practical headings visible in the questionnaire while providing a fuller picture of aspects of translation practice visible in the data

In the search for orders of salience in the interview data one of the most strik-ing observations to emerge was how the translators used metaphorical and met-onymic expressions (Tymoczko 1999 Holt and Drew 2005) to describe what they do Though they were interesting and significantly frequent at first sight these metaphorical expressions seemed fuzzy and enigmatic and consequently of little use Moreover the lsquofuzzinessrsquo of these translatorial opinions seemed at variance with scholarly translation models which are based on well-considered reflection and textual observation On further examination however the responses did re-veal significant thematic patterning that begged further examination and contrast

Exploring literary translation practice 27

with models extant in the literature Paradoxically it is known that translators are not generally privy to such models and if they are (through schooling or training for example) they seldom use them over-consciously or explicitly when translat-ing Nonetheless it was important to make sense of the salience that had emerged following various re-readings of the interview data

The metaphorical expressions referred to above were couched in stretches of mainly lsquomatter-of-factrsquo discourse on the various topics at hand (see questionnaire) and were often accompanied by changes in voice quality which seemed to indicate a quickening of emotion mdash indicating that the speaker had arrived at clarity of vision or formulation on the topic concerned On closer examination it emerged that these metaphors formed pivotal moments in the discourse and focused the translatorrsquos perspective or position on the topic under discussion It also emerged from an examination of these metaphors that the speakers who used them were performing and achieving several things at the same time Take the following ex-tract for example

Interviewee XX1 hellip but itrsquos fantastic Thatrsquos thatrsquos Banville so itrsquos all been put together and composed so sharkily (yeah yeah yeah) and thatrsquos comparable to poems (ah hah) but then itrsquos on a much grander scale beautiful hellip and thatrsquos why I translated him I recognise that

Extract 1 lsquoSharkyrsquo composition

This short statement is consistent with the many others found in the data and in itself is noteworthy for the complexity of its positioning though it is not the purpose here to provide a full discourse analysis of each interview extract The basic purpose was to uncover categories which suggest themselves from the data in which to place salient features gleaned from the interviews It is important to state therefore that lsquorawrsquo interview data would not be (and cannot be) contrasted with existing translational categorisations as the balance of scholarly precision is tipped too far in favour of the latter To comply with the old adage kind can only be compared with kind so the task was firstly to identify comparable kind as it emerged from the data To illustrate the importance of the metaphors found in the data let us now turn to a brief analysis of the above extract The lsquosharkyrsquo extract discussed here and those examined in the subsections below have been translated from Dutch into English for the purposes of this paper

In this extract the interviewee comments on a particular novel by the Irish writer John Banville two of whose books he had already translated in the past Banvillersquos work is described as being lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid in Dutch) or craftycunning in its composition and structure This lsquosharkinessrsquo is emblematic of why the transla-tor found it so intriguing and why in fact he identified with the writer and wanted to translate his work Furthermore the lsquosharkinessrsquo of the work is also compared

28 Peter Flynn

to the intricacies of poetry mdash another point of identification for the translator So lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid) a word that seems slightly out of place in the original Dutch in that it bears mainly negative overtones and is cognate with slyness and cunning indexes

i positive personal empathyii textual complexity andiii the identification of a genre (poetry)

at one and the same time It bears witness to a desire to translate which stems from that empathy and

reveals that the translator recognises something personal in Banvillersquos work that is related both to his perceptions of how language and texts work and how the translator ldquoticksrdquo The statement as a whole and the metaphor lsquosharkyrsquo in particular encapsulate elements of reference recognition apperception and reflexivity all at the same time The complexity visible in the above extract is echoed in Mertz and Yovelrsquos discussion of the structure of spoken exchanges

The fascinating insight here is that languagersquos basic structure is fundamentally multifunctional talk that purports to be referential simultaneously performs metalinguistically And as metalinguistic talk is always a matter of linguistic ex-change and communication power is involved as much in shaping the linguistic aspects of the exchange as in formulating its non-linguistic aspects Performative metalinguistic talk is not morphologically distinguished from referential talk Ec-clesiasticsrsquo maxim does not hold here there is no lsquotimersquo (or medium or locus) for seemingly-separate things to be performed separately inter alia because in the complexity of communication things are never that separate (Mertz and Yovel 2000 9)

Once my attention had been drawn to these metaphors and metonyms (some of which are lexicalised in the original Dutch) I began to encounter them regularly in the data Logically the statements containing these metaphors also emerged from and further corroborated the findings gleaned from the questionnaire responses as such Seen within and alongside the general discourse these metaphorical con-structions permitted a first attempt at categorising salient features in the data Ini-tially four main types of statement were identified which related to

ndash The profession of the translator both in the broadest and in the most specific textual sense

ndash Language (use) including the characteristics of (national) varieties and lan-guages and other context-specific aspects of use etc

ndash Text type and genre including what could be called the lsquopolitics of aestheticsrsquo relating to various genres

Exploring literary translation practice 29

ndash Culture including national cultures and their differences literature as (an ex-pressionrepresentation of) culture etc

On further reflection these four main types of statement were placed under the following categorisations which I consider to be more pointed and yet more gen-eral and inclusive than the previous four as the former seemed more of the order of description than categorisation

ndash Ethos as the term also covered individual perceptions of the profession of translation including social and textual practices taken together and as such formed a recognised category in a variety of disciplines (anthropology sociol-ogy psychology language studies communication studies etc)

ndash Language ideologies also because it could include individual perceptions of language and hence could also be seen within the framework of current think-ing on language and ideology that is visible in important work in this area (Schieffelin et al 1998)

ndash Genre (including text type) also because of the versatility of more recent ap-proaches that regard genre as a mode of social action (Hanks 1987) and not merely as a set of discursive features and hence can include individual stances and perceptions

ndash Versions of culture again because this could house and ground individual per-ceptions of culture and what the notion embraces while bringing them into play with the other three categories above

As the analysis of the lsquosharkyrsquo extract has shown there is a clear overlap between the four categories outlined above in that no particular utterance made by the in-terviewees can be said to relate solely to one category and to one category only The utterances gleaned from the data were therefore categorised according to the pre-dominance of a given salient feature and not because of the absence of the other three categories of salient feature in the utterances As can be seen from Table 1 the number of utterances grouped under the first heading (ie Ethos) is greater by far than those under the other three

Table 1 Number of utterances groupable under each of the four categories

Ethos 136 Language ideologies 54 Genre 47 Versions of culture 40

This difference in number of occurrences of the various themes in the interview data stems in part from the way the interview questions were formulated and pitched With regard to the utterances that fall under the other three categories it could be argued that they form evidence of responses emerging from the interac-tions that were not specifically solicited by the questionnaire Nonetheless it goes without saying that those interviewed would speak from within their profession

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 23

indications of patterns of translational practice and as such are worthy of consid-eration in the broader context of Translation Studies

The following questionnaire was sent to the interviewees prior to the interview and after they had agreed to the interview and in the interests of interviewee pri-vacy all extracts quoted in this paper have been rendered anonymous

Interview questions A General questions 1 What brought you to translation 2 Have you translated many poets 4 Do you have a special affinity with Ireland

B Translating as such 1 How do you go about it 2 What do you do when you are stuck for a wordreference whatever Can you consult people on such matters 3 Do you work closely with the poets you translate (when possible) 4 Do publishers put you under a lot of pressure

C When the work is done 1 How do things go after you have submitted drafts of translated poems 2 What do the publishers do 3 Is there a lot of work for you during this part of the process

D After your work has been published 1 How do you feel 2 What about the critics 3 Are their comments useful in any way

The interview questions used for this study were mainly posed in terms of action relations and value within a given field ldquowhat do you do helliprdquo ldquowhat happens helliprdquo ldquodo you have an affinity helliprdquo ldquodo you work closely helliprdquo ldquoare their opinions useful helliprdquo etc The responses therefore were framed in the same terms The purpose of the interviews was to find out what translators actually did when translating and how they thought about their work The purpose of the second thematic analysis then was to discover patterns of approach to and reflection on this particular activ-ity that are sufficiently general to be worthy of consideration It was considered vital to conduct a second analysis in order to do justice to the wealth of responses provided by the interviewees which went far beyond set replies to the questions drawn up for the questionnaire Throughout all this the field of activity was taken for granted ie literary translation but the data clearly showed in passing that those practising literary translation even on a full-time basis often have to rely on

24 Peter Flynn

other forms of (translation) work to get by This does not mean that they do not possess and use different approaches to the various types of translation work they are involved in Though literary translation remains the focus in this paper it is nonetheless worth noting that it intersects in practice with other forms of transla-tion at least as far as the participants of this study are concerned This means that though a subfield of literary translation can be posited and identified it should be approached with circumspection when dealing with actual practices in the field

In analysing the findings from the qualitative data gleaned from the in-depth interviews it was asked whether the actions and expressions of value that belong to particular forms of translation work could be categorised into valid sets of pro-cesses and transformations It was noted that the socially and historically ground-ed nature of translation had already been amply argued in the literature on trans-lation (Pym 1998 Nord 1997) In pursuing this reasoning the data was explored for significant historically and socially grounded patterns of practice that were generalisable despite their being contingent these patterns in turn could help us gain insight into the complex nature of literary translation as practice It must be stressed in this respect that the point of departure in skopos theory is lsquoactionrsquo or lsquopurposeful activityrsquo as Christiane Nord (1997) puts it Likewise in relation to liter-ary works one of the basic tenets of polysystem theory (Even-Zohar 1979 2005) is that of dynamic interaction and change in the composition and distribution of such works including translations all of which implies practices and positionings by actors in the field and the impact in this case of such practices and position-ings on translation products Significantly in this regard related insights can be found in the literature on ethnography For example Hanks (1996 11) defines practice as comprising ldquothe law of system the quick of activity and the reflective gaze of valuerdquo In relation to translation this involves the (systematic character of) language use the specific actionscontexts involving or constructed by language use and the various positionings of those involved with respect to language and actioncontext Language use is understood here in the broadest sense as includ-ing various languages and varieties To return to the literature on translation the latter two factors are clearly encapsulated within Nordrsquos pre-modifier lsquopurposefulrsquo in ldquopurposeful activityrdquo and also dealt with in considerable detail by Toury (1981 1995) It must be stressed that though Hanks calls for separate modes of analysis for language system activity and value he regards them as forming a whole as none of the three aspects can be reduced to any of the others (Hanks 1996 11)

As was pointed out above the questions asked during the interviews did con-cern forms of language use action relations and value but what other form could these questions have taken At all times they concerned practical or working situ-ations As such these questions were not informed by an a priori notion of lsquoprac-ticersquo as understood by Bourdieu (1980) Hanks (1996) and others but rather by a

Exploring literary translation practice 25

desire to discover what translators actually do in practical terms which is not quite the same thing Again as such there was no unifying principle initially posited un-der which these disparate forms of translational action and value could be placed besides the fact that those who were engaged in them work to varying degrees on Irish literature within literary translation in the Netherlands and Belgium Hanks Bourdieu and others who use the concept of practice see it as drawing on and be-ing rooted firmly in empirical study In this sense practice is neither contrasted with nor set off against theory nor does it ignore lsquopracticersquo in the dictionary sense On the contrary it is a notion in which lsquotheoryrsquo and lsquopracticersquo meet or out of which they emerge It is as it were hypothesis put into action and activity theorised at one and the same time

La theacuteorie de la pratique en tant que pratique rappelle contre le mateacuterialisme in-tellectualiste que les objets de la connaissance sont construits et non passivement enregistreacutees et contre ideacutealisme intellectualiste que le principe de cette construc-tion est le systegraveme des dispositions structureacutees et structurantes qui se constitue dans la pratique et qui est toujours orienteacute vers des fonctions pratiques (Bourdieu 1980 87)

To Bourdieu not only must practice be seen in its own terms it must also be understood as belonging within a certain habitus which it helps to construct and maintain and by which it is determined He defines habitus in the following way

Les conditionnements associeacutes agrave une classe particuliegravere de conditions drsquoexistence produisent des habitus systegravemes de dispositions durables et transposables struc-tures structureacutees preacutedisposeacutees agrave fonctionner comme structures structurantes (Bourdieu 1980 88ndash89)

Bourdieu warns his reader about being overhasty in stepping from practices ob-served in the field to a-temporal schemata that attempt to map out these practices (Bourdieu 1980 135ndash165) A similar stance is found in Goodwin who states that

