A Task-Based Coursebook for Translation Theories

Postmodernism is a wide-ranging cultural movement that has crept into various fields of arts and humanities and is believed to have influenced translation studies as well. If we then look at translation theory from the vantage point of postmodernism and identify the traces of postmodern thinking in translation studies, a whole new world of investigation opens up. Thus, the objective the present study aims to meet is to examine two translational concepts in the light of postmodernism and explore the possibility of a redefinition of the investigated concepts. To this end, first the main postmodern concerns of two thinkers whose views represent postmodernism, namely Lyotard and Cixous, are explored. In the second step, two translation related issues tackled by Lawrence Venuti in his published works, namely abusive fidelity and translation ethics, are analyzed using postmodern concepts in pursuit of commonality. The results of the analysis reveal that these translational concepts, as defined by Venuti, are postmodern, thus creating the possibility of their being redefined. Such redefinitions can have significant implications for translation practice, pedagogy and research.