Article published in:

Interdisciplinarity in Translation and Interpreting Process Research
Edited by Maureen Ehrensberger-Dow, Susanne Göpferich and Sharon O'Brien
[Target 25:1] 2013
► pp. 125–139

The role of archival and manuscript research in the investigation of translator decision-making

Jeremy Munday | University of Leeds, UK

This paper discusses the application of research methodologies from history and literary studies to the analysis of the translation process. Specifically, this concerns the use of literary archive and manuscript material to investigate the various stages in the construction of the translation product. Such material has been drastically underexploited in translation studies to date. The paper describes the type of material available for researchers and how this has been used. This is followed by a case study involving the detailed textual analysis of a translator’s drafts and revisions. The paper considers the value of such research methods in investigating the translation process and how they might complement and interact with other methodologies.

Keywords: descriptive translation studies, draft translations, literary manuscripts, publishers archives, research methodology, translator papers, translation process, translation product

Published online: 04 March 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.25.1.10mun

References

[ p. 138 ]References

Alves, Fabio

(ed) 2003 Triangulating Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Alves, Fabio, Adriana Pagano, Stella Neumann, Erich Steiner, and Silvia Hansen-Schirra

2010 “Translation Units and Grammatical Shifts: Towards an Integration of Product- and Process-Based Translation Research.” In Translation and Cognition, ed. by Gregory M., Shreve and Erik Angelone, 109–142. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Angelone, Erik

2010 “Uncertainty, Uncertainty Management and Metacognitive Problem Solving in the Translation Task.” In Translation and Cognition, ed. by Gregory M. Shreve and Erik Angelone, 17–40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Bellos, David

2001 “Putting Grammar to Work: Tense and Mood in Perec’s Prose.” Sites 5 (1): 283–298.

Billiani, Francesca

2007 “Renewing a Literary Culture through Translation: Poetry in Post-War Italy.” In Translation as Intervention, ed. by Jeremy, Munday, 138–60. London: Continuum.

Bush, Peter

2006 “The Writer of Translations.” In The Translator as Writer, ed. by Peter Bush and Susan Bassnett, 23–32. London: Continuum.

Derrida, Jacques

1996 Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Translated by Eric Prenowitz. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

di Giovanni, Norman Thomas

2003 The Lesson of the Master: On Borges and his Work. London– New York: Continuum.

Dimitriu, Rodica

2003 “Translators’ Prefaces as Documentary Sources for Translation Studies.” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 17 (3): 193–206.

Filippakopoulou, Maria

2008 “Translation Drafts and the Translating Self.” In Translating Selves: Experience and Identity between Languages and Literatures, ed. by Paschalis Nikolaou and Maria-Venetia Kyritsi, 19–36. London: Continuum.

Grigg, Susan

1991 “Archival Practice and the Foundations of Historical Method.” The Journal of American History 78 (1): 228–239.

Hansen, Gyde

2010 “Integrative Description of Translation Processes.” In Translation and Cognition, ed. by Gregory M. Shreve and Erik Angelone, 189–211. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Jones, Francis

2006 “Unlocking the Black Box: Researching Poetry Translation Processes.” In Translation and Creativity: Perspectives on Creative Writing and Translation Studies, ed. by Manuela Perteghella and Eugenia Loffredo, 59–74. London: Continuum.

Levine, Suzanne Jill

1991 The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction. St Paul, MN: Graywolf Press.

Mason, Ian, and Adriana Şerban

2003 “Deixis as an Interactive Feature of Literary Translations from Romanian into English”.” Target 15 (2): 269–94.

[ p. 137 ]

Munday, Jeremy

2012 Evaluation in Translation: Critical Points of Translator Decision-Making. Abingdon: Routledge.

Forthcoming “Translator Training and Identity.” In The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English: Volume V, The Twentieth Century, ed. by Lawrence Venuti, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Overbeck, Lois More

1993 “Researching Literary Manuscripts: A Scholar’s Perspective.” The American Archivist 56 (1): 62–69.

PACTE Group

2011 “Results of the Validation of the PACTE Translation Competence Model: Translation Project and Dynamic Translation Index.” In Cognitive Explorations of Translation, ed. by Sharon, O’Brien, 30–56. London: Continuum.

Pearce-Moss, Richard

2005 A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology. Chicago: The Society of American Archivists. http://www.archivists.org/glossary/index.asp.

Perec, Georges

1965 Les choses: une histoire des années soixante. Paris: René Juillard.

1967 Les choses: A Story of the Sixties. Translated by Helen Lane. New York: Grove Press.

1990 Things: A Story of the Sixties. Translated by David Bellos. London: Collins Harvill.

Pijuan Vallverdú, Alba

2007 “Anàlisi del mecanoscrit i la correcció de la traducció de Manuel de Pedrolo de Llum d’agost.” Quaderns 14: 57–66.

Prescott, Andrew

2008 “The Imaging of Historical Documents.” In The Virtual Representation of the Past, ed. by Mark Greengrass and Lorn M. Hughes, 7–22. London: Ashgate.

Rundle, Christopher, and Kate Sturge

(eds) 2010 Translation Under Fascism. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Schwartz, Ros, and Lulu Norman

2006 “How Was it for You?” In Other Words 27: 28–34.

Smith, Helen

2011 “Edward Garnett: Interpreting the Russians.” Translation and Literature 20 (3): 301–313.

Tacticus, Cornelius

1970 Agricola and Germania, translated by Harold Mattingly, revised byStanley Handford with an introduction byHarold Mattingly. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Toury, Gideon

1995 Descriptive Translation Studies — and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Venuti, Lawrence

1995/2008 The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge.