[a]n event being seen a relevant object of knowledge emerges through the inter-play between a domain of scrutiny (a patch of dirt the images made available by the Rodney King video) and a set of discursive practices (dividing the domains of scrutiny by highlighting a figure against a ground applying specific coding schemes for the constitution and interpretation of relevant events etc) being de-ployed in a specific activity (arguing a legal case mapping a site planting crops etc) hellip It is not possible to work in some abstract world where the constitution of knowledge through a politics of representation has been magically overcome (Goodwin 1994 606)

Hence exploring translation practice or constituting knowledge on that practice involves an engagement with the field of translation in an empirical sense which

26 Peter Flynn

also means testing translation models against phenomena observable in the field It is asserted that an exploration of translatorial ethos could help us form a picture of what the habitus of translators might constitute

Given prior professional experience as a translator the interviewer regarded the profession under scrutiny in a matter-of-fact fashion as the interview ques-tions illustrate This perspective could best be framed in terms of a lsquocontainer meta-phorrsquo (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) which would index lsquoprofessionrsquo as the medium in which translators found themselves not unlike fish in water or the lsquobucketrsquo theory of context (Slembrouck 1998ndash2003) However the interview data clearly reveals that profession is something that is also lsquoinsidersquo the translator that translators do indeed embody a set of dispositions which clearly ties in with Bourdieursquos notion of habitus and hence of practice (Simeoni 1998) On the whole the data shows the interviewees speaking as professionals and as representatives of a profession both in social and in textual terms hence it was difficult to reduce their responses to professional or textualtranslational strategies separately or draw a clear line between the two

A thematic analysis of the interviewee data Orders of salience

Following the first analysis for which the interviews had been coded into question and answer segments per question questionnaire section and interviewee by using the qualitative data analysis program Kwalitan the data were then re-examined systematically on a number of occasions for salient statements of any kind The salience referred to here is not question or questionnaire section specific ie pat-terns in responses to question A1 for example but rather concerns unsolicited statements that cropped up throughout the whole questionnaire which were of a similar order The task then was to lay bare the common themes in these statements and then to find appropriate headings under which to classify the statements It emerged that the headings used for these themes built on and complemented the practical headings visible in the questionnaire while providing a fuller picture of aspects of translation practice visible in the data

In the search for orders of salience in the interview data one of the most strik-ing observations to emerge was how the translators used metaphorical and met-onymic expressions (Tymoczko 1999 Holt and Drew 2005) to describe what they do Though they were interesting and significantly frequent at first sight these metaphorical expressions seemed fuzzy and enigmatic and consequently of little use Moreover the lsquofuzzinessrsquo of these translatorial opinions seemed at variance with scholarly translation models which are based on well-considered reflection and textual observation On further examination however the responses did re-veal significant thematic patterning that begged further examination and contrast

Exploring literary translation practice 27

with models extant in the literature Paradoxically it is known that translators are not generally privy to such models and if they are (through schooling or training for example) they seldom use them over-consciously or explicitly when translat-ing Nonetheless it was important to make sense of the salience that had emerged following various re-readings of the interview data

The metaphorical expressions referred to above were couched in stretches of mainly lsquomatter-of-factrsquo discourse on the various topics at hand (see questionnaire) and were often accompanied by changes in voice quality which seemed to indicate a quickening of emotion mdash indicating that the speaker had arrived at clarity of vision or formulation on the topic concerned On closer examination it emerged that these metaphors formed pivotal moments in the discourse and focused the translatorrsquos perspective or position on the topic under discussion It also emerged from an examination of these metaphors that the speakers who used them were performing and achieving several things at the same time Take the following ex-tract for example

Interviewee XX1 hellip but itrsquos fantastic Thatrsquos thatrsquos Banville so itrsquos all been put together and composed so sharkily (yeah yeah yeah) and thatrsquos comparable to poems (ah hah) but then itrsquos on a much grander scale beautiful hellip and thatrsquos why I translated him I recognise that

Extract 1 lsquoSharkyrsquo composition

This short statement is consistent with the many others found in the data and in itself is noteworthy for the complexity of its positioning though it is not the purpose here to provide a full discourse analysis of each interview extract The basic purpose was to uncover categories which suggest themselves from the data in which to place salient features gleaned from the interviews It is important to state therefore that lsquorawrsquo interview data would not be (and cannot be) contrasted with existing translational categorisations as the balance of scholarly precision is tipped too far in favour of the latter To comply with the old adage kind can only be compared with kind so the task was firstly to identify comparable kind as it emerged from the data To illustrate the importance of the metaphors found in the data let us now turn to a brief analysis of the above extract The lsquosharkyrsquo extract discussed here and those examined in the subsections below have been translated from Dutch into English for the purposes of this paper

In this extract the interviewee comments on a particular novel by the Irish writer John Banville two of whose books he had already translated in the past Banvillersquos work is described as being lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid in Dutch) or craftycunning in its composition and structure This lsquosharkinessrsquo is emblematic of why the transla-tor found it so intriguing and why in fact he identified with the writer and wanted to translate his work Furthermore the lsquosharkinessrsquo of the work is also compared

28 Peter Flynn

to the intricacies of poetry mdash another point of identification for the translator So lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid) a word that seems slightly out of place in the original Dutch in that it bears mainly negative overtones and is cognate with slyness and cunning indexes

i positive personal empathyii textual complexity andiii the identification of a genre (poetry)

at one and the same time It bears witness to a desire to translate which stems from that empathy and

reveals that the translator recognises something personal in Banvillersquos work that is related both to his perceptions of how language and texts work and how the translator ldquoticksrdquo The statement as a whole and the metaphor lsquosharkyrsquo in particular encapsulate elements of reference recognition apperception and reflexivity all at the same time The complexity visible in the above extract is echoed in Mertz and Yovelrsquos discussion of the structure of spoken exchanges

The fascinating insight here is that languagersquos basic structure is fundamentally multifunctional talk that purports to be referential simultaneously performs metalinguistically And as metalinguistic talk is always a matter of linguistic ex-change and communication power is involved as much in shaping the linguistic aspects of the exchange as in formulating its non-linguistic aspects Performative metalinguistic talk is not morphologically distinguished from referential talk Ec-clesiasticsrsquo maxim does not hold here there is no lsquotimersquo (or medium or locus) for seemingly-separate things to be performed separately inter alia because in the complexity of communication things are never that separate (Mertz and Yovel 2000 9)

Once my attention had been drawn to these metaphors and metonyms (some of which are lexicalised in the original Dutch) I began to encounter them regularly in the data Logically the statements containing these metaphors also emerged from and further corroborated the findings gleaned from the questionnaire responses as such Seen within and alongside the general discourse these metaphorical con-structions permitted a first attempt at categorising salient features in the data Ini-tially four main types of statement were identified which related to

ndash The profession of the translator both in the broadest and in the most specific textual sense

ndash Language (use) including the characteristics of (national) varieties and lan-guages and other context-specific aspects of use etc

ndash Text type and genre including what could be called the lsquopolitics of aestheticsrsquo relating to various genres

Exploring literary translation practice 29

ndash Culture including national cultures and their differences literature as (an ex-pressionrepresentation of) culture etc

On further reflection these four main types of statement were placed under the following categorisations which I consider to be more pointed and yet more gen-eral and inclusive than the previous four as the former seemed more of the order of description than categorisation

ndash Ethos as the term also covered individual perceptions of the profession of translation including social and textual practices taken together and as such formed a recognised category in a variety of disciplines (anthropology sociol-ogy psychology language studies communication studies etc)

ndash Language ideologies also because it could include individual perceptions of language and hence could also be seen within the framework of current think-ing on language and ideology that is visible in important work in this area (Schieffelin et al 1998)

ndash Genre (including text type) also because of the versatility of more recent ap-proaches that regard genre as a mode of social action (Hanks 1987) and not merely as a set of discursive features and hence can include individual stances and perceptions

ndash Versions of culture again because this could house and ground individual per-ceptions of culture and what the notion embraces while bringing them into play with the other three categories above

As the analysis of the lsquosharkyrsquo extract has shown there is a clear overlap between the four categories outlined above in that no particular utterance made by the in-terviewees can be said to relate solely to one category and to one category only The utterances gleaned from the data were therefore categorised according to the pre-dominance of a given salient feature and not because of the absence of the other three categories of salient feature in the utterances As can be seen from Table 1 the number of utterances grouped under the first heading (ie Ethos) is greater by far than those under the other three

Table 1 Number of utterances groupable under each of the four categories

Ethos 136 Language ideologies 54 Genre 47 Versions of culture 40

This difference in number of occurrences of the various themes in the interview data stems in part from the way the interview questions were formulated and pitched With regard to the utterances that fall under the other three categories it could be argued that they form evidence of responses emerging from the interac-tions that were not specifically solicited by the questionnaire Nonetheless it goes without saying that those interviewed would speak from within their profession

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

24 Peter Flynn

other forms of (translation) work to get by This does not mean that they do not possess and use different approaches to the various types of translation work they are involved in Though literary translation remains the focus in this paper it is nonetheless worth noting that it intersects in practice with other forms of transla-tion at least as far as the participants of this study are concerned This means that though a subfield of literary translation can be posited and identified it should be approached with circumspection when dealing with actual practices in the field

In analysing the findings from the qualitative data gleaned from the in-depth interviews it was asked whether the actions and expressions of value that belong to particular forms of translation work could be categorised into valid sets of pro-cesses and transformations It was noted that the socially and historically ground-ed nature of translation had already been amply argued in the literature on trans-lation (Pym 1998 Nord 1997) In pursuing this reasoning the data was explored for significant historically and socially grounded patterns of practice that were generalisable despite their being contingent these patterns in turn could help us gain insight into the complex nature of literary translation as practice It must be stressed in this respect that the point of departure in skopos theory is lsquoactionrsquo or lsquopurposeful activityrsquo as Christiane Nord (1997) puts it Likewise in relation to liter-ary works one of the basic tenets of polysystem theory (Even-Zohar 1979 2005) is that of dynamic interaction and change in the composition and distribution of such works including translations all of which implies practices and positionings by actors in the field and the impact in this case of such practices and position-ings on translation products Significantly in this regard related insights can be found in the literature on ethnography For example Hanks (1996 11) defines practice as comprising ldquothe law of system the quick of activity and the reflective gaze of valuerdquo In relation to translation this involves the (systematic character of) language use the specific actionscontexts involving or constructed by language use and the various positionings of those involved with respect to language and actioncontext Language use is understood here in the broadest sense as includ-ing various languages and varieties To return to the literature on translation the latter two factors are clearly encapsulated within Nordrsquos pre-modifier lsquopurposefulrsquo in ldquopurposeful activityrdquo and also dealt with in considerable detail by Toury (1981 1995) It must be stressed that though Hanks calls for separate modes of analysis for language system activity and value he regards them as forming a whole as none of the three aspects can be reduced to any of the others (Hanks 1996 11)

As was pointed out above the questions asked during the interviews did con-cern forms of language use action relations and value but what other form could these questions have taken At all times they concerned practical or working situ-ations As such these questions were not informed by an a priori notion of lsquoprac-ticersquo as understood by Bourdieu (1980) Hanks (1996) and others but rather by a

Exploring literary translation practice 25

desire to discover what translators actually do in practical terms which is not quite the same thing Again as such there was no unifying principle initially posited un-der which these disparate forms of translational action and value could be placed besides the fact that those who were engaged in them work to varying degrees on Irish literature within literary translation in the Netherlands and Belgium Hanks Bourdieu and others who use the concept of practice see it as drawing on and be-ing rooted firmly in empirical study In this sense practice is neither contrasted with nor set off against theory nor does it ignore lsquopracticersquo in the dictionary sense On the contrary it is a notion in which lsquotheoryrsquo and lsquopracticersquo meet or out of which they emerge It is as it were hypothesis put into action and activity theorised at one and the same time

La theacuteorie de la pratique en tant que pratique rappelle contre le mateacuterialisme in-tellectualiste que les objets de la connaissance sont construits et non passivement enregistreacutees et contre ideacutealisme intellectualiste que le principe de cette construc-tion est le systegraveme des dispositions structureacutees et structurantes qui se constitue dans la pratique et qui est toujours orienteacute vers des fonctions pratiques (Bourdieu 1980 87)

To Bourdieu not only must practice be seen in its own terms it must also be understood as belonging within a certain habitus which it helps to construct and maintain and by which it is determined He defines habitus in the following way

