Cover not available
Article published In:
Target
Vol. 30:2 (2018) ► pp.260–287

Transculturation and Bourdieu’s habitus theory

Towards an integrative approach for examining the translational activity of literary translators through history

ORCID logo | Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

In the last two decades, Bourdieu’s sociology has provided appropriate tools for examining the work of literary translators through history. However, Bourdieusian approaches to literary translation seem to reproduce a major problem underlying Bourdieu’s theory; namely, a deterministic view of human behaviour. This article, against the alleged incompatibility between sociological approaches and culturalist paradigms, proposes to combine Bourdieu’s sociology with the notion of transculturation borrowed from Latin American cultural studies. The article demonstrates how transculturation helps elucidating the divided and contradictory nature of the habitus, as it was originally formulated by Bourdieu in his early writings on Kabylian society. Data from my previous study on the translational activity of Dai Wangshu in Republican China are used to illustrate how transculturation reveals itself as a valid model for the study of literary translators through history beyond the limitations of a sociologically-informed approach based exclusively on a Bourdieusian perspective.

Keywords: transculturation, habitus, literary translation, Daniel Simeoni, Ángel Rama, Dai Wangshu, sociological, culturalist, deterministic, clivé
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The position of Bourdieu’s habitus theory in translation studies
  • 3.The alleged determinism of Bourdieu’s sociology
  • 4.The origin of transculturation
  • 5.Rama’s model of narrative transculturation
  • 6.Striking connections between transculturation and Bourdieu’s cultural sociology
  • 7.Transculturation as a framework for the study of translation in post-colonial contexts
  • 8.Applying an integrative sociological approach to study Dai Wangshu’s translational activity
    • 8.1The pivotal status of Dai’s translational activity in Dai’s social trajectory
    • 8.2The multi-layered nature of transculturation as an interpretive framework
  • 9.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 15 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.16097.say
References

Primary sources

Dai, Wangshu
1935 “Jia’erxiya Luo’erjia Shichao.” Wenfan Xiaopin 11: 83–89.Google Scholar
(1938) 1999 “ ‘Madeli’, Yi Houji.” In Dai Wangshu Quanji. Shige Juan, edited by Wang Wenbin, 763. Beijing: China Youth Press.Google Scholar
1941 “Shi San Zhang, Wuti.” Xingdao Ribao, Xingzuo 9831: 2.Google Scholar
(1943) 1999 “Du Shuihu Fu Zhi Yi De.” In Dai Wangshu Quanji. Sanwen Juan, edited by Wang Wenbin, 381–383. Beijing: China Youth Press.Google Scholar
(1945) 1999 “ ‘Buzhen Zhi Qi’, Fuji.” In Dai Wangshu Quanji. Shige Juan, edited by Wang Wenbin, 517–518. Beijing: China Youth Press.Google Scholar
(1948) 1985 “Ba ‘Xibanya Kangzhan Yaoqu Xuan’.” Xiangang Wenxue 21: 42.Google Scholar
1956 “Shu Ya Shu.” In Shi 1956, 20–21.Google Scholar
García Lorca, Federico
2011 Poesía completa. Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg.Google Scholar
Mi, Wu
1925 “Editorial note.” Xueheng (The Critical Review) 471: 1–2.Google Scholar
Shi, Zhecun
ed. 1956 Luo’erjia Shichao. Beijing: Writers Publishing House.Google Scholar
1935 “Faxing Ren Yan.” Wenfan Xiaopin 11: 1–2.Google Scholar

