Discussion of case study

The advantages of Toury's methodology are that an attempt is made to place translation within its target-culture context, it is relatively simple to carry out, and it is replicable. Other studies can then follow up the findings and a better picture can gradually be formed about the translation of the genre of modern children's literature, the way this has varied over the years, the trans­lation strategies into Italian and Spanish, their relation to what might have been assumed to be the more dominant English culture, and so on. A frame­work has thus been set up enabling researchers from almost any background to contribute in a meaningful way to our knowledge of translation. Never­theless, some objections could be raised. The choice of ST-TT coupled pairs is still far from systematic. While the study of the translation of proper names produces interesting findings and names might be expected to be the most culturally bound items, this does not necessarily mean that the overall translation strategy is the same. It may well be preferable, as suggested by Holmes, to develop a check-list of features to examine, even if that list is not as comprehensive as some of the taxonomies we reviewed in chapters 4 and 5. The placing within the target-culture context is also inevitably limited. Focus could be shifted to look more deeply at the interaction between

124 SYSTEMS THEORIES

DISCUSSIO N AND RESEARCH POINTS

culture, ideology and text, and to look at the translators and publishing industry themselves. These topics are discussed in the next two chapters.