Les conditionnements associeacutes agrave une classe particuliegravere de conditions drsquoexistence produisent des habitus systegravemes de dispositions durables et transposables struc-tures structureacutees preacutedisposeacutees agrave fonctionner comme structures structurantes (Bourdieu 1980 88ndash89)

Bourdieu warns his reader about being overhasty in stepping from practices ob-served in the field to a-temporal schemata that attempt to map out these practices (Bourdieu 1980 135ndash165) A similar stance is found in Goodwin who states that

[a]n event being seen a relevant object of knowledge emerges through the inter-play between a domain of scrutiny (a patch of dirt the images made available by the Rodney King video) and a set of discursive practices (dividing the domains of scrutiny by highlighting a figure against a ground applying specific coding schemes for the constitution and interpretation of relevant events etc) being de-ployed in a specific activity (arguing a legal case mapping a site planting crops etc) hellip It is not possible to work in some abstract world where the constitution of knowledge through a politics of representation has been magically overcome (Goodwin 1994 606)

Hence exploring translation practice or constituting knowledge on that practice involves an engagement with the field of translation in an empirical sense which

26 Peter Flynn

also means testing translation models against phenomena observable in the field It is asserted that an exploration of translatorial ethos could help us form a picture of what the habitus of translators might constitute

Given prior professional experience as a translator the interviewer regarded the profession under scrutiny in a matter-of-fact fashion as the interview ques-tions illustrate This perspective could best be framed in terms of a lsquocontainer meta-phorrsquo (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) which would index lsquoprofessionrsquo as the medium in which translators found themselves not unlike fish in water or the lsquobucketrsquo theory of context (Slembrouck 1998ndash2003) However the interview data clearly reveals that profession is something that is also lsquoinsidersquo the translator that translators do indeed embody a set of dispositions which clearly ties in with Bourdieursquos notion of habitus and hence of practice (Simeoni 1998) On the whole the data shows the interviewees speaking as professionals and as representatives of a profession both in social and in textual terms hence it was difficult to reduce their responses to professional or textualtranslational strategies separately or draw a clear line between the two

A thematic analysis of the interviewee data Orders of salience

Following the first analysis for which the interviews had been coded into question and answer segments per question questionnaire section and interviewee by using the qualitative data analysis program Kwalitan the data were then re-examined systematically on a number of occasions for salient statements of any kind The salience referred to here is not question or questionnaire section specific ie pat-terns in responses to question A1 for example but rather concerns unsolicited statements that cropped up throughout the whole questionnaire which were of a similar order The task then was to lay bare the common themes in these statements and then to find appropriate headings under which to classify the statements It emerged that the headings used for these themes built on and complemented the practical headings visible in the questionnaire while providing a fuller picture of aspects of translation practice visible in the data

In the search for orders of salience in the interview data one of the most strik-ing observations to emerge was how the translators used metaphorical and met-onymic expressions (Tymoczko 1999 Holt and Drew 2005) to describe what they do Though they were interesting and significantly frequent at first sight these metaphorical expressions seemed fuzzy and enigmatic and consequently of little use Moreover the lsquofuzzinessrsquo of these translatorial opinions seemed at variance with scholarly translation models which are based on well-considered reflection and textual observation On further examination however the responses did re-veal significant thematic patterning that begged further examination and contrast

Exploring literary translation practice 27

with models extant in the literature Paradoxically it is known that translators are not generally privy to such models and if they are (through schooling or training for example) they seldom use them over-consciously or explicitly when translat-ing Nonetheless it was important to make sense of the salience that had emerged following various re-readings of the interview data

The metaphorical expressions referred to above were couched in stretches of mainly lsquomatter-of-factrsquo discourse on the various topics at hand (see questionnaire) and were often accompanied by changes in voice quality which seemed to indicate a quickening of emotion mdash indicating that the speaker had arrived at clarity of vision or formulation on the topic concerned On closer examination it emerged that these metaphors formed pivotal moments in the discourse and focused the translatorrsquos perspective or position on the topic under discussion It also emerged from an examination of these metaphors that the speakers who used them were performing and achieving several things at the same time Take the following ex-tract for example

Interviewee XX1 hellip but itrsquos fantastic Thatrsquos thatrsquos Banville so itrsquos all been put together and composed so sharkily (yeah yeah yeah) and thatrsquos comparable to poems (ah hah) but then itrsquos on a much grander scale beautiful hellip and thatrsquos why I translated him I recognise that

Extract 1 lsquoSharkyrsquo composition

This short statement is consistent with the many others found in the data and in itself is noteworthy for the complexity of its positioning though it is not the purpose here to provide a full discourse analysis of each interview extract The basic purpose was to uncover categories which suggest themselves from the data in which to place salient features gleaned from the interviews It is important to state therefore that lsquorawrsquo interview data would not be (and cannot be) contrasted with existing translational categorisations as the balance of scholarly precision is tipped too far in favour of the latter To comply with the old adage kind can only be compared with kind so the task was firstly to identify comparable kind as it emerged from the data To illustrate the importance of the metaphors found in the data let us now turn to a brief analysis of the above extract The lsquosharkyrsquo extract discussed here and those examined in the subsections below have been translated from Dutch into English for the purposes of this paper

In this extract the interviewee comments on a particular novel by the Irish writer John Banville two of whose books he had already translated in the past Banvillersquos work is described as being lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid in Dutch) or craftycunning in its composition and structure This lsquosharkinessrsquo is emblematic of why the transla-tor found it so intriguing and why in fact he identified with the writer and wanted to translate his work Furthermore the lsquosharkinessrsquo of the work is also compared

28 Peter Flynn

to the intricacies of poetry mdash another point of identification for the translator So lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid) a word that seems slightly out of place in the original Dutch in that it bears mainly negative overtones and is cognate with slyness and cunning indexes

i positive personal empathyii textual complexity andiii the identification of a genre (poetry)

at one and the same time It bears witness to a desire to translate which stems from that empathy and

reveals that the translator recognises something personal in Banvillersquos work that is related both to his perceptions of how language and texts work and how the translator ldquoticksrdquo The statement as a whole and the metaphor lsquosharkyrsquo in particular encapsulate elements of reference recognition apperception and reflexivity all at the same time The complexity visible in the above extract is echoed in Mertz and Yovelrsquos discussion of the structure of spoken exchanges

The fascinating insight here is that languagersquos basic structure is fundamentally multifunctional talk that purports to be referential simultaneously performs metalinguistically And as metalinguistic talk is always a matter of linguistic ex-change and communication power is involved as much in shaping the linguistic aspects of the exchange as in formulating its non-linguistic aspects Performative metalinguistic talk is not morphologically distinguished from referential talk Ec-clesiasticsrsquo maxim does not hold here there is no lsquotimersquo (or medium or locus) for seemingly-separate things to be performed separately inter alia because in the complexity of communication things are never that separate (Mertz and Yovel 2000 9)

Once my attention had been drawn to these metaphors and metonyms (some of which are lexicalised in the original Dutch) I began to encounter them regularly in the data Logically the statements containing these metaphors also emerged from and further corroborated the findings gleaned from the questionnaire responses as such Seen within and alongside the general discourse these metaphorical con-structions permitted a first attempt at categorising salient features in the data Ini-tially four main types of statement were identified which related to

ndash The profession of the translator both in the broadest and in the most specific textual sense

ndash Language (use) including the characteristics of (national) varieties and lan-guages and other context-specific aspects of use etc

ndash Text type and genre including what could be called the lsquopolitics of aestheticsrsquo relating to various genres

Exploring literary translation practice 29

ndash Culture including national cultures and their differences literature as (an ex-pressionrepresentation of) culture etc

On further reflection these four main types of statement were placed under the following categorisations which I consider to be more pointed and yet more gen-eral and inclusive than the previous four as the former seemed more of the order of description than categorisation

ndash Ethos as the term also covered individual perceptions of the profession of translation including social and textual practices taken together and as such formed a recognised category in a variety of disciplines (anthropology sociol-ogy psychology language studies communication studies etc)

ndash Language ideologies also because it could include individual perceptions of language and hence could also be seen within the framework of current think-ing on language and ideology that is visible in important work in this area (Schieffelin et al 1998)

ndash Genre (including text type) also because of the versatility of more recent ap-proaches that regard genre as a mode of social action (Hanks 1987) and not merely as a set of discursive features and hence can include individual stances and perceptions

ndash Versions of culture again because this could house and ground individual per-ceptions of culture and what the notion embraces while bringing them into play with the other three categories above

As the analysis of the lsquosharkyrsquo extract has shown there is a clear overlap between the four categories outlined above in that no particular utterance made by the in-terviewees can be said to relate solely to one category and to one category only The utterances gleaned from the data were therefore categorised according to the pre-dominance of a given salient feature and not because of the absence of the other three categories of salient feature in the utterances As can be seen from Table 1 the number of utterances grouped under the first heading (ie Ethos) is greater by far than those under the other three

Table 1 Number of utterances groupable under each of the four categories

Ethos 136 Language ideologies 54 Genre 47 Versions of culture 40

This difference in number of occurrences of the various themes in the interview data stems in part from the way the interview questions were formulated and pitched With regard to the utterances that fall under the other three categories it could be argued that they form evidence of responses emerging from the interac-tions that were not specifically solicited by the questionnaire Nonetheless it goes without saying that those interviewed would speak from within their profession

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 25

desire to discover what translators actually do in practical terms which is not quite the same thing Again as such there was no unifying principle initially posited un-der which these disparate forms of translational action and value could be placed besides the fact that those who were engaged in them work to varying degrees on Irish literature within literary translation in the Netherlands and Belgium Hanks Bourdieu and others who use the concept of practice see it as drawing on and be-ing rooted firmly in empirical study In this sense practice is neither contrasted with nor set off against theory nor does it ignore lsquopracticersquo in the dictionary sense On the contrary it is a notion in which lsquotheoryrsquo and lsquopracticersquo meet or out of which they emerge It is as it were hypothesis put into action and activity theorised at one and the same time

La theacuteorie de la pratique en tant que pratique rappelle contre le mateacuterialisme in-tellectualiste que les objets de la connaissance sont construits et non passivement enregistreacutees et contre ideacutealisme intellectualiste que le principe de cette construc-tion est le systegraveme des dispositions structureacutees et structurantes qui se constitue dans la pratique et qui est toujours orienteacute vers des fonctions pratiques (Bourdieu 1980 87)

To Bourdieu not only must practice be seen in its own terms it must also be understood as belonging within a certain habitus which it helps to construct and maintain and by which it is determined He defines habitus in the following way

Les conditionnements associeacutes agrave une classe particuliegravere de conditions drsquoexistence produisent des habitus systegravemes de dispositions durables et transposables struc-tures structureacutees preacutedisposeacutees agrave fonctionner comme structures structurantes (Bourdieu 1980 88ndash89)

Bourdieu warns his reader about being overhasty in stepping from practices ob-served in the field to a-temporal schemata that attempt to map out these practices (Bourdieu 1980 135ndash165) A similar stance is found in Goodwin who states that

[a]n event being seen a relevant object of knowledge emerges through the inter-play between a domain of scrutiny (a patch of dirt the images made available by the Rodney King video) and a set of discursive practices (dividing the domains of scrutiny by highlighting a figure against a ground applying specific coding schemes for the constitution and interpretation of relevant events etc) being de-ployed in a specific activity (arguing a legal case mapping a site planting crops etc) hellip It is not possible to work in some abstract world where the constitution of knowledge through a politics of representation has been magically overcome (Goodwin 1994 606)

Hence exploring translation practice or constituting knowledge on that practice involves an engagement with the field of translation in an empirical sense which

26 Peter Flynn

also means testing translation models against phenomena observable in the field It is asserted that an exploration of translatorial ethos could help us form a picture of what the habitus of translators might constitute

Given prior professional experience as a translator the interviewer regarded the profession under scrutiny in a matter-of-fact fashion as the interview ques-tions illustrate This perspective could best be framed in terms of a lsquocontainer meta-phorrsquo (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) which would index lsquoprofessionrsquo as the medium in which translators found themselves not unlike fish in water or the lsquobucketrsquo theory of context (Slembrouck 1998ndash2003) However the interview data clearly reveals that profession is something that is also lsquoinsidersquo the translator that translators do indeed embody a set of dispositions which clearly ties in with Bourdieursquos notion of habitus and hence of practice (Simeoni 1998) On the whole the data shows the interviewees speaking as professionals and as representatives of a profession both in social and in textual terms hence it was difficult to reduce their responses to professional or textualtranslational strategies separately or draw a clear line between the two