Secondary sources

Bourdieu, Pierre
(1959) 2013 Algerian Sketches. Malden, MA: Polity Press.Google Scholar
1977 Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1990 The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
1993a The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
1993b Sociology in Question. London: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
1996 The Rules of Art, Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
2000 Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
2002 “Les conditions sociales de la circulation internationale des idées.” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 1451: 3–8. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 Sociología de Argelia y Tres estudios de etnología Cabilia. Madrid: CEI-BOE.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron
1962 “Célibat et condition paysanne.” Études rurales 5/61: 32–135. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Buzelin, Hélène
2005 “Unexpected Allies.” The Translator 11 (2): 193–218. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “How Devoted Can Translators Be? Revisiting the Subservience Hypothesis.” Target 26 (1): 63–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chan, Leo Tak-hung
2004 Twentieth-Century Chinese Translation Theory: Modes, Issues and Debates. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cheng, Binying
1993 Dai Wangshu Pingzhuan. Chongqing: Chongqing Publishing House.Google Scholar
Denton, Kirk, and Michel Hockx
2008 “Introduction: Literary Societies in Republican China.” In Literary Societies of Republican China, edited by Kirk Denton and Michel Hockx, 1–14. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Gouanvic, Jean-Marc
1995 “American Science Fiction and the Birth of a Genre in France.” In Translators through History, edited by Jean Delisle and Judith Woodsworth, 212–222. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2001 “Ethos, Ethics and Translation: Toward a Community of Destinies.” The Translator 7 (2): 203–212. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 “A Bourdieusian Theory of Translation, or the Coincidence of Practical Instances: Field, ‘Habitus,’ Capital and ‘Illusio’.” The Translator 11 (2): 147–166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hanna, Sameh F.
2005 “Hamlet Lives Happily Ever After in Arabic: The Genesis of the Field of Drama Translation in Egypt.” The Translator 11 (2): 167–192. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hockx, Michel
1999 “Introduction.” In The Literary Field of Twentieth-Century China, edited by Michel Hockx, 1–20. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii, Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
2003 Questions of Style: Literary Societies and Literary Journals in Modern China, 1911–1937. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 “The Chinese Literary Association (Wenxue yanjiu hui).” In Literary Societies of Republican China, edited by Kirk Denton and Michel Hockx, 79–102. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Inghilleri, Moira
2003 “Habitus, Field and Discourse.” Target 15 (2): 243–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 “The Sociology of Bourdieu and the Construction of the ‘Object’ in Translation and Interpreting Studies.” The Translator 11 (2): 125–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lahire, Bernard
2003 “From the Habitus to an Individual Heritage of Dispositions. Towards a Sociology at the Level of the Individual.” Poetics 31 (5): 329–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lane, Jeremy F.
2000 Pierre Bourdieu. A Critical Introduction. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Le Hir, Marie-Pierre
2004 “Pierre Bourdieu: A Critical Introduction by Jeremy F. Lane.” SubStance 33 (1): 147–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lee, Gregory
1989 Dai Wangshu: The Life and Poetry of a Chinese Modernist. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Leo Ou-fan
1999 Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Leung, Ping-kwan
1984 Aesthetics of Opposition: A Study of the Modernist Generation of Chinese Poets, 1936–1949. PhD diss. University of California.Google Scholar
Loi, Michelle
1971 Roseaux sur le mur. Les Poètes occidentalistes chinois 1919–1949. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Lu, Weiluan
(1985) 2013 “Dai Wangshu zai Xiangang.” In Lunxian Shiqi Xianggang Wenxue Zuopin Xuan: Ye Lingfeng, Dai Wangshu Heji, edited by Lu Weiluan, Zheng Shusen, Xiong Zhiqin, 566–600. Hong Kong: Cosmos Books.Google Scholar
Martín Criado, Enrique
2006 “Estudio introductorio: las dos Argelias de Pierre Bourdieu.” In Sociología de Argelia y Tres estudios de etnología cabilia, edited by Enrique Martín Criado, 13–119. Enrique Madrid: CEI-BOE.Google Scholar
Mei, Yi-tsi
2008 “Reconsidering Xueheng: Neo-conservatism in Early Republican China.” In Literary Societies of Republican China, edited by Kirk Denton and Michel Hockx, 137–170. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Meylaerts, Reine
2008 “Translators and (Their) Norms.” In Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies: Investigations in Homage to Gideon Toury, edited by Miriam Shlesinger, Daniel Simeoni, and Anthony Pym, 91–102. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ortiz, Fernando
(1940) 2002 “Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar.” In Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y del azúcar, edited by Enrico Mario Santí, 121–749. Madrid: Cátedra.Google Scholar
(1947) 1995 Cuban Counterpoint of Tobacco and Sugar. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Pratt, Mary Louise
1992 Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pym, Anthony
2008 [book review] “Arturo Parada; Oscar Diaz Fouces (eds.) Sociology of Translation (2006).” Quaderns de Traducció 151: 231–235.Google Scholar
Rama, Ángel
(1982) 1987 Transculturación narrativa en América Latina. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno.Google Scholar
(1982) 2012 Writing Across Cultures. Narrative Transculturation in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
1983 “Literatura y cultura en America Latina.” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 181: 7–35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Santí, Enrico Mario
2002 “Introducción.” In Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y del azúcar, edited by Enrico Mario Santí, 23–110. Madrid: Cátedra.Google Scholar
Sela-Sheffy, Rakefet
1991 “Rites of Coronation.” Poetics Today 12 (4): 801–811. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 “Translators’ Identity Work: Introducing Micro-Sociological Theory of Identity to the Discussion of Translators’ Habitus .” In Remapping Habitus in Translation Studies, edited by Gisella M. Vorderobermeier. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shih, Shu-mei
2001 The Lure of the Modern. Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China 1917–1937. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Simeoni, Daniel
1998 “The Pivotal Status of the Translator’s Habitus.” Target 10 (1): 1–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “Between Sociology and History. Method in Context and in Practice.” In Constructing a Sociology of Translation, edited by Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, 187–204. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toury, Gideon
2012 Descriptive Translation Studies – and Beyond. Revised edition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thornber, Karen Laura
2009 Empire of Texts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Japanese Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tymoczko, Maria
2007 Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators. Manchester: St. Jerome.Google Scholar
Wacquant, Loïc
2004 “Following Pierre Bourdieu into the Field.” Ethnography 5 (4): 387–414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, Wenbin
2003 Zhongxi Shixue Jiaohui Zhong de Dai Wangshu. Hefei: Anhui Educational Publishing House.Google Scholar
2006 Yu Xiang Zhong Zouchu de Shiren: Daiwangshu Chuan Lun. Beijing: Commercial Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, Michaela
2007 “Introduction.” In Constructing a Sociology of Translation, edited by Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, 1–36. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xu, Xueqing
2008 “The Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School.” In Literary Societies of Republican China, edited by Kirk Denton and Michel Hockx, 47–79. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Ying, Guojing
1986 Xiandai Wenxue Qikan Manhua. Guangzhou: Flower City Publishing House.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

TOPCU, Cemal
2021. A Bourdieuan Analysis of Toledo School and Gerard of Cremona. Çeviribilim ve Uygulamaları Dergisi 2021:30 ► pp. 165 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.