Concluding Remarks

Abstract

Over 30 years ago, an early pioneer of ‘translation theory’, Peter Newmark, remarked that ‘[a]ll kinds of false distinctions have been made between literary and technical translation’, and that ‘[a] traditional English snobbery puts literary translation on a pedestal and regards other translation as hackwork, or less important, or easier’ (1982: 5–6). For Newmark, the issue is not one of genre or subject matter, it is one of writing quality, which in his view ‘cuts across’ the supposed distinction between literary and what I take to be non-literary translation: for him, writing is either ‘good’ (‘careful, sensitive, elegant’) or ‘bad’ (‘predictable, hackneyed, modish’), regardless of whether the text is ‘scientific or poetic, philosophical or political’ (1982: 6).