Translation studies

1. Foreignization
&
Domestication

2. 🞭 Translation is not just about transmitting a
text/speech from one language to another, it is ,
rather, a set of procedures and strategies to be
followed in order to produce a new, coherent
and appropriate text that fulfills the goal of
translation and transmits, as much as possible,
the meaning of the source text. Among these
strategies, we find that of Foreignization which
comes into question along with domestication
whenever it comes to translating from one
culture to another; that is, the discussion of
these two notions raises from the focus on the

3. 🞭 What are, then, the notions of
Foreignization and domestication? what
is the relationship between them? Where
did they come from? What characteristics
distinguish them from each other and
from the other translation strategies?
How do they function within translation?
What is the benefit of adopting any of
extent did the contribution of
them when translating? And to what
the
functionalist approach succeed in
solving this issue by adopting the Skopos

4. WHAT IS FOREIGNIZATION?
🞭 Linguistically speaking, the term
«foreignization» comes from the adjective
foreign, meaning something that is strange
and different.
🞭 In the field of translation, «foreignization»
means:
 According to Outi Paloposki « foreignization
often refers to the preserving of the original
cultural context, in terms of setting, names…
etc »1
 Xuxiang Suo: « Foreignization or
1- Poloposki ” Domestication and foreignization”

5. WHAT IS FOREIGNIZATION?
meantime the ST constituents’flavour.
Order to create a sense of strangeness and cultural distance
from the target audience; that is, to keep some linguistic and
cultural aspects of the source text when translating »2
 Forignization, according to Venuti, is “an ethnodeviant
pressure on those (cultural) values to register the linguistic
and cultural difference of the foreign text, sending the reader
abroad.”3
From the above definitions of foreignization, we can say that it
is a translation strategy in wich the translator preserves the
cultural and linguistic aspects and values of the source text
and transform them into the target text retaining in the
2- Suo. “A New Perspective on Literary Translation Strategies Based on Skopos Theory”
3- (Venuti 1995)

6. Foreignization comes linguistically from the verb
«to domesticate», which means «to make a wild
animal used to living with or working for
humans»4
In translation studies,
 Wenfen Yang defines Domestication as the
strategy that “designates the type of translation
in which a transparent, fluent style is adopted to
minimize the strangeness of the foreign text for
target language readers”5
4 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford University Press
5 Yang, “Brief Study on Domestication and Foreignization in Translation”
Domestication

7. Domestication
 Lawrence Venuti presents domestication as “an
ethnocentric reduction of the foreign text to target-
language cultural values, bring the author back
home”6
 For Jeremy Munday, “foreignization advocated by
Venuti and his followers is a non-fluent or
estranging translation style designed to make
visible the presence of the translator by
highlighting the foreign identity of the ST and
protecting it from the ideological dominance of the
target culture”
7
6- (Venuti. Ibid)
7- Munday. Qtd in « Yang »

8. 🞭From the above stated definitions,
we can say that domestication is the
strategy adopted in order to produce
a transparent, fluent and easy
translation that conforms to the
norms and rules of the target
audience’s culture and language
without any traces or existence of
any aspect of the ST in the TT

9. THE ORIGINES OF DOMESTICATION
AND FOREIGNIZATION
The two notions came into being with the publication
of Lawrence Venuti’s book (The Translator’s
Invisibility: A history of translation) in which he
stands against domestication in favor of
foreignization which, for him, «helps to resist the
hegemonic English-language nations and the
unequal changes in which they engage their global
Others».8
Venuti’s ideas were based, according to many critics,
on the german theorist Frederich Schleiermacher’s
1830 lecture ‘On the Different Ways of Translation’ in
which he stated that the translator has to adopt one
of two strategies:
8- (Suo. Ibid)

10.  Either « to leave the author in peace and move
the audience towards him/[her] »
(Foreignization)
 Or « to leave the audience in peace and move
the author towards them »9 (Domestication)
o In fact, Ventu is said just to have denominated
both ideas and adopted them to face Eugine
Nida’s ‘Dynamic Translation’ and the Anglo-
American translation strategies accordingly.
But generally speaking, Venuti is considered as
the founding father of « domestication and
foreignization. »

11. THE ORIGINES OF «DOMESTICATION» AND
«FOREIGNIZATION»
🞭 Venuti stated that the translator can do
either of two things:
I. « To make him/herself invisible to his/her
readers by making the text reads fluently;
that is to leave no traces or influence of the
SL in the target text » (domestication)
II. « [Or] to make him/herself visible by
showing that the text is a translation,
through leaving the traces of the SL and
culture showing up in the text »10
(foreignization)
10- (Suo. Ibid)

12. 🞭 Domestication and Foreignization are both
charatcterised by their independence in use
and they both come into the surface when it
comes to cultural translation.
🞭 Outi Paloposki stated that "‘foreignization’
may consist of many practices starting from
the choice of the text, the use of language
(archaic/modern), and any other deviating
practices into keeping and preservation of
cultural aspects and forms."11
11- (Paloposki. Ibid)

13. 🞭 Xuxiang Suo mentioned that: «
foreignizing translation can retain the
foreignness and cultural otherness of a
foreign text only by destroying the target
culture and its norms »
🞭 He adds that « foreignization is author-
centered and SL-culture oriented », while
«domestication is reader-centered and
target-culture oriented » 12
12- (Suo. Ibid)

14. 🞭 The next diagram is suggested by the
Chinese translation theorist, Xuxiang Suo,
to show the relationship between
‘foreignization’ and ‘domestication’ and
the other translation strategies: 13
13- (Suo. ibid)

16. Thus we see that foreignization can, in a way or
another, include all the other strategies that aim at
faithfulness and commitment to the ST, while
Domestication involves all the technics that aim at
creating a text in a new, different and creative style
sticking in the meantime to the meaning of the ST. In
this respect, and depending on the above diagram,
we can consider foreignization and domestication as
two headings or subordinates situated under the
umbrella of ‘Translation strategies/technics’ and
involving as much as possible all the other different
translation strategies that deal with the linguistic
and cultural differences in translation.

