It’s (also) all in the mind!

‘Sources’, ‘Targets’, ‘Intercultures’ and their Habituses.

What’s in the mind?

• What are the relations between the (more/less) individual and the (more/less) collective?

• How does structure relate to agency?

Like any other discipline in the humanities, DTS has to treat these fundamental questions.

What’s in the mind?

Autopoiesis and self-referentiality have their limits in social systems:

• communication-oriented paradigms cannot ignore human agency

• actor-oriented paradigms have to take into account the

conditions and conventions of communication analysis

Until now, DTS: structure instead of agency

What’s in the mind?

Relations between human agent and collective structures?

usability of habitus concept for a functional, text- and discourse-oriented model of interlingual translation?

Habitus?

• the subjects’ internalised system of social structures in the form of dispositions

• a life-long process of interactions between structure and agency through various and variable individual and collective experiences

• dispositions engender practices, perceptions and attitudes which are regular but not necessarily fixed or invariant

Habitus?

• motor of a dialectic between a theory of effects and a theory of strategies

• escape a philosophy of the subject without sacrificing the agents

• escape a philosophy of structure without refusing to take into account the effects it exerts on the agent and through him (Bourdieu 1992, 97)

Habitus?

• dynamic, plural concept• object of confrontations with various field logics

and thus of multiple definitions and discontinuities • complex product of multiple processes of

socialization disseminated in various institutions (family, schools, friends, work, neighbourhood…)

• BUT: too much linked with national societies: cross-cultural habituses?

Habitus and/vs. Geography?

less geography is a distinctive feature between languages, literatures, cultures, less translations movethe more ‘originals’ and ‘translations’, ‘sources’ and ‘targets’ share a common spacethe more the actor’s habituses play a key role in their definition and in the understanding of intercultural dynamics

Habitus and/vs. Geography?

• globalised, post-colonial world • all kinds of (historical) multilingual contexts • space being irrelevant, in a multilingual society,

(intercultural) actors perceive their (inter)cultural positions and develop their (inter)cultural position-takings in interaction with institutional and discursive structures that are intimately linked with the – sometimes competing - concepts of ‘language’, ‘culture’, ‘translation’ and intercultural relationships.

A = dominant language and culture = elites = institutions = most legitimate literary productionsB = minority language and culture = lower classes = no/less official institutional status = less legitimate literary productions C = bilinguals

Who is/has interest to be(come) bilingual?

• the more pronounced the institutional hierarchy between A and B, the more bilingualism is a unidirectional phenomenon: from B to A

• minority language groups, B language users in search of social mobility, of participation in (most) legitimate institutions

• how? access to education in language A

People’s socio-linguistic habitus?

• All cultural agents - A, B or bilinguals: – interact with socio-institutional structures and discourses

– internalise superiority of majority language and culture

BUT:• dispositions are not fixed or invariant • structures can evolve through agent’s (inter)actions• inferior collective socio-linguistic habitus is mostly

challenged by bilinguals (institutions in B for the minority speakers of B)

Translation and Intercultural contacts?

• ‘translation’ and intercultural contacts: socio-institutional structures and (op)positions various and varying collective and individual

socio-linguistic, socio-institutional, literary, (inter)cultural habituses

• analysis of (inter)culturals’ habituses is a necessary aspect of study of intercultural dynamics

Translator’s Habitus?

• What’s the translator’s socio-linguistic profile in a given context?

• How to explain his stylistic options? • Who has the right to be a translator? • Why does a translator stop translating?

Answers to these and other questions do not exclusively depend on individual nor on collective factors but ask for an analysis of the relations between structure and agency.

Who has the right to be(come) a translator?

less geography is a distinctive feature between languages and cultures

the more‘source’ and ‘target’ texts, discourses, agents… share a common spacepronounced the institutional hierarchy between ‘source’ and ‘target’

then the more professional interculturals have to hover between competing perceptions, attitudes and practices on cultures and translation by both ‘source’ and ‘target’ sides

Who has the right to be(come) a translator?

• bilinguals of minority language origin: – highest potential to deliver translators– problematic cross-cultural habituses

• cherished by majority culture: – translation confirms its dominant position– translation delegitimises minority language and culture

especially when selection strategies and textual stylistic options are habitus-governed

• traitors of (part of) minority culture; ideal is non-translation

Who has the right to be(come) a translator?

• bilinguals of minority language origin: ambiguous position: ‘source’- ‘target’?

• through the multiple intersections and oppositions, the gap – between the personal and collective history of the

individual translator– the collective history of his majority public– the collective history of his minority public

can increase to the point that translators stop translating

Who has the right to be(come) a translator?

The divergent internalisation • of the structuring principles of the ‘source’ and

‘target’ fields • of their mutual contacts • by intercultural professionals• AND by various and variable ‘source’ and ‘target’

cultural agents co-determines the positions and position-takings of

translators

‘Sources’ and ‘targets’: are they irrelevant then?

• In a multilingual space texts, discourses, agents are positioned and position themselves both in the ‘source’ and ‘target’ cultures shaking up the analytical pertinence of a clear-cut distinction between ‘sources’ and ‘targets’

• Does this imply then that these fundamental concepts become irrelevant for Translation Studies?

• On the contrary: ‘it’s also in the mind’.

‘Sources’ and ‘targets’: are they irrelevant then?

In the numerous past and present contexts in which the ideal Western nation-state’s one-to-one relationship between territory, language, literature, culture and people is blurred, ‘sources’, ‘targets’ and their relationships survive with all the more pertinence through the actors’ (inter)cultural habitus.

‘Sources’ and ‘targets’: are they irrelevant then?

• redefine the key concepts ‘source’ and ‘target’ cultures, texts, discourses… also as a matter of perception

• function of the internalisation of the institutional and discursive structures by the (inter)cultural agents through their variable and varying positions and position takings in both the ‘source’ and ‘target’ cultures.

‘Sources’ and ‘targets’: are they irrelevant then?

• So we need very flexible definitions : which ‘sources’ and ‘targets’, for whom, when, where ?

• Definitions for which we have to integrate the concept of agency into communication-oriented models.