Cited by

Cited by 30 other publications

Abdel Latif, Muhammad M. M.

2018. Towards a typology of pedagogy-oriented translation and interpreting research. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 12:3 ► pp. 322 ff.

Andújar Moreno, Gemma

2016. Traducción entregada frente a traducción publicada: reflexiones sobre la normalización en traducción editorial a partir de un estudio de caso. Meta 61:2 ► pp. 396 ff.

Arber, Solange & Erika Tophoven

2021. Enjeux symboliques et scientifiques des archives de traducteurs : les archives Tophoven à Straelen. Meta: Journal des traducteurs 66:1 ► pp. 115 ff.

Atefmehr, Zahra & Farzaneh Farahzad

2021. Microhistorical research in translator studies: an archival methodology. The Translator ► pp. 1 ff.

Baños, Rocío

2020. Insights into the dubbing process: a genetic analysis of the Spanish dubbed version of Ocean’s Eleven. Perspectives 28:6 ► pp. 879 ff.

Bisiada, Mario

2018. Translation and editing: a study of editorial treatment of nominalisations in draft translations. Perspectives 26:1 ► pp. 24 ff.

Bisiada, Mario

2019. Translated Language or Edited Language? A Study of Passive Constructions in Translation Manuscripts and their Published Versions. Across Languages and Cultures 20:1 ► pp. 35 ff.

Bollettieri, Rosa Maria & Serenella Zanotti

2017. Theavant-textesof translations: A study of Umberto Eco’s interaction with his translators. Translation Studies 10:3 ► pp. 263 ff.

Colombo, Alice

2019. Intersections between Translation and Book History: Reflections and New Directions. Comparative Critical Studies 16:2-3 ► pp. 147 ff.

Cordingley, Anthony

2021. In Handbook of Translation Studies [Handbook of Translation Studies, 5], ► pp. 94 ff.

Cordingley, Anthony & Patrick Hersant

2021. Translation archives: an introduction. Meta: Journal des traducteurs 66:1 ► pp. 9 ff.

Fumanti, Mattia

2020. ‘A German Whore and no Money at that’: Insanity and the Moral and Political Economies of German South West Africa. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 44:3 ► pp. 382 ff.

Hesjevoll Schmidt-Melbye, Inger

2021. ‘Do frogs have a palm?’Behind the scenes of the Norwegian translation of Les soleils des indépendances. The Translator 27:2 ► pp. 137 ff.

Impens, Florence

2019. Translation as Creative Process: Elaine Feinstein’s Marina Tsvetaeva. Contemporary Women's Writing 13:2 ► pp. 134 ff.

Ivaska, Laura & Outi Paloposki

2018. Attitudes towards indirect translation in Finland and translators’ strategies: Compilative and collaborative translation. Translation Studies 11:1 ► pp. 33 ff.

Kaindl, Klaus

2021. In Literary Translator Studies [Benjamins Translation Library, 156], ► pp. 1 ff.

Kujamäki, Pekka

2018. In A History of Modern Translation Knowledge [Benjamins Translation Library, 142], ► pp. 247 ff.

Künzli, Alexander

2013. In Handbook of Translation Studies [Handbook of Translation Studies, 4], ► pp. 53 ff.

Paloposki, Outi

2017. In search of an ordinary translator: translator histories, working practices and translator–publisher relations in the light of archival documents. The Translator 23:1 ► pp. 31 ff.

Pickford, Susan

2021. Le traducteur et l’archive : considérations historiographiques. Meta: Journal des traducteurs 66:1 ► pp. 28 ff.

Qi, Lintao

2016. Agents of Latin. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 28:1 ► pp. 42 ff.

Spiteri Miggiani, Giselle

2019. In Dialogue Writing for Dubbing, ► pp. 191 ff.

Verhulst, Pim, Olga Beloborodova & Dirk Van Hulle

2021. Reconstructing collaborative (self-)translations from the archive: The case of Samuel Beckett. Meta: Journal des traducteurs 66:1 ► pp. 130 ff.

Villanueva-Jordán, Iván & Robert Martínez-Carrasco

2021. Agency, paratextuality, and queer pedagogy: analysing Javier Sáez del Álamo’s translator’s notes. Perspectives ► pp. 1 ff.

Wang, Yanmeng & Linxin Liang

2020. Riitta Oittinen, Anne Ketola and Melissa Garavini. Translating Picturebooks: Revoicing the Verbal, the Visual and the Aural for a Child Audience . Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 66:1 ► pp. 155 ff.

Wang, Yanmeng & Linxin Liang

2021. Review of Laugesen & Gehrmann (2020): Communication, Interpreting and Language in Wartime: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Journal of Language and Politics 20:2 ► pp. 356 ff.

Wang, Yanmeng & Mingwu Xu

2020. Translation and paratexts. Perspectives 28:5 ► pp. 806 ff.

Yan, Jia & Juan Du

2020. MULTIPLE AUTHORSHIP OF TRANSLATED LITERARY WORKS: A STUDY OF SOME CHINESE NOVELS IN AMERICAN PUBLISHING INDUSTRY. Translation Review 106:1 ► pp. 15 ff.

Zanotti, Serenella

2019. Investigating the genesis of translated films: a view from the Stanley Kubrick Archive. Perspectives 27:2 ► pp. 201 ff.

Zanotti, Serenella

2020. Translaboration in a film context. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 32:2 ► pp. 217 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 09 november 2021. 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.