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Taming the Stranger: Domestication vs Foreignization in Literary Translation Cover

Taming the Stranger: Domestication vs Foreignization in Literary Translation

Open Access
|Feb 2018

Abstract

The translator’s task is to bridge the gap between the source text (ST) and the target text (TT), to mediate between the source culture (SC) and the target culture (TC). Cultural mediation is always more than linguistic mediation: it facilitates understanding between cultures. Cultural mediators need to be extremely aware of their own cultural identity, understanding how their own culture influences perception (ethnocentric attitude). While foreignization introduces the TT audience to the ST culture as much as possible, making the foreign visible, domestication brings two languages and two cultures closer, minimizing the foreignness of the TT, conforming to the TC values, and making the unfamiliar accessible (Venuti 1995, Munday 2016). This paper investigates different ways to find the balance between these two tendencies, offering examples from literary translation.

Language: English, German
Page range: 93 - 105
Published on: Feb 16, 2018
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 3 issues per year

© 2018 Zsuzsanna Ajtony, published by Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.