A thematic analysis of the interviewee data Orders of salience

Following the first analysis for which the interviews had been coded into question and answer segments per question questionnaire section and interviewee by using the qualitative data analysis program Kwalitan the data were then re-examined systematically on a number of occasions for salient statements of any kind The salience referred to here is not question or questionnaire section specific ie pat-terns in responses to question A1 for example but rather concerns unsolicited statements that cropped up throughout the whole questionnaire which were of a similar order The task then was to lay bare the common themes in these statements and then to find appropriate headings under which to classify the statements It emerged that the headings used for these themes built on and complemented the practical headings visible in the questionnaire while providing a fuller picture of aspects of translation practice visible in the data

In the search for orders of salience in the interview data one of the most strik-ing observations to emerge was how the translators used metaphorical and met-onymic expressions (Tymoczko 1999 Holt and Drew 2005) to describe what they do Though they were interesting and significantly frequent at first sight these metaphorical expressions seemed fuzzy and enigmatic and consequently of little use Moreover the lsquofuzzinessrsquo of these translatorial opinions seemed at variance with scholarly translation models which are based on well-considered reflection and textual observation On further examination however the responses did re-veal significant thematic patterning that begged further examination and contrast

Exploring literary translation practice 27

with models extant in the literature Paradoxically it is known that translators are not generally privy to such models and if they are (through schooling or training for example) they seldom use them over-consciously or explicitly when translat-ing Nonetheless it was important to make sense of the salience that had emerged following various re-readings of the interview data

The metaphorical expressions referred to above were couched in stretches of mainly lsquomatter-of-factrsquo discourse on the various topics at hand (see questionnaire) and were often accompanied by changes in voice quality which seemed to indicate a quickening of emotion mdash indicating that the speaker had arrived at clarity of vision or formulation on the topic concerned On closer examination it emerged that these metaphors formed pivotal moments in the discourse and focused the translatorrsquos perspective or position on the topic under discussion It also emerged from an examination of these metaphors that the speakers who used them were performing and achieving several things at the same time Take the following ex-tract for example

Interviewee XX1 hellip but itrsquos fantastic Thatrsquos thatrsquos Banville so itrsquos all been put together and composed so sharkily (yeah yeah yeah) and thatrsquos comparable to poems (ah hah) but then itrsquos on a much grander scale beautiful hellip and thatrsquos why I translated him I recognise that

Extract 1 lsquoSharkyrsquo composition

This short statement is consistent with the many others found in the data and in itself is noteworthy for the complexity of its positioning though it is not the purpose here to provide a full discourse analysis of each interview extract The basic purpose was to uncover categories which suggest themselves from the data in which to place salient features gleaned from the interviews It is important to state therefore that lsquorawrsquo interview data would not be (and cannot be) contrasted with existing translational categorisations as the balance of scholarly precision is tipped too far in favour of the latter To comply with the old adage kind can only be compared with kind so the task was firstly to identify comparable kind as it emerged from the data To illustrate the importance of the metaphors found in the data let us now turn to a brief analysis of the above extract The lsquosharkyrsquo extract discussed here and those examined in the subsections below have been translated from Dutch into English for the purposes of this paper

In this extract the interviewee comments on a particular novel by the Irish writer John Banville two of whose books he had already translated in the past Banvillersquos work is described as being lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid in Dutch) or craftycunning in its composition and structure This lsquosharkinessrsquo is emblematic of why the transla-tor found it so intriguing and why in fact he identified with the writer and wanted to translate his work Furthermore the lsquosharkinessrsquo of the work is also compared

28 Peter Flynn

to the intricacies of poetry mdash another point of identification for the translator So lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid) a word that seems slightly out of place in the original Dutch in that it bears mainly negative overtones and is cognate with slyness and cunning indexes

i positive personal empathyii textual complexity andiii the identification of a genre (poetry)

at one and the same time It bears witness to a desire to translate which stems from that empathy and

reveals that the translator recognises something personal in Banvillersquos work that is related both to his perceptions of how language and texts work and how the translator ldquoticksrdquo The statement as a whole and the metaphor lsquosharkyrsquo in particular encapsulate elements of reference recognition apperception and reflexivity all at the same time The complexity visible in the above extract is echoed in Mertz and Yovelrsquos discussion of the structure of spoken exchanges

The fascinating insight here is that languagersquos basic structure is fundamentally multifunctional talk that purports to be referential simultaneously performs metalinguistically And as metalinguistic talk is always a matter of linguistic ex-change and communication power is involved as much in shaping the linguistic aspects of the exchange as in formulating its non-linguistic aspects Performative metalinguistic talk is not morphologically distinguished from referential talk Ec-clesiasticsrsquo maxim does not hold here there is no lsquotimersquo (or medium or locus) for seemingly-separate things to be performed separately inter alia because in the complexity of communication things are never that separate (Mertz and Yovel 2000 9)

Once my attention had been drawn to these metaphors and metonyms (some of which are lexicalised in the original Dutch) I began to encounter them regularly in the data Logically the statements containing these metaphors also emerged from and further corroborated the findings gleaned from the questionnaire responses as such Seen within and alongside the general discourse these metaphorical con-structions permitted a first attempt at categorising salient features in the data Ini-tially four main types of statement were identified which related to

ndash The profession of the translator both in the broadest and in the most specific textual sense

ndash Language (use) including the characteristics of (national) varieties and lan-guages and other context-specific aspects of use etc

ndash Text type and genre including what could be called the lsquopolitics of aestheticsrsquo relating to various genres

Exploring literary translation practice 29

ndash Culture including national cultures and their differences literature as (an ex-pressionrepresentation of) culture etc

On further reflection these four main types of statement were placed under the following categorisations which I consider to be more pointed and yet more gen-eral and inclusive than the previous four as the former seemed more of the order of description than categorisation

ndash Ethos as the term also covered individual perceptions of the profession of translation including social and textual practices taken together and as such formed a recognised category in a variety of disciplines (anthropology sociol-ogy psychology language studies communication studies etc)

ndash Language ideologies also because it could include individual perceptions of language and hence could also be seen within the framework of current think-ing on language and ideology that is visible in important work in this area (Schieffelin et al 1998)

ndash Genre (including text type) also because of the versatility of more recent ap-proaches that regard genre as a mode of social action (Hanks 1987) and not merely as a set of discursive features and hence can include individual stances and perceptions

ndash Versions of culture again because this could house and ground individual per-ceptions of culture and what the notion embraces while bringing them into play with the other three categories above

As the analysis of the lsquosharkyrsquo extract has shown there is a clear overlap between the four categories outlined above in that no particular utterance made by the in-terviewees can be said to relate solely to one category and to one category only The utterances gleaned from the data were therefore categorised according to the pre-dominance of a given salient feature and not because of the absence of the other three categories of salient feature in the utterances As can be seen from Table 1 the number of utterances grouped under the first heading (ie Ethos) is greater by far than those under the other three

Table 1 Number of utterances groupable under each of the four categories

Ethos 136 Language ideologies 54 Genre 47 Versions of culture 40

This difference in number of occurrences of the various themes in the interview data stems in part from the way the interview questions were formulated and pitched With regard to the utterances that fall under the other three categories it could be argued that they form evidence of responses emerging from the interac-tions that were not specifically solicited by the questionnaire Nonetheless it goes without saying that those interviewed would speak from within their profession

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

26 Peter Flynn

also means testing translation models against phenomena observable in the field It is asserted that an exploration of translatorial ethos could help us form a picture of what the habitus of translators might constitute

Given prior professional experience as a translator the interviewer regarded the profession under scrutiny in a matter-of-fact fashion as the interview ques-tions illustrate This perspective could best be framed in terms of a lsquocontainer meta-phorrsquo (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) which would index lsquoprofessionrsquo as the medium in which translators found themselves not unlike fish in water or the lsquobucketrsquo theory of context (Slembrouck 1998ndash2003) However the interview data clearly reveals that profession is something that is also lsquoinsidersquo the translator that translators do indeed embody a set of dispositions which clearly ties in with Bourdieursquos notion of habitus and hence of practice (Simeoni 1998) On the whole the data shows the interviewees speaking as professionals and as representatives of a profession both in social and in textual terms hence it was difficult to reduce their responses to professional or textualtranslational strategies separately or draw a clear line between the two

A thematic analysis of the interviewee data Orders of salience

Following the first analysis for which the interviews had been coded into question and answer segments per question questionnaire section and interviewee by using the qualitative data analysis program Kwalitan the data were then re-examined systematically on a number of occasions for salient statements of any kind The salience referred to here is not question or questionnaire section specific ie pat-terns in responses to question A1 for example but rather concerns unsolicited statements that cropped up throughout the whole questionnaire which were of a similar order The task then was to lay bare the common themes in these statements and then to find appropriate headings under which to classify the statements It emerged that the headings used for these themes built on and complemented the practical headings visible in the questionnaire while providing a fuller picture of aspects of translation practice visible in the data

In the search for orders of salience in the interview data one of the most strik-ing observations to emerge was how the translators used metaphorical and met-onymic expressions (Tymoczko 1999 Holt and Drew 2005) to describe what they do Though they were interesting and significantly frequent at first sight these metaphorical expressions seemed fuzzy and enigmatic and consequently of little use Moreover the lsquofuzzinessrsquo of these translatorial opinions seemed at variance with scholarly translation models which are based on well-considered reflection and textual observation On further examination however the responses did re-veal significant thematic patterning that begged further examination and contrast

Exploring literary translation practice 27

with models extant in the literature Paradoxically it is known that translators are not generally privy to such models and if they are (through schooling or training for example) they seldom use them over-consciously or explicitly when translat-ing Nonetheless it was important to make sense of the salience that had emerged following various re-readings of the interview data

The metaphorical expressions referred to above were couched in stretches of mainly lsquomatter-of-factrsquo discourse on the various topics at hand (see questionnaire) and were often accompanied by changes in voice quality which seemed to indicate a quickening of emotion mdash indicating that the speaker had arrived at clarity of vision or formulation on the topic concerned On closer examination it emerged that these metaphors formed pivotal moments in the discourse and focused the translatorrsquos perspective or position on the topic under discussion It also emerged from an examination of these metaphors that the speakers who used them were performing and achieving several things at the same time Take the following ex-tract for example

Interviewee XX1 hellip but itrsquos fantastic Thatrsquos thatrsquos Banville so itrsquos all been put together and composed so sharkily (yeah yeah yeah) and thatrsquos comparable to poems (ah hah) but then itrsquos on a much grander scale beautiful hellip and thatrsquos why I translated him I recognise that

Extract 1 lsquoSharkyrsquo composition

This short statement is consistent with the many others found in the data and in itself is noteworthy for the complexity of its positioning though it is not the purpose here to provide a full discourse analysis of each interview extract The basic purpose was to uncover categories which suggest themselves from the data in which to place salient features gleaned from the interviews It is important to state therefore that lsquorawrsquo interview data would not be (and cannot be) contrasted with existing translational categorisations as the balance of scholarly precision is tipped too far in favour of the latter To comply with the old adage kind can only be compared with kind so the task was firstly to identify comparable kind as it emerged from the data To illustrate the importance of the metaphors found in the data let us now turn to a brief analysis of the above extract The lsquosharkyrsquo extract discussed here and those examined in the subsections below have been translated from Dutch into English for the purposes of this paper

In this extract the interviewee comments on a particular novel by the Irish writer John Banville two of whose books he had already translated in the past Banvillersquos work is described as being lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid in Dutch) or craftycunning in its composition and structure This lsquosharkinessrsquo is emblematic of why the transla-tor found it so intriguing and why in fact he identified with the writer and wanted to translate his work Furthermore the lsquosharkinessrsquo of the work is also compared

28 Peter Flynn

to the intricacies of poetry mdash another point of identification for the translator So lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid) a word that seems slightly out of place in the original Dutch in that it bears mainly negative overtones and is cognate with slyness and cunning indexes

i positive personal empathyii textual complexity andiii the identification of a genre (poetry)

at one and the same time It bears witness to a desire to translate which stems from that empathy and

reveals that the translator recognises something personal in Banvillersquos work that is related both to his perceptions of how language and texts work and how the translator ldquoticksrdquo The statement as a whole and the metaphor lsquosharkyrsquo in particular encapsulate elements of reference recognition apperception and reflexivity all at the same time The complexity visible in the above extract is echoed in Mertz and Yovelrsquos discussion of the structure of spoken exchanges

