Chapter 7. Conclusion
translator’s output not only in textual terms, but also within a context of cognitive
constraints and opportunities, and of inter-relationships with other key players.7.6.2 Translation studies
This book has applied the methods, theories and assumptions of translation studies
to the vocation of poetry translating. It has combined various traditions within the
discipline, such as real-time processing, agency-based approaches and ideology/
identity-based analyses. Since these traditions focus on different aspects of the web
shown graphically in Figure 53, the arrows interlinking these aspects also show the
potential for different translation-studies traditions to interact. Thus the arrow
linking Translator Cognition/Emotion with Sub-Fields, for example, shows how
cognitive and sociological approaches to translation studies can work together even
more closely than at present to explore how and why translators act as they do.
This also highlights how this model’s underlying structure and approach is not
specific to poetry. Because it is based on general translation-studies principles, it
not only updates earlier general models of translating (e.g. that of Bell 1991), but
it also has the potential to structure research into processes, outputs and relation-
ships within other translation genres. I would argue, in fact, that this book’s ‘uni-
fied field’ approach, which looks at how various methods can complement each
other in giving a rounded view of what language-transfer experts do, provides a
useful counterweight to the intensive, single-method nature of much recent trans-
lation research. Thus the model could provide a framework in which to assess and
integrate a range of single-issue studies in other genres and modes, such as techni-
cal translation or community interpreting, and it could provide a template for fu-
ture research in other translation and interpreting genres.
More specifically, this book’s findings have implications for the wider concept
of translator expertise. Because Chapters 5 and 6 focus on a very different genre
than the non-specialist prose of most previous process studies, for example, they
show how certain features (such as the literal translation automaton) are common
across genres, and provide expanded insights into how expert translators deal with
difficult text. Similarly, the studies dealing with norms and agency have suggested
where a translator’s habitus might vary according to genre and where it might not:
in terms of how far creative transformations are permitted and in terms of the
loyalty ethic respectively, for instance.7.6.3 Translator training and translating players
Training in poetry translation may be offered on general translator-training pro-
grammes, via literary and even poetry-specific modules; and poetry translating