Chapter 1. Introduction
1.4 Research methodology
This book’s research philosophy is based on a double criterion: that any conclu-
sions should be both theoretically and empirically convincing. In other words,
they should make sense in terms of what we know about translation and literary
creation, but should be based on practical data about translators, translating and
translations.1.4.1 Theories and methods
Theory is what enables researchers to see patterns and principles. This book’s theo-
ry foundation is given by sociological and social-network models of human agency
and interaction (e.g. Goffman 1959/1971; Goffman 1970; Latour 1987; Axel 1997;
Hermans 1999; Even-Zohar 2000; Bourdieu, in Buzelin 2005; Inghilleri 2005).
These see the translator as a thinking, feeling and acting ‘subject’ who works within
networks of people and texts. This models how translators work on texts within
multi-person project teams; how translators form loose-knit professional group-
ings; and how teams mediate between wider source- and receptor-language com-
munities, and between their respective ‘systems’, or networks of literary works.
No single theory, however, can describe all aspects of poetry translation. To
explain specific issues, therefore, various approaches are used. How translators
translate in real time is discussed within a ‘cognitive processing’ framework
(e.g. J. R. Anderson 1995; Mondahl and Jensen 1996). How translators communi-
cate with readers uses a ‘cognitive pragmatics’ approach that combines stylistics
with literary pragmatics (e.g. Hickey 1998; Stockwell 2002). And how translators
interact with their wider social, cultural and political environment is modelled in
broadly ‘post-structuralist’ terms (e.g. Jenkins 1996; Campbell 1998; K. Davis
2001; Gentzler and Tymoczko 2002). This family of approaches stresses, like net-
work-based models, the social context of action. It also implies that concepts such
as a translator’s identity, political beliefs or ethical principles, and even much of
what she or he regards as knowledge, are ‘constructed’ by discourse between peo-
ple in social groups.
Just as we need more than one theory to explain a complex human phenom-
enon like poetry translating, so we need more than one method to research it. A
crucial methodological principle followed in this book is that of triangulation
(Creswell 2003: 15–17). In surveying, triangulation describes how a hilltop, say, is
mapped by observing it from various places. Here, it describes how a phenomenon
is analysed by combining various methods which complement each other, giving
better-rounded insights whilst compensating for each others’ weaknesses. Hence,
for example, this book combines process-based with product-based studies,