system theories3

For Toury (1995: 13)' translations first and foremost occupy a position in
the social and literary systems of the target culture, and this position determines
the translation strategies that are employed. With this approach, he is
continuing and building on the polysystem work of Even-Zohar and on
earlier versions of his own work (Toury 1978, 1980, 1985, 1991). Toury
(1995: 36-9 and 102) proposes the following three-phase methodology for
systematic DTS, incorporating a description of the product and the wider
role of the sociocultural system:
1 Situate the text within the target culture system, looking at its significance
or acceptability.
2 Compare the ST and the TT for shifts, identifying relationships between
'coupled pairs' of ST and TT segments, and attempting generalizations
about the underlying concept of translation.
3 Draw implications for decision-making in future translating.

An important additional step is the possibility of repeating phases (1) and (2)
for other pairs of similar texts in order to widen the corpus and to build up a
descriptive profile of translations according to genre, period, author, etc. In
this way, the norms pertaining to each kind of translation can be identified
with the ultimate aim (as more descriptive studies are performed) of stating
j laws of behaviour for translation in general. The concepts of norms and laws
are further discussed in sections 7.2.1 and 7.2.2 below.
I The second step of Toury's methodology is one of the most controversial
areas. The decisions on which ST and TT segments to examine and what the
1 relationships are betureen them is an apparatus which Toury (1995: 85) states
I should be supplied by translation theory. Yet, as we have seen in chapters 4 l
and 5, linguistic translation theory is far from reaching a consensus as to
what that apparatus should be. Most controversially, in earlier papers (1978:
93, 1985: 32), Toury still holds to the use of a hypothetical intermediate
invariant or tertium comparationis (see page 49 for a discussion of this term) as
an 'Adequate Translation' (AT) against which to gauge translation shifts.
However, at the same time he also admits (1978: 88-9) that, in practice, no
translation is ever fully 'adequate'; for this contradiction, and for considerl
i ing the hypothetical invariant to be a universal given, he has been roundly
I ~ criticized (see, e.g., Gentzler 1993: 131-2, Hermans 1999: 56-7).