Explain what is meant by the terms 'domestication' and 'foreignisation' in translation theory.

University Degree European Languages, Literature and related subjects

Explain what is meant by the terms ‘foreignisation’ and ‘domestication’ in translation theory.

The notions of foreignisation and domestication in translation theory were first proposed by Friederich Schleiermacher, a German theologian and philosopher who also dabbled in a range of other subjects, including linguistics. His terms for these concepts, alienation and naturalisation, were later taken up in the twentieth century by Lawrence Venuti, who renamed them foreignisation and domestication. These approaches to translation were based on the idea that in translating a text, the culture of the original text has to be accounted for in the translation, either by ‘adapting’ it to the culture of the target language, and thus bringing the text to the reader (domestication), or by making the target language adapt to the culture of the source text, and thus taking the reader to the text (foreignisation).

Both approaches have attracted negativity: domestication is often seen as a betrayal of the culture expressed by the original text, while foreignisation is seen as inherently elitist and not always something that necessarily adds to the diversity of the situation (Robinson 1997, 109-112), although Robinson points out earlier in his criticism that foreignisation can be seen very positively indeed in terms of a colonial reading (i.e., that it ‘decolonises’ the original text). Foreignisation can also serve to make the translator more ‘visible’ by highlighting the foreign identity of the source text and protecting it from the ideological dominance of the target culture, which is one of Venuti’s concerns, and this could be read as a positive or negative consequence of the approach (just as could the consequence of domestication on the visibility or invisibility of the translator, whereby translation should have such a fluent, transparent and ‘invisible’ style that the target text’s foreignness is minimised).

Both approaches are also to be handled delicately: it is perhaps the translator’s natural instinct to ‘domesticate’ the target text to suit the widest possible audience, and as Nathalie Ramière points out, translation for cinema (if you like, intralingual translation) has the greater cultural ramifications, both in the way national cinema is seen abroad and how cultures perceive each other and themselves. Such genre crossover is a good example of both intralingual translation and domestication, and one specimen to have come to light in recent years is the extensive modernisation of Shakespeare through film, such as Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet. Another Shakespearean example, which is an example of domestication without being especially intralingual, lies in the existence of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, which seeks to perform the entire works of Shakespeare in 97 minutes. This is carried out successfully and as succinctly as it promises, and it could be argued that it somewhat departs from the original culture from which the plays came, being performed extremely colloquially.

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Richard Jacquemond notes in his 1992 article that as if translation were not complicated enough in itself, the operation becomes doubly so given that by definition, two languages and thus two cultures and two societies are involved. Concessions are often made: he goes on to say that translations of French works into Arabic during the 19th century reflect the very free relationship between Arabic and Western culture: for example, French titles were often ‘arabised’ to catch the Arabic reader’s attention, either in the Arabic tradition of rhymed titles or in a more modern fashion. However, this example deals with two quite different cultures, which begs the question of whether the difference between cultures (and thus between translations) is more distinct the further apart the cultures are, or whether very pronounced cultural differences between languages are universal in their application, regardless of their ‘closeness’. It could be tempting to ascribe to the former notion, whereby foreignisation and domestication are only really very important notions in translation when the cultures are very far apart indeed. However, this is perhaps debunked when the difference between France and Québec is considered, showing just how important the two approaches really are: Québec does not identify itself solely with any French-speaking country, nor solely with Canada, and the province derives its distinct identity from France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States. The difference between the French, the Canadians and the Québécois is further emphasised in the world of academia, where a not insignificant body of criticism devoted to the province and its cultural and linguistic identity reflects this distinctiveness (one example lying in Culture In Transit: Translating the Literature of Québec, edited by Sherry Simon).

The importance of both foreignisation and domestication, then, perhaps inevitably leads to a need for reconciliation between the two, and perhaps the area where this has been achieved at the highest level is in the realms of classical literature. “The recuperation of ancient poetry into modern theatre,” says Lorna Hardwick (2000:144), “has progressed beyond the point where simple contemporary allusions…are any longer necessary in order for the audience to be convinced…[A]ncient poetry mutates into an experience which is both devastatingly familiar and magically transformative.” Among the contemporary translators eager to achieve this goal in their translations of ancient poetry and drama are included Robert Lowell, Seamus Heaney and Liz Lochhead. Modern directors and translators share a common aspiration when dealing with ancient works, in that both attempt to make the ancient and the modern come together in a way that will be successful with the general public, and finding that ‘space between’ can be difficult. Indeed, Jonathan Miller, after directing Robert Lowell’s Prometheus Bound in 1967, pronounced that “Classics are simply residues, maps left over from earlier cultures; they invite you to make some sort of imaginative movement”.

Moreover, in making this imaginative movement across cultures, translators still have to contend with the omnipresent problem of maintaining appropriate fidelity to the text concerned. In light of this, it is perhaps worth considering domestication and foreignisation as concepts that cannot be compared so symmetrically, especially when they have to work so closely together. Rather than being polarising concepts of an ethno-centric reduction of the text to target-language cultural values versus ethno-deviant pressure to register linguistic and cultural difference, they should be registered as concepts that can blend the contemporaneity of the culture that is familiar to us and the strangeness of the culture that is not; and while the text should to an extent be brought to the reader (it is, after all, the overall goal of translation), the reader should be prepared to do a little ‘travelling’ too.

Select a short passage which allows translation in both a domesticating and foreignising manner, and outline the text-specific issues which arise from such a project.

