Translation

Domestication & Foreignization

‫التقريب (التوطين) والتغريب‬
 How would you translate the following expressions?


It is only the tip of the iceberg.

Trick-or-treat?

A stitch in time saves nine.

Go to hell!

Heavy rain was drowning the yams.

‫ال يفارق سوادي سواده‬

‫جاء الوزير وعليه سواده‬

‫"ونظرت زينب الى حفيدها وهي تقول "الزم نشتري حاجة السبوع‬

‫بائع الزالبية‬
 
"Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of
making intelligible a whole culture."
Anthony Burgess

“The purpose of translation is to promote understanding and
communication between different linguistic and cultural
communities.”

“Linguistic competences are not the only requirement […]-
though the most important one- another important
requirement is [having] enough acquaintance with the target
culture”
Hui Guo
 Translation is not just about transmitting a text/speech
from one language to another, it is , rather, a set of
procedures and strategies to be followed in order to
produce a new, coherent and appropriate text that fulfills
the goal of translation and transmits, as much as possible,
the meaning of the source text.
 Among these translation strategies, we find two basic
translation strategies
Domestication
Foregnization
They were termed by American translation theorist
Lawerence Venuti.
This presentation answers the following
questions:

What are, then, the notions of Foreignization and
domestication?

what is the relationship between them?

Where did they come from?

What characteristics distinguish them from each other and
from the other translation strategies

How do they function within translation?

What is the benefit of adopting any of them when translating?

And to what extent did the contribution of the functionalist
approach succeed in solving this issue by adopting the Skopos
 WHAT IS FOREIGNIZATION?


Linguistically speaking, the term «foreignization» comes
from the adjective foreign, meaning something that is strange
and different.

In the field of translation, « foreignization often refers to the
preserving of the original cultural context, in terms of setting,
names… etc »
 WHAT IS FOREIGNIZATION?

In Forignization, according to Venuti, the translator:

 focuses his/her efforts ‟to register the linguistic and
cultural difference of the foreign text, sending the reader
abroad.”
 preserves the cultural and linguistic aspects and values of
the source text (ST) and transform them into the target
text (TT) retaining in the meantime the ST constituents’
flavour.
 creates a sense of strangeness and cultural distance from
the target audience.
 WHAT IS DOMESTICATION?

 Domestication comes linguistically from the verb «to

domesticate», which means «to make a wild animal used
to living with or working for humans»
 In translation studies, Domestication is a strategy that “is
adopted to minimize the strangeness of the foreign text
for target language readers”
 It is the strategy adopted in order to produce a
transparent, fluent and easy translation that conforms to
the norms and rules of the target audience’s culture and
language without any traces or existence of any aspect of
the ST in the TT.
 In the contemporary international translation field, the
person who has initiated the controversy between
domestication and foreignization is Eugene Nida, whom is
regarded as the representative of those who favour
domesticating translation.
While it is the Italian scholar Lawrence Venuti who has
led the debate to a white-hot state. He can be regarded as
the spokesman for those who favour foreignizing
translation.
 Foreignization is author- centered and source-
culture oriented , while domestication is reader-
centered and target-culture oriented.
 The following diagrams show the relationship
between ‘foreignization’ and ‘domestication’
The above diagrams show that:

foreignization and domestication are two headings or
subordinates situated under the umbrella of ‘Translation
strategies/technics’

Foreignization, in a way or another, embraces all the other
strategies that aim at faithfulness and commitment to the ST,
while Domestication involves all the technics that aim at
creating a text in a new, different and creative style sticking in
the meantime to the meaning of the ST.

they involve as much as possible all the other different
translation strategies that deal with the linguistic and cultural
differences in translation.

domestication strategy helps the readers overcome both
linguistic and cultural barriers and make the target text more
readable and easier to understand,

on the contrary, Foreignization introduces the reader to the
source culture and deepen their knowledge about the ‘other’
foreign linguistic and cultural values, traditions, expressions,
idioms.

Both Foreignization and Domestication are translation tools
that facilitate, simplify and emphasize the purpose of
communication and contribute each in its way to the
realization of this purpose.
 Foreignization does it by introducing the readers to
to the environment of the foreign culture and
language and enriching their knowledge about the
‘other’, while
 Domestication does it by bringing the ‘Other’ closer
to the readers and helping them get in touch with
this (Other) in simple and easy ways.
 Reconciliation
The Skopos theory

The Skopos theory: the word ‘Skopos’ is derived from Greek
and denotes ‘purpose’

Skopos theory is a concept from the field of translation
studies.

It provides an insight into the nature of translation as a
purposeful activity; [purpose driven]

The Skopos theory was established by the German linguist
Hans Vermeer and comprises the idea that translating and
interpreting should primarily take into account the function of
both the source and target text.

This functionalist approach to translation emerged in order to
solve and answer the questions concerning Foreignization and
Domestication and their use and function in translation.

It suggests that the use either of foreignization or
domestication depends on the skopos [purpose] of translation.
 Conclusion
 From the above mentioned points, we can say that the
functionalist approach to translation, introduced by
Vermeer, doesn’t prefer domestication or foreignization,
it rather considers both of them as translation tools
[strategies or techniques] that can be adopted either
individually or mutually according to the Skopos
[purpose] of translation. They have different functions
inside translation. Both of them have positive and
negative points. The translator should [however] take a
dynamic view to determine which strategy s/he should
use in translation.
 References
 Hui Guo. “A Brief Analysis of Culture and Translation.” Theory
and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 343-347,
February 2012. doi:10.4304/tpls.2.2.343-347
 Paloposki, Outi “Domestication and foreignization.” Handbook of
Translation Studies. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Amsterdam
 Suo, Xuxiang. “A New Perspective on Literary Translation
Strategies Based on Skopos Theory” Theory and Practice in
Language Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 176-183, January 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0501.24
 Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: A history of
translation. Routledge: NewYork, 1995.