The fascinating insight here is that languagersquos basic structure is fundamentally multifunctional talk that purports to be referential simultaneously performs metalinguistically And as metalinguistic talk is always a matter of linguistic ex-change and communication power is involved as much in shaping the linguistic aspects of the exchange as in formulating its non-linguistic aspects Performative metalinguistic talk is not morphologically distinguished from referential talk Ec-clesiasticsrsquo maxim does not hold here there is no lsquotimersquo (or medium or locus) for seemingly-separate things to be performed separately inter alia because in the complexity of communication things are never that separate (Mertz and Yovel 2000 9)

Once my attention had been drawn to these metaphors and metonyms (some of which are lexicalised in the original Dutch) I began to encounter them regularly in the data Logically the statements containing these metaphors also emerged from and further corroborated the findings gleaned from the questionnaire responses as such Seen within and alongside the general discourse these metaphorical con-structions permitted a first attempt at categorising salient features in the data Ini-tially four main types of statement were identified which related to

ndash The profession of the translator both in the broadest and in the most specific textual sense

ndash Language (use) including the characteristics of (national) varieties and lan-guages and other context-specific aspects of use etc

ndash Text type and genre including what could be called the lsquopolitics of aestheticsrsquo relating to various genres

Exploring literary translation practice 29

ndash Culture including national cultures and their differences literature as (an ex-pressionrepresentation of) culture etc

On further reflection these four main types of statement were placed under the following categorisations which I consider to be more pointed and yet more gen-eral and inclusive than the previous four as the former seemed more of the order of description than categorisation

ndash Ethos as the term also covered individual perceptions of the profession of translation including social and textual practices taken together and as such formed a recognised category in a variety of disciplines (anthropology sociol-ogy psychology language studies communication studies etc)

ndash Language ideologies also because it could include individual perceptions of language and hence could also be seen within the framework of current think-ing on language and ideology that is visible in important work in this area (Schieffelin et al 1998)

ndash Genre (including text type) also because of the versatility of more recent ap-proaches that regard genre as a mode of social action (Hanks 1987) and not merely as a set of discursive features and hence can include individual stances and perceptions

ndash Versions of culture again because this could house and ground individual per-ceptions of culture and what the notion embraces while bringing them into play with the other three categories above

As the analysis of the lsquosharkyrsquo extract has shown there is a clear overlap between the four categories outlined above in that no particular utterance made by the in-terviewees can be said to relate solely to one category and to one category only The utterances gleaned from the data were therefore categorised according to the pre-dominance of a given salient feature and not because of the absence of the other three categories of salient feature in the utterances As can be seen from Table 1 the number of utterances grouped under the first heading (ie Ethos) is greater by far than those under the other three

Table 1 Number of utterances groupable under each of the four categories

Ethos 136 Language ideologies 54 Genre 47 Versions of culture 40

This difference in number of occurrences of the various themes in the interview data stems in part from the way the interview questions were formulated and pitched With regard to the utterances that fall under the other three categories it could be argued that they form evidence of responses emerging from the interac-tions that were not specifically solicited by the questionnaire Nonetheless it goes without saying that those interviewed would speak from within their profession

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 27

with models extant in the literature Paradoxically it is known that translators are not generally privy to such models and if they are (through schooling or training for example) they seldom use them over-consciously or explicitly when translat-ing Nonetheless it was important to make sense of the salience that had emerged following various re-readings of the interview data

The metaphorical expressions referred to above were couched in stretches of mainly lsquomatter-of-factrsquo discourse on the various topics at hand (see questionnaire) and were often accompanied by changes in voice quality which seemed to indicate a quickening of emotion mdash indicating that the speaker had arrived at clarity of vision or formulation on the topic concerned On closer examination it emerged that these metaphors formed pivotal moments in the discourse and focused the translatorrsquos perspective or position on the topic under discussion It also emerged from an examination of these metaphors that the speakers who used them were performing and achieving several things at the same time Take the following ex-tract for example

Interviewee XX1 hellip but itrsquos fantastic Thatrsquos thatrsquos Banville so itrsquos all been put together and composed so sharkily (yeah yeah yeah) and thatrsquos comparable to poems (ah hah) but then itrsquos on a much grander scale beautiful hellip and thatrsquos why I translated him I recognise that

Extract 1 lsquoSharkyrsquo composition

This short statement is consistent with the many others found in the data and in itself is noteworthy for the complexity of its positioning though it is not the purpose here to provide a full discourse analysis of each interview extract The basic purpose was to uncover categories which suggest themselves from the data in which to place salient features gleaned from the interviews It is important to state therefore that lsquorawrsquo interview data would not be (and cannot be) contrasted with existing translational categorisations as the balance of scholarly precision is tipped too far in favour of the latter To comply with the old adage kind can only be compared with kind so the task was firstly to identify comparable kind as it emerged from the data To illustrate the importance of the metaphors found in the data let us now turn to a brief analysis of the above extract The lsquosharkyrsquo extract discussed here and those examined in the subsections below have been translated from Dutch into English for the purposes of this paper

In this extract the interviewee comments on a particular novel by the Irish writer John Banville two of whose books he had already translated in the past Banvillersquos work is described as being lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid in Dutch) or craftycunning in its composition and structure This lsquosharkinessrsquo is emblematic of why the transla-tor found it so intriguing and why in fact he identified with the writer and wanted to translate his work Furthermore the lsquosharkinessrsquo of the work is also compared

28 Peter Flynn

to the intricacies of poetry mdash another point of identification for the translator So lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid) a word that seems slightly out of place in the original Dutch in that it bears mainly negative overtones and is cognate with slyness and cunning indexes

i positive personal empathyii textual complexity andiii the identification of a genre (poetry)

at one and the same time It bears witness to a desire to translate which stems from that empathy and

reveals that the translator recognises something personal in Banvillersquos work that is related both to his perceptions of how language and texts work and how the translator ldquoticksrdquo The statement as a whole and the metaphor lsquosharkyrsquo in particular encapsulate elements of reference recognition apperception and reflexivity all at the same time The complexity visible in the above extract is echoed in Mertz and Yovelrsquos discussion of the structure of spoken exchanges

The fascinating insight here is that languagersquos basic structure is fundamentally multifunctional talk that purports to be referential simultaneously performs metalinguistically And as metalinguistic talk is always a matter of linguistic ex-change and communication power is involved as much in shaping the linguistic aspects of the exchange as in formulating its non-linguistic aspects Performative metalinguistic talk is not morphologically distinguished from referential talk Ec-clesiasticsrsquo maxim does not hold here there is no lsquotimersquo (or medium or locus) for seemingly-separate things to be performed separately inter alia because in the complexity of communication things are never that separate (Mertz and Yovel 2000 9)

Once my attention had been drawn to these metaphors and metonyms (some of which are lexicalised in the original Dutch) I began to encounter them regularly in the data Logically the statements containing these metaphors also emerged from and further corroborated the findings gleaned from the questionnaire responses as such Seen within and alongside the general discourse these metaphorical con-structions permitted a first attempt at categorising salient features in the data Ini-tially four main types of statement were identified which related to

ndash The profession of the translator both in the broadest and in the most specific textual sense

ndash Language (use) including the characteristics of (national) varieties and lan-guages and other context-specific aspects of use etc

ndash Text type and genre including what could be called the lsquopolitics of aestheticsrsquo relating to various genres

Exploring literary translation practice 29

ndash Culture including national cultures and their differences literature as (an ex-pressionrepresentation of) culture etc

On further reflection these four main types of statement were placed under the following categorisations which I consider to be more pointed and yet more gen-eral and inclusive than the previous four as the former seemed more of the order of description than categorisation

ndash Ethos as the term also covered individual perceptions of the profession of translation including social and textual practices taken together and as such formed a recognised category in a variety of disciplines (anthropology sociol-ogy psychology language studies communication studies etc)

ndash Language ideologies also because it could include individual perceptions of language and hence could also be seen within the framework of current think-ing on language and ideology that is visible in important work in this area (Schieffelin et al 1998)

ndash Genre (including text type) also because of the versatility of more recent ap-proaches that regard genre as a mode of social action (Hanks 1987) and not merely as a set of discursive features and hence can include individual stances and perceptions

ndash Versions of culture again because this could house and ground individual per-ceptions of culture and what the notion embraces while bringing them into play with the other three categories above

As the analysis of the lsquosharkyrsquo extract has shown there is a clear overlap between the four categories outlined above in that no particular utterance made by the in-terviewees can be said to relate solely to one category and to one category only The utterances gleaned from the data were therefore categorised according to the pre-dominance of a given salient feature and not because of the absence of the other three categories of salient feature in the utterances As can be seen from Table 1 the number of utterances grouped under the first heading (ie Ethos) is greater by far than those under the other three

Table 1 Number of utterances groupable under each of the four categories

Ethos 136 Language ideologies 54 Genre 47 Versions of culture 40

This difference in number of occurrences of the various themes in the interview data stems in part from the way the interview questions were formulated and pitched With regard to the utterances that fall under the other three categories it could be argued that they form evidence of responses emerging from the interac-tions that were not specifically solicited by the questionnaire Nonetheless it goes without saying that those interviewed would speak from within their profession

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

28 Peter Flynn

to the intricacies of poetry mdash another point of identification for the translator So lsquosharkyrsquo (gehaaid) a word that seems slightly out of place in the original Dutch in that it bears mainly negative overtones and is cognate with slyness and cunning indexes

i positive personal empathyii textual complexity andiii the identification of a genre (poetry)

at one and the same time It bears witness to a desire to translate which stems from that empathy and

reveals that the translator recognises something personal in Banvillersquos work that is related both to his perceptions of how language and texts work and how the translator ldquoticksrdquo The statement as a whole and the metaphor lsquosharkyrsquo in particular encapsulate elements of reference recognition apperception and reflexivity all at the same time The complexity visible in the above extract is echoed in Mertz and Yovelrsquos discussion of the structure of spoken exchanges

The fascinating insight here is that languagersquos basic structure is fundamentally multifunctional talk that purports to be referential simultaneously performs metalinguistically And as metalinguistic talk is always a matter of linguistic ex-change and communication power is involved as much in shaping the linguistic aspects of the exchange as in formulating its non-linguistic aspects Performative metalinguistic talk is not morphologically distinguished from referential talk Ec-clesiasticsrsquo maxim does not hold here there is no lsquotimersquo (or medium or locus) for seemingly-separate things to be performed separately inter alia because in the complexity of communication things are never that separate (Mertz and Yovel 2000 9)

Once my attention had been drawn to these metaphors and metonyms (some of which are lexicalised in the original Dutch) I began to encounter them regularly in the data Logically the statements containing these metaphors also emerged from and further corroborated the findings gleaned from the questionnaire responses as such Seen within and alongside the general discourse these metaphorical con-structions permitted a first attempt at categorising salient features in the data Ini-tially four main types of statement were identified which related to

ndash The profession of the translator both in the broadest and in the most specific textual sense

ndash Language (use) including the characteristics of (national) varieties and lan-guages and other context-specific aspects of use etc

ndash Text type and genre including what could be called the lsquopolitics of aestheticsrsquo relating to various genres

Exploring literary translation practice 29

ndash Culture including national cultures and their differences literature as (an ex-pressionrepresentation of) culture etc

On further reflection these four main types of statement were placed under the following categorisations which I consider to be more pointed and yet more gen-eral and inclusive than the previous four as the former seemed more of the order of description than categorisation

ndash Ethos as the term also covered individual perceptions of the profession of translation including social and textual practices taken together and as such formed a recognised category in a variety of disciplines (anthropology sociol-ogy psychology language studies communication studies etc)

ndash Language ideologies also because it could include individual perceptions of language and hence could also be seen within the framework of current think-ing on language and ideology that is visible in important work in this area (Schieffelin et al 1998)

ndash Genre (including text type) also because of the versatility of more recent ap-proaches that regard genre as a mode of social action (Hanks 1987) and not merely as a set of discursive features and hence can include individual stances and perceptions

ndash Versions of culture again because this could house and ground individual per-ceptions of culture and what the notion embraces while bringing them into play with the other three categories above

As the analysis of the lsquosharkyrsquo extract has shown there is a clear overlap between the four categories outlined above in that no particular utterance made by the in-terviewees can be said to relate solely to one category and to one category only The utterances gleaned from the data were therefore categorised according to the pre-dominance of a given salient feature and not because of the absence of the other three categories of salient feature in the utterances As can be seen from Table 1 the number of utterances grouped under the first heading (ie Ethos) is greater by far than those under the other three

