Translational Object and Translatological Methodology: Reflections on a Reasonable Translatological Methodology
İsmail İşcenA very long and the more diffusing the more confusing debate about the borders of a field of translational studies didn’t fulfil the expectations and high-hopes for an autonomy of a discipline, as it was meant and intended in the last decades of the past century. These ambitious and various promises, in every new attempt always appearing as “new approaches”, coming out like mushrooms in every new season, and very busy by declaring a new paradigm of the field, seem especially because of their outward or “imported” ambitions more a lack of the self-confidence, which marks a well-functioning scientific field, growing from bottom up. What is the base and bottom of scientific thinking and reflecting? This, as a central question of this study, has its response in the scientific theoretical discussion, which involves particularly the required clarification of the importance of “methodology”. It is not only surprising but also frustrating that although J. Holmes in the 70’s has insistently underlined this necessity, throughout more than 40 years there was a strange silence regarding this fundamental request. Yet today confusing peripheral issues are swamping the field. In this context this study questions the possible conditions of a compact translatological methodology.
Çevrimsel Olgu ve Çeviribilimsel Metodoloji: Çeviribilimsel Nitelikli bir Metodoloji Üzerine İrdeleme
İsmail İşcenKendine özgü bir alansallaşma tarihi olarak çeviri konulu bilimsel (iddialı) akıl yürütmelerinin başlarında Holmes’ün çıkışı dışında çeviri araştırmalarının yöntem sorunsalına dair açıktan veya örtük savunulara pek nadiren rastlanmaktadır. Bu nedenle günümüzde dahi konu dizgeli bir çerçeve içinde hala bir netliğe kavuşturulabilmiş değildir. Metodoloji konusundaki bu tuhaf rehaveti anlama adına çalışma, çeviribilimsel nitelikli sayılabilecek bir metodolojinin gerekliliğine yönelik bir talebin koşul ve temellerine saydamlık kazandırmaya odaklanmaktadır. Bilim-kuramsal söylemle “gözlem sistematiği” ile ilişkili bu açıklığın (eksikliğin) giderilmesi için gerekli koşulların sorgulanması üzerinden, çalışmada böyle bir gözlem sistematiğinin tasarımına dönük zemin yoklaması yapılacaktır. Anılan sistematiğin alanın özerkliğini temin etmedeki etkisi ile birlikte metodolojik modelin temellendirilmesinde geçerli olabilecek ilke ve belirleyenleri tartışmaya açmak merkezi önemdeki amaçtır. Metodoloji ile araştırma nesnesi kavramları arasındaki karşılıklı (doğrudan) etkileşimli ilişkinin gerçeğine atıfla irdeleme boyunca çeviribilimsel olgunun araştırılabilir (gözlemlenebilir ve betimlere dönüştürülebilir) bir “nesne”ye evrilmesinde belirleyenler olarak “nesnellik” ile “öznellik” kavram çifti irdelenecektir. Bu kavramsallaşmanın eşliğinde “anlamsal boşluk”, “çevrimsel kategori”, tikel araştırma örneklerinin modelleme usulleri bağlamındaki konular, inceleme boyunca somutluğa kavuşturulacaktır; bununla birlikte olası bir çeviribilimsel metodolojinin gözlem ve betim uzamının tarifi yapılacaktır. Çeviribilimsel metodolojinin bu doğrultuda ne ölçüde sistemli bir dizge konumuna getirilebileceği sorusu üzerinde durulacaktır.
The urgent main question regarding the clearly defined methodology of translation studies as a whole that James Holmes had strongly emphasized in the 70’s seems yet today unanswered, furthermore awaits a clarifying discussion. There were –mostly in the 90’s– diverse attempts to mark the problem of settling down the field within the scientific world as an “autonomic discipline”. However there is, still today, no transparency in the use of this term, probably caused by practical needs and expectations (for instance translational critics, educational goals, and performance of a new academic expanding etc.); within the search of ways of defining the field it is seen that multiple methods are latently offered to concrete the lines, allowing –of course in a very ambiguous wishful-thinking sense– the “survey and observation” of translation, but: Mixing several scientific methodological instruments, and doing this without any evident relation to the main object creates no methodology of an autonomic discipline. Shortly to say: When Holmes (1972), concerned about the primary duty of the translation studies as a field, was outspokenly demanding an urgent clarification of a methodology, today v. Doorslaer (2019) still declares that there is a “confusion, hesitation, and frustration” in the discussion about translational studies, one must be –aware of the extended time between the demand and the conclusion– astonished about the evaporated time. So it is reasonable to ask, whether the “field” of translational studies constitutes already a serious scientific discipline, or still exposes an extensively comfortable place of unrestricted leisure.
In this study it is discussed the difference between reflecting on a subject in general (as an empiric appearance) and thinking on a scientifically determined object (as a term). While reflecting in the first sense doesn’t involve any common principles of proceeding, the scientific proceeding obeys, however differing due to the every specific field, certain common laws. The study tries to make transparent this difference through distinct analogies, which –in other fields than the translation studies– don’t astonish us, while in terms of translation studies the problem is covered under an ambiguous discourse and use of terms. For example linguistics is not concerned about “language”(s) at all, but only about “langue” and/or “parole”, which –as scientific objects– are surveyed in a particular and determined way, while “languages” can –due to the related perspective– be explicated as very different subjects, such as “communication”, “human expression”, “art” etc., -not to speak as (for instance) “language as freedom”, “language as power” or last but not least “language as manipulation”. Thus, the basic and primary importance of methodology for a scientific field seems obvious and should never be neglected or disregarded.
Accordingly to these thoughts, in this study it is aimed to precise the concrete lines of a considerable translatological methodology. The first condition for this is the obligation of making evident the correlation between the basic definition of the translational object as a dichotomic, complex and dynamic whole, and the essential construct of the observable significant subject in a given case of a translatological research (subordination). The argument that the subject of translation studies can be fixed through predetermining conclusions (such as cultural transfer, stable preconfigured equivalencies, anyhow communicational acting etc.) narrows the research into an interdisciplinary blind alley. To avoid this problem, central importance has to be given on constructing possible categories of the translatological subject. In this manner this study offers for the very first time (in this given context) a new pair of terms which as a unified terminological comprehension helps defining and classifying the subject of translatological research: The subject of translatological observation is to be built up in accordance with the evaluation of the objective and subjective elements of the research object. So it can be concluded that the translatological methodology is extending and/or contracting according to the level of the dimension of objectivity (contracting) and/or subjectivity (extending), both given as constitutional implements of the translatological research object.
As the final issue of this study it is aimed to concret the term of complexity of the translatological subject. In this manner “language”, “text”, “communication” and “culture” can be determined as its (the complexity’s) constitutional elements. In every situation of translation (coming out as a complete description of all given factors) all reasonable indications regarding structural components (language, text) as “objective” parts of the subject and further functional components (communication, culture) as its “subjective” components have first to be collected and ordinated to get the whole prospect of the research topic. An extension (in the description) of its subjective parts is resulting in an increase and growth of the translational category (six in total) as a higher level of translatological moment. That means outweigh of the possible and needed description of the subjectivity (communicational and cultural components) within the translatological subject brings out an extending methodological proceeding, at the same time marking a higher translational category.