17. 🞭 The Chinese translation theorist Hui Guo stated that “The
purpose of translation is to promote understanding and
communication between different linguistic and cultural
communities.” In order for translation to fulfill this purpose of
communication, “Linguistic competences are not the only
requirement[…]-though the most important one- another
important requirement is [having] enough acquaintance with
the target culture” 14
🞭 Xuxiang Suo argued that «domestication strategy helps the
readers overcome both linguistic and cultural barriers and
make the target text more readable and easier to understand
»15, while the function of Foreignization, on the contrary, is to
introduce the reader to the source culture and deepen their
knowledge about the ‘other’ foreign linguistic and cultural
values, traditions, expressions, idioms…etc.
14 (Paloposki. Ibid)

18. Thus, both Foreignization and Domestication
are translation tools that facilitate, simplify
and emphasize the purpose of
communication and contribute each in its
way to the realization of this purpose, the
first by introducing the readers to to the
environment of the foreign culture and
language and enriching their knowledge
about the ‘other’, while the second
contributes by bringing the ‘Other’ closer to
the readers and helping them get in touch
with this (Other) in simple and easy ways.

19. THE IMPORTANCE OF ADOPTING
DOMESTICATION & FOREIGNIZATION
As already stated, the benefit of adopting any of
these two strategies lies in their ability to tackle
cultural, ethnic and linguistic issues in translation.
Each of them emphasizes on the communicative
and cross-cultural function of translation in its
own way. Foreignization itroduces the audience
into the realm of strangeness and exoticism of
the source-culture, while demestication simplifies
the exoticism of the source culture and make it
easy for the reader to cope with. It generally
helps the audience overcome the obstacles and
cultural barriers of the ‘other’ cultures.

20. 🞭 1- The Skopos theory: the word ‘Skopos’ is derived from Greek
and denotes ‘purpose’
🞭 In the fiels of translation: Skopos theory is a concept from the
field of translation studies. It provides an insight into the nature
of translation as a purposeful activity; [purpose driven], which is
directly applicable to every translation project.
🞭 It was established by the German linguist Hans Vermeer and
comprises the idea that translationg and interpreting
🞭 should primarily take into account the function of both
the source and target text. 15
🞭 The functionalist approach, states Xuxiang Suo, “emerged [in
translation] in order to solve and answer the questions
concerning Foreignization and Domestication and their use and
function in translation”16
15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skopos_theory
16 (Suo. ibid)

21. 🞭 In the functionalist approach to translation, the
use either of foreignization or domestication
depends on the skopos of translation; that is,
why we translate that specific text is the
criterion of adopting this or that strategy. In
other words, « Skopos is the top-ranking rule
determining any translation process. Therfore,
the strategy to be adopted in translation must
be compatible with the purpose the initiator or
translator intends to fulfill »17
🞭 The Skopos rules are static ones; they do not
differ from one language to another; that is, the
purposes of translating any text exist in all
languages, therefore, the rules do not and
should not differ
17- (Suo. Ibid)
The Role of Foreignization and Domestication within
Skopos theory

22. 🞭 Concerning who decides what principle to be
adopted in translation, Vermeer, the inventor of
the Skopos theory, stated the term ‘Translation
Brief’18 which gives the translator a general idea
how a ST should be translated and leaves him/her
to decide which principles/strategies are
appropriate to fulfilling the skopos of translation
🞭 The skopos is always about the TT.
🞭 The functionalist approach to translation works
according to the principle of « the end justifies
the means »19; that is, the skopos/purpose
justifies
the strategy adopted to fulfill the purpose.
18 (Suo. Ibid)
19 ibid

23. 🞭 In the Skopos theory, there is only one
criterion to measure the quality of
translation, which is « the adequacy » of
the TT. This means that « the target text is
considered adequate as long as it fulfills
its skopos of translation regardless
whether it is equivalent to the ST [or not]
» 20
20- (Suo. Ibid)

24. From the above mentioned points, we can say
that the functionalist approch to translation,
introduced by Vermeer, doasn’t prefer
domestication or foreignization, it rather
considers both of them as translation tools that
can be adopted either individually or mutually
according to the Skopos of translation. They
have different functions inside translation. «
both of them have positive and negative points.
We should [however] take a dynamic view
to determin which strategy we should use
in
translation »20
20- (Suo. Ibid)

25. 🞭 Hui Guo. “A Brief Analysis of Culture and Translation.”
Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2,
pp. 343-347, February 2012. doi:10.4304/tpls.2.2.343-347
🞭 Paloposki, Outi “Domestication and foreignization.”
Handbook of Translation Studies. John Benjamins
Publishing Company. Amsterdam
🞭 Suo, Xuxiang. “A New Perspective on Literary
Translation
Strategies Based on Skopos Theory” Theory and
Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 176-183,
January 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0501.24
🞭 Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator’s Invisibility: A history
of translation. Routledge: NewYork, 1995.
🞭 Yang, Wenfen. "Brief Study on Domestication and

26. 🞭 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. 8th
Edition. Oxford University Press: NewYork.
🞭 Wikipedia, Free Encyclopedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skopos_theory