Table 1 Number of utterances groupable under each of the four categories

Ethos 136 Language ideologies 54 Genre 47 Versions of culture 40

This difference in number of occurrences of the various themes in the interview data stems in part from the way the interview questions were formulated and pitched With regard to the utterances that fall under the other three categories it could be argued that they form evidence of responses emerging from the interac-tions that were not specifically solicited by the questionnaire Nonetheless it goes without saying that those interviewed would speak from within their profession

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 29

ndash Culture including national cultures and their differences literature as (an ex-pressionrepresentation of) culture etc

On further reflection these four main types of statement were placed under the following categorisations which I consider to be more pointed and yet more gen-eral and inclusive than the previous four as the former seemed more of the order of description than categorisation

ndash Ethos as the term also covered individual perceptions of the profession of translation including social and textual practices taken together and as such formed a recognised category in a variety of disciplines (anthropology sociol-ogy psychology language studies communication studies etc)

ndash Language ideologies also because it could include individual perceptions of language and hence could also be seen within the framework of current think-ing on language and ideology that is visible in important work in this area (Schieffelin et al 1998)

ndash Genre (including text type) also because of the versatility of more recent ap-proaches that regard genre as a mode of social action (Hanks 1987) and not merely as a set of discursive features and hence can include individual stances and perceptions

ndash Versions of culture again because this could house and ground individual per-ceptions of culture and what the notion embraces while bringing them into play with the other three categories above

As the analysis of the lsquosharkyrsquo extract has shown there is a clear overlap between the four categories outlined above in that no particular utterance made by the in-terviewees can be said to relate solely to one category and to one category only The utterances gleaned from the data were therefore categorised according to the pre-dominance of a given salient feature and not because of the absence of the other three categories of salient feature in the utterances As can be seen from Table 1 the number of utterances grouped under the first heading (ie Ethos) is greater by far than those under the other three

Table 1 Number of utterances groupable under each of the four categories

Ethos 136 Language ideologies 54 Genre 47 Versions of culture 40

This difference in number of occurrences of the various themes in the interview data stems in part from the way the interview questions were formulated and pitched With regard to the utterances that fall under the other three categories it could be argued that they form evidence of responses emerging from the interac-tions that were not specifically solicited by the questionnaire Nonetheless it goes without saying that those interviewed would speak from within their profession

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

30 Peter Flynn

and as was mentioned already many of the utterances listed under the four cat-egories do contain matter-of-fact information about various aspects of their prac-tice It seemed plausible therefore to consider these four categories as forming im-portant aspects of a translational habitus

In what follows I will first provide a definition of ethos and then turn to an analysis of the findings related to ethos which it can be argued frame or focus the other three categories in bringing them all together within (embodied) profes-sional translation practices Eight extracts from the data will be discussed each in turn and then linked together to provide an overview of positionings with regard to translatorial ethos that emerged from the ethnographic data These positionings will then be contrasted with statements from the translation literature

2 Ethos A working definition

Ethos is understood here as ldquothe set of ideas and attitudes that is associated with a particular group of people or with a particular activityrdquo (Collins Cobuild English dictionary) or as ldquothe characteristic spirit of a culture era or community as mani-fested in its attitudes and aspirationsrdquo (New Oxford dictionary of English) These ideas and attitudes can be said to define and construct how people go about their lives and professions In relation to this study therefore an examination of ldquoideas and attitudesrdquo gleaned from the data should allow us to gain insight into what translatorial ethos consists of in this case The data extracts discussed below re-semble the lsquosharkyrsquo example given above in that though they are couched in more ldquomatter-of-factrdquo discourse they often hinge on metaphorical or metonymic uses of language which serve as key moments or factors in the discourse

2 Of cannibals and adventurersThe two metaphors used in the following extract concern eating (the translator as cannibal) and travelling (translating as adventure)

Interviewee XX2 Now at a given moment I read something by a certain poet and I think to myself I want that thatrsquos for me Itrsquos a type of cannibalism you devour it and make a translation of it and at the same time I want others to see look how beautiful this is And yes I get started and thatrsquos my habit as a translator they ldquopepperrdquo (browbeat) you those who are involved with translation from an academic angle about how you have to read the whole work beforehand and only then can you begin But I launch into it because I want to hold on to that adven-ture Yes that excitement has to be there in the work

Extract 2 Of cannibals and adventurers

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 3

A double movement can be detected in this extract an outward movement that firstly positions the speaker negatively with respect to prescriptive lsquoscientificrsquo codes or academic translational norms and secondly positions him more positively with respect to potential readers of translations There is also an inward movement to-wards text and the act of translating as such which is cast as the adventure of main-taining the tension or excitement of the work in translation In the extract a way of working becomes visible that has been acquired through experience and that is in defiance of a well-known norm in translation literature which states that thorough prior knowledge of a work is required if it is to be translated properly The transla-tor casts himself as a cannibal as someone who devours foreign writerstexts for their beauty but this act of appropriation also involves showing the beauty to a new audience In contrast those who lay down the laws of translation are believed to over-spice (too much pepper) the dish hence rendering the eating (translating) a chore and ridding it of adventure and excitement which results in insipid trans-lation This metaphor calls to mind a whole set of critical writings on translation which the interviewee was unaware of at the time of the interviews (Bassnett and Trivedi 1999 and more particularly Pires Vieira 1994) One cannot but associate the above extract with Claude Leacutevi-Straussrsquos The raw and the cooked (1975) either If cooking is an act of culture that holds the mean between the natural orders of the raw and the rotten as Leacutevi-Strauss postulates in this particular extract over-cooking or over-spicing leads to cultural blandness and textual insipidity The task of the translatorcannibal then is to maintain the excitement of creating cultural meaning by embracing the raw the incipient the newness of discovery when read-ing a work no matter how well known that work might be and hence culturally established for others The salient metaphor is that of a state of translation that is neither raw nor cooked but both So there is a commitment here to the perceived beauty of a text and to the potential readers and new discoverers of that beauty which is contrasted with the perceived academic agenda of translation

22 Of bulldozers and antennae In this extract an ethical stance is constructed by contrasting the ignorant roughshod behaviour of bulldozers with the cultural and textual sensitivity of antennae

Interviewee XX3 You see to a certain extent translating is also recognising what you donrsquot know Of course you donrsquot know everything and if you ride roughshod over it like a bulldozer (yeah) you donrsquot know who it will be the death of It doesnrsquot work like that you have to remain very sensitive and be aware well therersquos some-thing going on here and I donrsquot know what it is (ah) it might be something some-thing I believe is outside the dictionary explanation and thatrsquos probably the case but you have to have those antennas and sometimes those antennas donrsquot work I know but you have to have those antennas to sense well therersquos something more

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

32 Peter Flynn

more going on beneath all this and I have to look at it again and then I go and ask people (brilliant)

Extract 3 Of bulldozers and antennae

It can be gathered from this extract that a sound sense of professionalism requires recognition of onersquos own limitations It demands an awareness of the fact that as far as texts are concerned ldquoer staat niet wat er staatrdquo [whatrsquos there isnrsquot there] mdash as one interviewee (XX8) so succinctly put it So sensitivity mdash the lsquoantennarsquo metaphor mdash is concomitant with an awareness of possible misreading and also of the need for cooperation with those who are better placed to know what the text or item in the text is pointing to Here again the textual and the social co-occur in forming pro-fessional practice A refusal to recognise onersquos lack of knowledge and a consequent refusal to seek advice is equated with acting like a bulldozer In this respect it is not so much a matter of networks of friends colleagues and experts bolstering onersquos own individual knowledge but more a case of professional knowledge and hence lsquogoodrsquo or lsquocorrectrsquo translation arising from and being maintained in situations and rapports of this kind Hence sensitivity is both an embodied stance and a profes-sional tool (Cronin 2002) all of which can be considered as falling under ethos

23 On developing the craft The metonym lsquocraftrsquo used in the following extract carries a whole set of associations along with it including the development of skill over time and the search for perfection in an ongoing engagement with onersquos work

Interviewer But do you consider it like a sort of process of maturation Can you imagine yourself in the future translating more and more and ehm getting better at it in the process What do you thinkInterviewee XX4 Yes well it certainly does have something to do with it and itrsquos a craft as well you have to keep at it and keep writing hellip but you can feel while yoursquore at it after yoursquove been doing it for a while that you become much more criti-cal of your own language and of your own translations and thatrsquos why I I really like to work with someone else when translating because then you are forced to take a distance from your own work and I believe that my best translations were done like that

Extract 4 On developing the craft

The interviewee compares translation to a craft ie something that requires practice and time to develop and improve According to the interviewee one crucial aspect of this is the act of forcing oneself to take a distance from onersquos own work and language use which can be brought about by working with others on translations It is as if a degree of objectivity and perspective is created by such inter-subjective exchanges among translators working together on the same text Working with others makes one aware of onersquos own practices or perhaps more significantly it makes one aware of

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 33

the fact that one has particular practices in the first place As a result the translatorrsquos work becomes both de-personalised and personalised in that the translator affiliates him or herself with recognisable textual practice within a profession thereby help-ing to construct such practice while interiorising and personalising it at one and the same time And by a curious paradox it is through this de-personalisation that the craft is conceived as being tangible and objective and through its personalisa-tion that the craft is maintained by being embodied and personally verifiable by the translator concerned in his or her specific work It is interesting to note here that the notion of craft provides us with another perspective on individual translated texts ie they can also be read as marking the various stages of a translatorrsquos development within the craft particularly reflexively by translators themselves

24 Skin to skin Orders of readership In the following extract the translator compares herself to other lsquoreadersrsquo she considers the translator as being closest to or skin-to-skin with the poet in terms of reading and interpreting a work to be translated

Interviewer Eh em ok so you say you read first and then Interviewee XX5 And then you try to find out more about the poet So if he or she is still alive you might get in touch but I try to avoid that as much as possible be-cause my point of departure is that when you read a poem you are on your own as well and ultimately that as a translator you are a reader in the first place and then that you have your own interpretation and that you should have a certain degree of freedom in that respect Except there is a difference between interpreting and certain sentences being confronted with a sentence and you havenrsquot a clue what he means then of course thatrsquos when you have to get in touch (but that was my next question) Yeahhellip I would but I think it very much depends on the type of poetry you have to trans-late eh If yoursquore working on some very obscure poetry loaded down with lots of symbolism then yes it would be ideal to be able to work together in cooperation with the poet but I really donrsquot want to trouble people unnecessarily so I do that well I only do that when I really have to (yes) Because I find that a reader reads a poem for his or herself and interprets it the way they like (yes) but as a translator you are the first reader the closest reader and that you are skin to skin with the poet (laughs) and therefore that you canrsquot over-exaggerate (ok yes)

Extract 5 Skin-to-skin

The reasoning in this extract sheds a strange light on the idea of the translatorrsquos in-visibility discussed so often in the literature (Venuti 1998 Simeoni 1998) Though the translator is considered as being the person closest to the writer or poet when it comes to reading and interpreting the poetrsquos work (lsquoskin-to-skinrsquo) she believes

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

34 Peter Flynn

that a certain degree of freedom is needed and should be appropriated in order to maintain that closeness The translator is expected to know her job and in this sense bothering the poet too often might be understood as a sign of incompetence as a form of unprofessional behaviour There are limits to this of course As the ex-tracts indicate there are at least two types of reading and two types of interpreting A reader can read and interpret a poem to his or her heartrsquos content but a transla-tor cannot The translatorrsquos reading and interpretation must fall within the realm of the plausible and be somehow verifiable through contact either with the poet or with others within the professional network that are in a position to provide authoritative suggestions on the text or item in question What distinguishes the translator as a reader from other readers is the professional responsibility involved and the reputations that are at stake In the worst of cases interpretation is under-stood as uninformed conjecture and in the best as an expression of the degree of freedom required to conduct onersquos profession properly So the translatorrsquos invis-ibility is not so much a matter of not being placed on an equal footing with the author or poet but more a matter of not becoming ill-considered within onersquos own profession Though translator and author are seen as being skin-to-skin in text-user terms in the interests of a lsquogoodrsquo translation they somehow must maintain a certain professional distance So this closeness comes at a price viewed within the translatorrsquos profession reading and interpreting can never be noncommittal as the continuation of his or her profession may depend on it

