Chapter 7. Conclusion
echoing the receptor-culture dominance of paper publishing. Moreover, the fact
that anyone can post a translation means that posting may happen without the
translator’s or poet’s permission, and sometimes without the translator being men-
tioned (Jones 2010).7.5.1.3 Readers and knowledges
The core team, and particularly the translator, are likely to have rich schemata
about the source region and literature. This is less likely for target readers. Hence,
unless information is supplied via paratexts, what the team hopes to convey risks
differing from what readers understand, especially in terms of the assumptions
behind the poems, or their cultural and socio-political context. Even then, pre-
existing reader stereotypes may be hard to combat: a translation team’s attempt to
represent Bosnia as a country of poetry, for example, may be overruled by reader
schemata of Bosnia as a country of war.
One class of readers – reviewers – mediate communication between the trans-
lation team and other readers. Chapter 3 has shown that reviewers may support a
project’s motives, though their reviews may also be conditioned by stereotypical
source-culture schemata. This has implications for whether readers of the reviews
are likely to read the projects reviewed, and for their own initial schemata if they
do go on to read the projects.
Reader communities, however, are also potentially heterogeneous (Venuti
2000: 477): readers’ identities and experiences can vary, as can their source culture
knowledge schemata. Hence their need for support information and their reac-
tions to what they read may also vary, and may even be unpredictable by the trans-
lator or other players.7.5.2 Fields and systems
Some extended networks which poetry translators may belong to are field-based.
One, discussed above, is the vocation-specific field interlinking poetry translators
themselves. Another is the higher-level field of poetry producers, which links po-
etry translators with publishers, editors and poets within a source or receptor
country, or across both.
Similarly, poetry translations enter various interlinked textual systems. These
are semi-autonomous from human agency. On the one hand, poetry translations
act autonomously – inspiring readers to read, for example. On the other hand,
they are published by project teams, and read by readers; and a system’s structure
depends on what inter-relationships these teams and readers see the texts as hav-
ing. Thus a translator’s translating choices and a team’s promotion strategies may