Scholars in Translation Studies have discussed Toury’s concept of norms in terms of its “general judgement on translations” (Baker, 2009: 193). Scholars have also sought to call
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into question certain aspects of Toury’s theory/theories. However, by taking a step back, it soon becomes clear that ‘criticism of Toury’ has in some cases simply been an attempt to reflect on the discipline itself and for other scholars to develop new ideas. Nonetheless, it is still important to consider some of the points of critique which have been raised. In general, one of the major points of debate has been Toury’s ‘norm theory’.
In this regard, Baker (2009: 195) agrees with Hermans’ criticism of the “collective” views on translations and points out that norm theory only focuses on “repeated” and “abstract behaviour” in its broader sense while it ignores its “intricacy of concrete” and “everyday choices”. Moreover, Baker (2009: 152) argues that norm theory “privileges strong patterns of socialization” rather than “the individual and group attempts”, which could possibly undermine “the dominant patterns” of behaviour and the “prevailing political and social dogma”. In addition, Gentzler (2001: 143) also criticises Toury’s attempt to establish the “laws of translation” as a “universal” criterion, which is allegedly unrealistic.
On the one hand, Hermans (1999a) supports Toury’s DTS theory in many aspects; on the other, he makes a critical assessment of Toury’s initial norms on dichotomy choice along two “polars”: adequacy / acceptability (Toury, 1995: 57). In this regard, Munday (2001: 114) has pointed out that the poles between adequate translations and acceptable translations “are on a continuum, since no translation is ever totally adequate or totally acceptable”. In Hermans’ view, initial norms should also involve other factors, such as “how the source text is viewed”, “whether it or similar texts have been translated before”, “for what audience or purpose” the ST is translated for and so on (Hermans, 1999a: 75). Likewise, many other scholars have similar criticisms of the DTS approach and regard using a single axis to explain the concept of “initial norms” as too “rigid” and too “scientific”. These scholars suggest using more appropriate source-oriented/target-oriented
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terms for reviewing the text rather than using the term adequacy/acceptability (Hermans, 1999a: 76).
For Hermans (1999a: 77), norms are conditioned by “collective preferences” or attributed to “collective regular behaviour”. Regardless of the complexity of the “translational setting”, the DTS approach focuses on translators’ behaviours in terms of the collective or group sense. Here, it seems that there is a missing link between these “collective behaviours”. The issues, such as an individual agency, i.e. the translator in terms of his / her profile, or the individual context of the translated texts, are generally overlooked.
In this respect, Crisafulli (2002: 35) views norm theory as being too abstract. For Crisafulli, norms are an intangible concept which are to be found hidden somewhere in the “social consciousness”. More specifically, norms lie hidden “behind regularities” or “beliefs”. Crisafulli (2002: 36) also criticises norm theory as disregarding the importance of “human translators” who live in “historically determined circumstances”.
Baker (2009: 78) mentions some other issues which have been neglected in early DTS research. These include the ignorance of considering “the role of values” of the society that lies behind the particular act of translation or neglecting “the political and ideological effects of translation” in the target society. Lefevere (1992b) makes the same claim and demonstrates how translations reflect target culture ideologies in particular eras. In this regard, one example he gives is the case of the rewriting of translated literature during the ‘May Fourth’ era. Translations at that time may support the prevalent ideologies and poetics in some cases. Similarly, Pym (2004: 111) also argues that norm theory overlooks the issues that are induced by “power relationships or confliction groups” of certain societies. Therefore, Pym (2004: 108) suggests that more explanations are needed in terms of “the textuality of the texts”.
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Regarding the descriptive approach vs. prescriptive approach, the criticism is that the division made between these two approaches in general is questionable. It is thought that Toury’s early DTS approach adopts a prescriptive stance to analyse the translation. However, the concept of ‘norms’ is more an “explanatory hypotheses” rather than “an observable fact”. In this regard, Chesterman considers (1997: 68) that all norms exert a certain degree of “prescriptive pressure”. Munday (2001: 113) also points out that all norms “appear to exert pressure and to perform some kind of prescriptive function”.
Similarly, Hermans criticizes the “objectivity of descriptivism” and argues that the DTS approach is rather subjective. The “subjectivity” view on norms makes it difficult to come up with a “probabalistic” approach which can explain “every possible aspect of potential behaviour in a given situation” (Karamitroglou, 2000: 24). This is, and here is a significant point, because among the “multi-variable” type of behaviours, there is “free variation” between “individual and collective norms” since each individual target system as its own individual norms. In general, the DTS approach is regarded as lacking in individual contextual analysis for a particular translational phenomenon.
At another level, Chesterman and Arrojo (2000) offer the view that the DTS method is “constrained by the interpretative conception”, which reflects the point of view of “who elaborates them”. In this regard, Hermans recommends developing a more “self-reflexive” and “self-critical” discipline, which is called “critical DTS” (Baker, 2009: 79).
Another criticism of Toury’s DTS approach is that it ignores the idiosyncrasies of each translator’s behaviour and does not provide explanations for particular translational behaviour. Toury (1995: 183) assembles all the human agents into “one persona” and considers that the “conjoined entity” is “the translator”; this means Toury views translation activities are a kind of collective behaviour, in other words, he does not differentiate between individual translators. However, Hermans (1996: 26) views translation as a
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complex transaction which takes place in a socio-cultural context where active human agents are constantly involved. Baker (1995: 230) also points out the importance of the human agents, such as the translator or the publishing house, and mentions that the individual role played in the act of translation needs to be specified. In this regard, Pym posits the potential sources of explanation for certain behaviour in terms of the individual translator’s background, the context of the production, the translator’s attitudes, the translator’s statements or translator’s prefaces (Baker, 1995: 231).
In response to some of the above criticisms, Toury (1995: 17) claims that his “target-oriented approach” is “the retrospective study of the production of translated texts, not their reception and consumption”. This is another aspect which is neglected in the DTS approach. For example, the “environmental feedback”, such as the role target audience or recipients play when receiving the text, or their reaction to translation products, has generally been neglected (Toury, 1995: 32). In short, the value of Toury’s approach is that by keeping separate from the translation process the many other factors which could be taken into account (even if he mentions many of them), he has created a theory which is applicable to the vast majority of translation cultures. The competing theories of other scholars raise as many new challenges as those which they claim to have solved.