25 The impassioned insane In the following extract the interviewees speak of the enthusiasm shared by translators for their work and how colleagues are willing to help each other find solutions to translation problems The underlying message (stated elsewhere in the interview) is that this is at variance with the financial ben-efits or fame to be gained from practicing the profession of translation

Interviewer Do you consider your translation work as a kind of craft Do you have a sense of pride in it yes is that very important to youInterviewee XX7a Itrsquos like that for all translators Irsquod dare sayInterviewee XX7b Yes yesInterviewee XX7a Theyrsquore all impassioned mad people who really do everything they can to do it as well as possible hellipInterviewee XX7b I think so too yes yes you can hear that in their discussions ehInterviewee XX7a Yes Interviewee XX7b And if you have a problem and you ask your colleagues for advice well theyrsquore always ready to help you (Interviewee XX7a Yeah) look as it were because they know how frustrating it is when you canrsquot find an answer to something (Interviewer yeah ah hah yes)

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 35

Interviewer So itrsquos an ongoing thing you always get a response if you ask them about somethingInterviewee XX7a Yes yeah well I canrsquot say that I never that some solutions you get (Interviewee XX7b yes thatrsquos true) are well not really that but you can say that everyone really tries to help and the efforts they make are well yes real hellip But you can get your own sense of pleasure from it and say to yourself feel at least well now they know Sujata Bhatt in Paris (Interviewee XX7b thanks to you) (Interviewer yeah)

Extract 6 The impassioned insane

The interviewees believe there is little profit or fame to be had from translation Nonetheless those who practice it take pride in a job well done and are always willing to help a colleague find an answer to a particular translation problem This is what makes them impassioned mad people mdash who else would make such foolish sacrifices In this respect things are done for the love of the craft

This is more than just a veiled complaint about a lack of recognition and hence a lack of appropriate remuneration for translated work mdash a lsquonormalrsquo wage for a lsquonormalrsquo dayrsquos work as it were In fact it does much to reaffirm the status of the profession from within being enthusiastic about the work and being willing to cooperate in the resolution of translation problems without compensation would make no sense or would be short-lived were such acts and gestures not part of a professional continuum It is also common knowledge among translators that they are largely responsible for the fact that writers become known to readers of languages other than their own for example people do not generally read lsquoDos-toyevsky in Englishrsquo but rather lsquoDostoyevskyrsquo Of the many checks and compensa-tory balances within the profession of translation being an impassioned madman is not only an indication of onersquos textual prowess but also of the generally lsquounrec-ognisedrsquo status of translators as linguistic and cultural ambassadors To be sure the debt of recognition is still outstanding in many ways in society as a whole but not within the profession where the symbolic capital accruing to such lsquomadnessrsquo is not negligible In this respect the much bemoaned invisibility of translators needs to be re-examined and perhaps redefined

26 Protecting little children Proofreaders cannot just disregard or strike out the creative efforts of translators the following extract provides an illustration of the negotiation involved in completing a translation as well as perceptions of how proofreaders differ from translators

Interviewee XX8 Itrsquos not a matter of being correct or incorrect (ah ha) thatrsquos just it there are so many things you can do with a sentence (yes) Give the same sen-tence to ten different translators and yoursquoll get ten different sentences back (yeah)

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

36 Peter Flynn

so I think well thatrsquos just another translator (yes) and then you can feel if the proofreader also translates herself compared to someone who just looks and sees whether itrsquos grammatically or lexically correctThatrsquos the big difference (ah ha) and every now and then I think to myself well yoursquoll have to learn to let go of sentences yoursquore attached to well yes thatrsquos what I wanted to say and Irsquoll gladly admit it though not straight away (ah ha) Now and then well in the beginning itrsquos always hard (yes) but it gets easier as you go along except for certain special sentences like when real poetic sentences are involved (yes) Itrsquos still prose nonetheless but I still think well no ldquoyoursquore not going to take those away from merdquo Itrsquos my child in a kind of a way and they have to leave it alone as long as itrsquos correct of course (yeah yes yes)

Extract 7 Protecting little children

Poetic sentences are like little children they need to be protected from the outside world Such sentences stem from the translatorrsquos creativity and should be handled with care by the proofreader In this little scenario the proofreader embodies grammatical and lexical rules and is portrayed in the worse of cases as someone akin to a strict school master This is not always the case however as the extract also indicates On the whole there is a tension between the rules of language as system (personified by the proofreader) and the constructed nature of meaning in translation along with the need for creative leeway (personified by translators) So textual tension ie striking a balance between perceived rule and creative impulse is mirrored in the professional tension between the proofreader and the translator The translator is willing to hand over hisher children if and only if they will not be chastised with the blunt instrument of mere grammatical and lexical correctness The proofreader must be aware of the relative nature of any given translation (1 sentence + 10 translators = 10 different translations) but at the same time transla-tors must be willing to take a distance from their own creations and allow them to be subjected to the scrutiny of a system expert If the proofreader understands the translatorrsquos predicament or is a translator him or herself then the ground will be levelled for constructive cooperation the underlying perception being that cre-ativity builds on system or acquiesces to it in the case of error It is also plausible to posit that proofreaders also maintain standards of creativity and may refuse to be type-cast as strict school masters In this way both the texts being translated and the professional positions involved are mutually constructed negotiated and maintained

27 Setting tasks for typewriters The quality of a translation is proportionate to the degree of affinity the translator feels with the author and the material well-being which the profession provides

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 37

Interviewer Yes So after that the book is published (yes) and they send you a copy (five five usually) right And how do you feel then Is there (hmm) Do you have a sense of ehmInterviewee XX8 Yes well I find that really well I think because Irsquove been through it all myself well I think that there is a lot of my own work in that So Irsquom not well not some sort of typewriter like you buy a certain brand of typewriter and you run a text through it and there you have it (ah ha) Then itrsquos so anonymous I donrsquot believe that a translator should be an anonymous machine There is a little bit of you in there too and itrsquos something to be proud of when it arrives hellipInterviewer So itrsquos very important for youInterviewee XX8 Now you shouldnrsquot exaggerate of course but (yes) well I do think that if you donrsquot like a book well you wonrsquot feel like translating right (yes) But if the bookrsquos a little half-hearted and if they realise that you donrsquot really like it then yoursquoll well theyrsquoll suspect you of being uncommitted and messy of thinking well it doesnrsquot really matter itrsquos not a good book anyway (ah ha) The result is that you then become over-careful and very scrupulous but it doesnrsquot really give you any satisfaction But then if I think well this is a fantastic book that Irsquoll really have to do my very best were it only out of respect for the author Thatrsquos a different mat-ter entirely than when you have to accept things just to pay the rent If it were my only source of income and given what you are paid for the work here in Flanders then I believe that yoursquod have to produce so much that the quality would of course suffer

Extract 8 Of setting tasks for typewriters

As can be judged from the above excerpt translating is not a mechanical process nor can translators be reduced to machines that transfer texts from one language to the next Though this might sound like a clicheacute to translators and translation scholars alike the overall drift of the narrative initiated by the lsquotypewriterrsquo meta-phor is striking A translatorrsquos work is neither mechanical nor anonymous this re-jection of the lsquomachinersquo is anticipatory rather than the result of real accusation and functions in the discourse as a point of orientation from which a particular field of possible stances (3 in all) can be mapped out The mapping is mainly achieved by way of example in which four basic situations are sketched namely

a Identification and hence acceptanceb Non-identification and hence rejectionc Ambivalent acceptance tempered by a sense of professionalismd Enforced acceptance stemming from economic need and resulting in the low-

ering of translation quality

The best case scenario is encapsulated by a) and b) as both imply situations in which the translator has the freedom and the means (including financial means) to accept or reject a commission at will which can be seen therefore as being part

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

38 Peter Flynn

and parcel of the same stance (stance 1) The feeling of being treated like a machine is more likely to arise in the case of d) (stance 3) but then again it must be said that not everyone can afford a life of a) or b) only In this respect c) (stance 2) seems to strike a balance in that it implies a recognition or acceptance of the fact that you must face the challenges of the profession or as another interviewee put it

Interviewee XX7b The nice thing about it is that you can discover a poet that you donrsquot know someone you may not translate on your own initiative That has its good sides too because yoursquore thrown in at the deep end and you are obliged to like it in a manner of speaking

Extract 9 Challenges of the profession

So though those interviewed ultimately prefer to choose whom to translate there is a general acceptance that this is not always possible and that one should be pre-pared to accept new challenges as this is considered to be lsquopart of the jobrsquo But there is a limit to this too The acceptance of such challenges is underscored by an un-derstanding of reasonable working conditions pay and proper deadlines other-wise translators might effectively turn themselves or allow themselves to be turned into lsquotypewritersrsquo thereby corroborating their most-feared clicheacute So translation quality is directly related to the material conditions under which it is produced and translators have to negotiate in order to optimise these conditions

28 The paradoxes of profession and persuasion In the following extract the term professional translator is interpreted quite narrowly and corresponds rough-ly to those translators found under heading d) above By contrast the interviewee in this extract clearly positions himself under headings a) and b) This lsquounder-ex-tensiversquo use of lsquoprofessional translatorrsquo serves to make a distinction There are those who are obliged to accept any work that comes their way and those who have the liberty to accept or refuse

Interviewee XX12 Irsquom usually the one who proposes things except in the case of xxxxxxx It was indeed xxxxxxx who asked me because I have a reputation for that sort of thing (yes yes) and so I did it of course But I practically never accept a commission Only once (yes yes) hellip I translated a German poet on commission but that was a poet I like I mean therersquos no point in coming along with a poet I donrsquot like I wonrsquot do it (thatrsquos yes) (it has to be that way) so yeah Itrsquos the same for everything for prose too Fortunately Irsquom not a professional translator you see because then Irsquod have to do it Everything I translate is something I believe in heart and soul The advantage is that you can dedicate more time to it than a professional translator could or would Do you know the translatorrsquos paradox The better his translations are the worse he gets paid (both laugh) Thatrsquos the way it is isnrsquot it

Extract 10 Of profession and persuasion

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 39

The majority of the extracts examined up to this point have illustrated the impor-tance of a sense of profession and professional solidarity among translators and demonstrate that textual practises are squarely situated within networks of exper-tise and collaboration The extract above however curdles the milky homogeneity in the picture that has been emerging till now In the discussion of the lsquotypewriterrsquo metaphor the threat of being turned into a machine is largely understood as com-ing from outside the profession of translator or excusably as a role translators are forced into as a result of outside pressure Now in the above extract the term lsquopro-fessional translatorrsquo seems to be placed on a par with lsquotypewriterrsquo The premodifier lsquoprofessionalrsquo has taken on an almost pejorative sense as it indexes someone who has little choice but to accept the commissions offered to him or her (stance 3) as opposed to an lsquounmodifiedrsquo translator (to coin a phrase) who can refuse or accept a commission at will or preferably propose the commission him or herself (stance 1) Stance 2 seems to have disappeared in this portrayal of events thereby height-ening the contrast between stances 1 and 3 In reality however a translator might adopt any of these three stances during the course of his or her career and not necessarily in a permanently ascending line A translator can embody and uphold the persuasion visible in stance 1 with any degree of permanence only after he or she has established a certain reputation within the profession

On the whole all the interviewees quoted in this section speak in terms of es-tablishing the best conditions possible for translating and in so doing continually relate text to context on each occasion The last interviewee quoted is no excep-tion in this respect Yet though their discourse constructs images of collaboration within the profession and inner unity against outside forces (editors proofreaders etc) all in the interest of enhanced translation quality his discourse constructs differentiation within the field by making distinctions between those who can fo-cus entirely on translation quality (stance 1) and those who can do so only to a certain extent (stance 3) Textual quality and professional stance go hand in hand the best guarantee of optimum translation quality being stance 1 Yet on the face of it it seems that the final interviewee has somehow committed an unprofessional act of economic suicide by deciding to translate only what he prefers and refusing commissions except on the odd occasion This is not the case in reality despite the paradox at the end of the quote The paradox can be spelled out in full in the fol-lowing terms the longer one works at a translation the better it gets mdash an opinion that is not held by all those interviewed for this study Yet the longer one works the less one gets paid in real terms as fees for translation commissions are usually fixed So economic gain is sacrificed for translation quality or conversely imme-diate economic gain can inhibit translation quality and should be considered as secondary This leads us to another paradox how do those who are persuaded that stance 1 is the only one possible survive Such a stance must be seen in relation