The plays of Bertholt Brecht have several defining characteristics, such as didacticism, direct address to the audience and the use of song. Another of these characteristics is a sense of very definite political and cultural placement, which has to be effectively conveyed by the translator in such a way that the reader is able to discern the political and cultural climate of the play while still ‘domesticating’ the text so that it is not beyond the reader’s understanding. While there are examples of strong political and cultural identity across the majority of Brecht’s plays, one example comes from his Turandot, or the Whitewashers’ Congress, which is set in China:

General Education Tui: You’re hurt, what happened?

Scribe: I’m a scribe at the Tui Academy. Or I was. The Palace of the Tui Association has been stormed by Gogher Gogh’s men. They’ve been incorporated with the police, and they’ve got new armbands with insignia stamped on them. The Tui Association is accused of insulting the Emperor, because a state secret was revealed at the Great Congress. At this very moment they’re burning the three thousand theses about the history of China, just because they mention defeats in the seventh century. Nu Shan has been hanged because he’s supposed to have said that Gogher Gogh, who’s been Chancellor since five o’clock, didn’t know what three times five makes. I’m in danger myself, because I witnessed it all. And it’s all because Kai Ho is already in Szechwan.

Scene 8

While the themes of censorship and dictatorship in this passage are obvious, and the passage is understandable in the context of the play’s overall plot, the play’s deeper cultural contexts cannot be understood from this passage alone, indicating that the translator has perhaps chosen the approach of domestication. This is perhaps problematic as it could preclude a fuller understanding of the play: audiences who are new to Brecht’s work often find it inaccessible, as it is so allegorical and densely layered. However, the passage still has a very Chinese feel to it, as the translators further explicate in the Methuen edition of the play: they note that very few of the names used in Brecht’s original play have much Chinese association, and that many of the names that he did use seem to make obscure allusions that few if any people have been able to decode, save a few careless chinois gestures, such as Yao, Su and Wang. While the translators have tried to preserve some of this patchwork approach, some of the names have also been modified to make them more easily recognisable and pronounceable in English, or to make them more appropriate transliterations from the Chinese, taking care to choose transliterations suitable for the historical context. By doing this, they therefore ‘take the reader abroad’ and foreignise the text perhaps more than they are obliged to.

However, this is a problem that the translators have shown to be common to the entire text, rather than just the passage concerned. More specifically to this passage, then, the translators could have lengthened it in order to further clarify the political implications beyond the range of the plot, bringing in German and Chinese political and cultural history. However, they have chosen to keep the passage relatively foreignised, not even using a characteristically Brechtian method of an external narrator who directly addresses the audience, as in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, to aid the audience in their understanding of the political allusions, allegories and metaphors. The translators do not even use footnotes in order to help a first-time reader of the play (as with Shakespeare’s plays, you will not find many in the audience of a Brecht play who are complete strangers to it), thus increasing their invisibility as translators. What they do provide, however, to ‘domesticate’ the text a little more, exists by way of editorial notes, and by way of provision of journal entries from Brecht himself on the play. Provision of these resources is a very conscious choice: the translators could have kept the play entirely ‘foreign’ beyond the translation of the play into English, by not providing any external information. We find from this information that the play is intended as a satire on the intelligentsia of the Weimar Republic, Nazi bureaucracy, and other targets. While educated guesses can be made, it is perhaps more satisfying to have the text more ‘domesticated’ by being allowed some insight into the author’s mental processes during the creation of the play (although this is dependent on how one feels about authorial intent). Armed with this knowledge, it is easier to see how the passage in question reflects Nazi supremacy, and how the new ‘Chancellor’, Gogher Gogh, is reflective of Hitler. The play, published in 1969, is also reminiscent of China’s 1966 Cultural Revolution, whereby the aim was to rid Communist China of its liberal bourgeoisie elements.

The German background, in conjunction with the Chinese setting, allows the reader to draw from the play a political reading beyond the scope of Turandot’s plot. While striking the balance between domestication and foreignisation is often difficult for translators, it is my belief that in this case, the translators manage to achieve this successfully as a result of various choices that they have made, despite any problems that may have arisen during the completion of their work. The text itself is quite deeply foreignised, with China and Germany’s situations of the time being distinctly visible in the text, and the only outward signs of domestication being the translation into English itself and the modification of names; but as one delves deeper, clarification or ‘domestication’ of the text is available to the reader via external sources, allowing the two approaches to translation to be combined effectively.

Works cited

Brecht, B., Collected Plays (vol. 8) (eds Kuhn, T., and Constantine, D. J.), Methuen: 2003
Hardwick, L., Translating Words, Translating Cultures, Duckworth: 2000
Jacquemond, R., “Translation and Cultural Hegemony: The Case of French-Arabic Translation”, Rethinking Translation: Discourse, Subjectivity, Ideology (ed. Venuti, L.), Routledge: 1992
Ramière, N., “Reaching A Foreign Audience: Cultural Transfers in Audiovisual Translation”, Journal of Specialised Translation, July 2006: 6, retrieved from on 24/05/08
Robinson, D., Translation and Empire: Postcolonial Theories Explained, St Jerome Publishing, 1997

Works consulted

Hatim, B., and Mason, I., Discourse and the Translator, Longman: 1990
Hatim, B., and Mason, I., The Translator as Communicator, Routledge: 1997
Munday, J., Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications, Routledge: 2001
Rollason, C., “The Task of Walter Benjamin’s Translators: Reflections on the Different Language Versions of Das Passagen-Werk (The Arcades Project)”, Aug 2007, retrieved from on 24/05/08
Simon, S. (ed.), Culture in Transit: Translating the Literature of Québec, Véhicule Press, Montréal: 1995
Venuti, L., The Translator’s Invisibility: a history of translation, Routledge: 1995