You can find a PDF version of "Translation History and Culture" by Susan Bassnett on various online platforms, including:
Lefevere and Bassnett argued that translation is a form of "rewriting." Any text that is adapted, edited, or translated is manipulated to fit a specific ideology or poetics. Translation is never innocent; it is a "refraction" of the original text through the lens of the translator and the expectations of the receiving audience. 2. Patronage and Power Dynamics
The essay collection provides a practical blueprint for analyzing how historical texts changed when crossing borders. translation history and culture susan bassnett pdf
Bassnett asserts that language is not a neutral medium; it is charged with cultural significance. Therefore, a translator is not merely swapping words but navigating entire systems of belief, ideology, and poetics. The text argues that if Translation Studies remains trapped within the realm of comparative linguistics, it misses the "big picture"—the historical conditions that produced the text and the cultural forces that shape its reception. By shifting the focus from the text as a static object to the text as a cultural product, Bassnett and Lefevere expanded the discipline, inviting scholars to utilize methodologies from history, sociology, and cultural studies.
The most decisive moment came with the 1990 essay collection Translation, History and Culture , co-edited by Bassnett and André Lefevere. This volume announced the “cultural turn” as a formal research agenda. Key concepts introduced or consolidated include: You can find a PDF version of "Translation
: Bassnett rejects literal word-for-word accuracy, advocating for "functional equivalence"—achieving the same effect and meaning in the target language as in the original.
In their landmark 1990 collection, Translation, History and Culture , Bassnett and Lefevere famously announced this theoretical shift. As scholar Cristina Marinetti notes, they proposed a move away from the word or the text as the unit of analysis, towards culture itself. For them, translation is primarily "a fact of history and a product of the target culture," and therefore cannot be explained or judged "through the mapping of linguistic correspondence between languages". Patronage and Power Dynamics The essay collection provides
Translation, History, and Culture demonstrates that translation practices change across historical eras. History dictates how a culture views the "Other." Colonial and Post-Colonial Dynamics