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

40 Peter Flynn

to the perceived stances of others within the field of translation and cannot be understood without them

La theacuteorie des pratiques proprement eacuteconomiques est un cas particulier drsquoune theacuteorie geacuteneacuterale de lrsquoeacuteconomie des pratiques Lors mecircme qursquoelles donnent toutes les apparences du deacutesinteacuteressement parce qursquoelles eacutechappent agrave la logique de lrsquoin-teacuterecirct laquo eacuteconomique raquo (au sens restreint) et qursquoelles srsquoorientent vers les enjeux non mateacuteriels et difficilement quantifiables comme dans les socieacuteteacutes laquo preacutecapitalistes raquo ou dans la sphegravere culturelle des socieacuteteacutes capitalistes les pratiques ne cessent pas drsquoobeacuteir agrave une logique eacuteconomique (Bourdieu 1980 209)

[The theory of economic practises as such forms a particular case within a theory of an economy of practises Even when they show all the signs of disinterest be-cause they escape the logic of ldquoeconomicrdquo interest (in the restricted sense) and are oriented towards stakes that are non-material and difficult to quantify as in ldquopre-capitalistrdquo societies or in the cultural sphere in capitalist societies such practises never cease to obey the logic of economy (my translation)]

We must assume therefore that for a variety of reasons stance 1 becomes afford-able and viable at some stage during the career of a translator that the discursive strategy of differentiation pointed out above is founded on a sense of relative in-dependence within the field as a whole which is not to be equated with a lack of commitment to translation as such On the contrary stance 1 is posited as the ulti-mate commitment to translation but as Bourdieu points out this does not liberate translators of this persuasion from the laws of the market or place them above the economy of practices The stress on quality over financial advantage or to be more precise positing that economic necessity including the obligations and desires it creates has an adverse effect on translation quality clearly reflects the ideological edges of the distinction Bourdieu draws between various forms of capital in this case between economic and symbolic capital Engagement with the symbolic is portrayed as the superior form of engagement all the more so because it is repre-sented in terms of economic sacrifice (the translatorrsquos paradox) So both paradoxes cease to be so when considered as expressions of the interplay between forms of capital which in turn belong within a field-specific economy of practices

3 Ethical orientations An overview and a conclusion

In the subsections above an attempt was made to uncover specific aspects of ethos in the qualitative interview data What has emerged can best be described as con-trastive ethical orientations in that the standpoints found in each of the utterances examined point in at least two directions at the same time The following table (Table 2) provides a schematic overview of these standpoints

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 4

Table 2 Ethical orientations A schematic overview

Ref Key metaphormetonym

Textual orientation Social orientation FocusRelation

311Ext 2

Cannibalism adven-ture excitement

Raw beauty vs bland-nessadventure vs beaten tracks

Prospective Read-ers vs prescriptive lsquoscientistsrsquo

Audience

312Ext 3

Bulldozer antennas Sensitivity vs heavy-handedness

Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

313Ext 4

Craft distance Committed distance vs untested awareness

Collaboration vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

314Ext 5 amp 6

Skin-to-skin Responsible reading vs Non-committal interpretation

Translators vs others (inc writers and readers)

Clientprincipal

315Ext 7 amp 8

The impassioned insane Quality vs expedience Consultation vs unilateral action

Network of expertise

316Ext 9

My child Creativity vs Lan-guage systemrules

Translators vs Proof-readersClient

ClientPrincipal

317Ext 10 amp 11

Typewriter Human variation vs mechanical reproduc-tion

Translators vs others (inc clients)

Clientprincipal

318Ext 12

lsquoProfessionalrsquo translator Quality vs hack work Translator vs profes-sional worker

Orders of belonging

In each of the cases outlined the interviewee positions him or herself both textu-ally and socially with respect to translation both parameters merging to reflect aspects of the ethos of those concerned On the whole fields of tension were con-structed in their discourse with respect to both textual practice and social stance within which or at the extremities of which those interviewed positioned them-selves As the table indicates translators defined themselves and their textual practices (antagonistically) in terms of contrast with others with whom they are related professionally (eg writers proofreaders language scientists publishers) or others like readers of the texts they translate for example They invoked unity and collaboration among themselves and others in their network of expertise all in the interest of good textual practice and of improving the quality of transla-tion They also posited differentiations within their own profession to the extent of equating lsquothe professionalrsquo with the hack translator hence negotiating stances with respect to these differentiations again in the interest of good textual practice and of improving translation quality The field being sketched and constructed here has become visible through discursive strategies of inclusion and exclusion of consultation and collaboration but also through strategies of rejection and

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

42 Peter Flynn

contestation Through this sketch we begin to get a picture of the translatorrsquos ethos and also discover that expressions of ethos are complex in that they comprise tex-tual and social practice at one and the same time Such expressions of ethos also provide us with a clear indication of an aspect of Bourdieursquos notion of habitus ie ldquohellip [P]rincipes geacuteneacuterateurs et organisateurs de pratiques et de repreacutesentations qui peuvent ecirctre objectivement adapteacutees agrave leur butrsquorsquo (Bourdieu 1980 88) As pointed out above particularly though not exclusively in the discussion of lsquocraftrsquo embodied translation skills (where the innate and the acquired meet) become objectively verifiable both in text and in forms of professional behaviour To use Bourdieursquos terms once again what we witness here is ldquole long processus dialectique souvent deacutecrit comme lsquovocationrsquo par lequel lsquoon se faitrsquo agrave ce par quoi on est fait et on lsquochoisitrsquo ce par quoi on est lsquochoisirsquordquo (Bourdieu 1980 113)

It is argued therefore in the framework of this study that the actual textual practices of translators are informed by translatorial ethos which became visible in the various stances gleaned from the data Given those who people the narra-tives of the translators interviewed for this study (ie proofreaders editors other translators etc) it is further asserted that translations though they are mainly viewed and appraised as the work of individual translators are actually carried out in networks of value-informed collaboration and contestation that have a real impact on translation products It is further argued that the aspects of translatorial ethos laid bare in the ethnographic data not only highlight the socio-cultural or historical contexts of translation products or form the sociology of those products but are in fact part and parcel of those products Finally it is important to stress that it is not the intention here to conflate the distinction made by Toury between textual and extratextual norms (Toury in Venuti 2000 207) but rather to point to more complex and intricate relationships between the two It is hoped that the aspects of translatorial ethos discussed in this article will help form a picture of the habitus of the literary translator

References

Bassnett Susan and Harish Trivedi eds 1999 Postcolonial translation Theory and practice Lon-don amp New York Routledge

Bourdieu Pierre 1980 Le sens pratique Paris Les eacuteditions de minuitChesterman Andrew 1993 ldquoFrom lsquoisrsquo to lsquooughtrsquo Translation laws norms and strategiesrdquo Target

51 1ndash20Cronin Michael 2002 ldquoBabelrsquos standing stones Language translation and the exsomaticrdquo

Crossings An electronic journal of art and technology 21 ISSN 1649ndash0460 Available at httpcrossingstcdieissues21Cronin

Even-Zohar Itamar 1979 ldquoPolysystem theoryrdquo Poetics today 11ndash2 (Autumn) 287ndash310

Exploring literary translation practice 43

Even-Zohar Itamar and Gideon Toury eds 1981 Translation theory and intercultural relations Poetics today 24 (Summer-Autumn)

Even-Zohar Itamar 1990 Polysystem studies [= Poetics today 111] Durham Duke University Press

Even-Zohar Itamar 1997 ldquoThe making of culture repertoire and the role of transferrdquo Target 92 355ndash363

Even-Zohar Itamar 2000 ldquoThe position of translated literature within the literary polysystemrdquo Venuti 2000 192ndash197

Even-Zohar Itamar 2005 Papers in culture research Electronic Book available from Even-Zo-harrsquos Website at httpwwwtauacil~itamarezworkspaperspapersps-revisedpdf

Flynn Peter 2004 ldquoSkopos theory An ethnographic enquiryrdquo Perspectives Studies in translatol-ogy 20044 270ndash285

Flynn Peter 2006 A linguistic ethnography of literary translation Irish poems and Dutch-speaking translators Ghent University unpublished doctoral dissertation

Goodwin Charles 1994 ldquoProfessional visionrdquo American anthropologist 963 606ndash633Hanks William F 1987 ldquoDiscourse genres in a theory of practicerdquo American ethnologist 14

668ndash692Hanks William F 1996 Language and communicative practice Boulder Colorado Westview

PressHawkins Joyce M and Robert Allen eds 1991 The Oxford encyclopedic English dictionary Ox-

ford Oxford University PressHolt Elizabeth and Paul Drew 2005 ldquoFigurative pivots The use of figurative expressions in

pivotal topic transitionsrdquo Research on language and social interaction 38 35ndash61Lakoff George and Mark Johnson 1980 Metaphors we live by Chicago University of Chicago

PressLeacutevi-Strauss Claude 1975 The raw and the cooked New York Harper amp Row PublishersMertz Elizabeth and Jonathan Yovel 2000 ldquoMetalinguistic awarenessrdquo Jef Verschueren Jan-Ola

Oumlstman Jan Blommaert and Chris Bulcaen eds Handbook of pragmatics 2000 Amsterdam amp Philadelphia John Benjamins 2000 1ndash26

Nord Christiane 1997 Translating as a purposeful activity Functionalist approaches explained Manchester St Jerome

Pym Anthony 1998 Method in translation history Manchester St JeromeSchieffelin Bambi Paul V Kroskrity and Katryn A Woolard 1998 Language ideologies Practice

and theory Oxford amp New York Oxford University Press [Oxford Studies in Anthropo-logical Linguistics]

Simeoni Daniel 1998 ldquoThe pivotal status of the translatorrsquos habitusrdquo Target 101 1ndash39The Collins Cobuild English dictionary London Harper CollinsThe new Oxford dictionary of English Oxford Oxford University PressToury Gideon 1981 ldquoTranslated literature mdash System norm performance Towards a TT-ap-

proach to literary translationrdquo Even-Zohar and Toury 1981 9ndash27Toury Gideon 1995 Descriptive Translation Studies and beyond Amsterdam and Philadelphia

John BenjaminsToury Gideon 2000 ldquoThe nature and role of norms in translationrdquo Venuti 2000 198ndash212Tymoczko Maria 1999 Translation in a postcolonial context Early Irish literature in English

translation Manchester St JeromeVenuti Lawrence 1998 The scandals of translation Towards an ethics of difference London amp

New York Routledge

44 Peter Flynn

Venuti Lawrence ed 2000 The Translation Studies reader London amp New York RoutledgeVieira Else Ribeiro Pires 1994 ldquoA postmodern translation esthetics in Brazilrdquo Mary Snell-

Hornby Franz Poumlchhacker and Klaus Kaindl eds Translation Studies An interdiscipline Amsterdam John Benjamins 1994 65ndash72

Electronic sources

Slembrouck Stef 1998ndash2003 WHAT IS MEANT BY DISCOURSE ANALYSIS At httpbankugentbedadahtm (24032006) httpcrossingstcdieissues21 (04052006) httpwwwtauacil~itamarezworkspaperspapersps-revisedpdf

Reacutesumeacute

Le preacutesent article traite des reacutesultats drsquoune eacutetude ethnographique de la pratique de la traduc-tion litteacuteraire aux Pays-Bas et en Flandre Il est axeacute sur un aspect particulier de la pratique de la traduction agrave savoir lrsquoeacutethique (ethos) de la traduction La thegravese y est soutenue que les formes drsquoeacutethique de la traduction ressortant des donneacutees sont complexes eacutetant baseacutees en mecircme temps sur les pratique ainsi que sur les relations agrave la fois textuelles et institutionnelles Plus speacutecifique-ment lrsquoarticle soutient qursquoil faut prendre en compte les attitudes et positionnements en question afin drsquoen arriver agrave une compreacutehension meilleure des normes de traduction (Toury 1995 2000 et Chesterman 1993) ou de lrsquohabitus de la traduction (Simeoni 1998) Finalement dans un sens plus geacuteneacuteral on argumente que lrsquoethnographie linguistique peut fournir des indications preacutecises concernant des modegraveles de la pratique de la traduction et qursquoelle constitue ainsi un moyen drsquoen-quecircte utile dans le contexte des eacutetudes de traduction

Authorrsquos address

Peter FlynnLessius HogeschoolDept Toegepaste TaalkundeCampus Sint-AndriesSint-Andreisstraat 22000 ANTWERPBelgium

peterflynnlessiuseu