Translation theory: key concepts and approaches

Linguistics

Russian Formalism to Translation Studies Scholars

This report will focus on two translation methodologies, Russian Formalism and the Translation Studies Scholars. The paper is designed to be a contrast study of the two translation theories and will focus on their fundamental theoretical assumptions in regard to translations. The contrast will also include a critical analysis of the translation theories as opposed to only providing a simple literature review. In regard to translation, theories have been considered as a re-organizing the apparent clutter of details received from experience. Theories therefore are a means for reducing the clutter from the world.

Russian Formalism

The Russian Formalism movement was created during the 1920's and ran through 1930. The movement's objective was to create literary criticisms and interpretations. "Members of what can be loosely referred to as the Formalist school emphasized first and foremost the autonomous nature of literature and consequently the proper study of literature as neither a reflection of the life of its author nor as byproduct of the historical or cultural milieu in which it was created. In this respect, proponents of a formalist approach to literature attempted not only to isolate and define the "formal" properties of poetic language (in both poetry and prose) but also to study the way in which certain aesthetically motivated devices (e.g., defamiliarization [ostranenie]) determined the literariness or artfulness of an object." (Russian Formalism)

The Russian Formalist movement consisted of two distinct scholarly groups:

The Moscow Linguistic Circle,

The Petersburg OPOIaZ or the Society for the Study of Poetic Language

The Moscow Linguistic Circle was founded by Roman Jakobson in 1915 and the OPOIaZ came into existence one year later under Victor Shklovskii. "Although the leading figures in the Russian Formalist movement tended to disagree with one another on what constituted formalism, they were united in their attempt to move beyond the psychologism and biographism that pervaded nineteenth-century Russian literary scholarship." (Russian Formalism)