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Norms

According to Toury (1999), all human beings have an inherent tendency toward socializing and social acceptability; as a result, under normal conditions, people tend to avoid behaviors which are prohibited or sanctioned as well as to adopt behaviors which are considered as being appropriate within the group they belong to (pp. 15-19). There is a socially shared knowledge between members of every community as to what is considered correct or appropriate as a communicative behavior. This knowledge exists in the form of norms. They serve consciously as a pattern of behavior, and 'they also regulate expectations concerning both behavior itself and the products of this behavior' (Schдffner, 1999: 5). Toury (1999) defines norm in terms of 'the translation of general values or ideas shared by a group-as to what is conventionally right and wrong, adequate and inadequate-into performance instructions appropriate for and applicable to particular situations' (p. 14). Taking into consideration the definition of ideology by van Dijk (1996) as 'the organized evaluative beliefs shared by social groups', norms-as defined by Toury (1999)-seem to have much in common with ideology; in other words, norms can be understood as ideological realization of the concept of appropriateness and correctness.

Decision-making is a key concept in the discussion of norms. Norms exist 'only in situations which allow for alternative kind of behavior, involving the need to select among these, with the additional condition that selection be non-random' (Toury, 1999: 15). This selection, according to Toury (1999), could be posited between two constraining extremes of 'relatively absolute rules on one hand, and pure idiosyncrasies on the other' (p. 16).

Toury applies the norms concept to translation studies presuming that translating involves playing a social role subject to several types of socio-cultural constraints of varying degree. He, consequently, argues that the acquisition of a set of norms for determining the suitability of translational behavior, and for maneuvering between all factors which may constrain it, is a prerequisite for becoming a translator within a cultural environment (Toury, 2000: 198).

Toury (2000) claims that norms govern every level of decision-making in the translating process from choice of text to translate to the very final choices of translation strategies of action. He, consequently, introduces three kinds of norm: 1) initial norm; 2) preliminary norms; and 3) operational norms.

Initial norm governs the translator's overall decisions to adhere 'either to the original text, with the norms it has realized, or to the norms active in the target culture, or in that section of it which would host the end product' (Toury, 2000: 201). Toury (2000), however, denies the necessity of full conformity between an overall decision made and every single decision be made in the lower-levels of translation process; and, consequently, denies the existence of absolute regularity in translational behaviors (p. 201). The options which are made available to the translator by Toury's initial norm are very similar to those which Venuti (1998b: 240) talks about in his foreignizing and domesticating strategies of translation.

Preliminary norms govern the decisions to be made concerning translation policy and directness. According to Toury (2000: 202), 'translation policy refers to those factors that govern the choice of text types; or individual texts, to be imported through translation into a particular culture/language at a particular point in time'. He further explains that 'considerations concerning directness of translation involve the threshold of tolerance for translating from languages other than the ultimate source language' (p. 202).

Operational norms direct the actual decisions made during the act of translation and are subdivided into matricial and textual-linguistic norms. Matricial norms govern the segmentation and distribution of textual materials in the target text. Textual-linguistic norms 'govern the selection of material to formulate the target text in, or replace the original textual and linguistic material with' (Toury, 2000: 202-3).

It should be noted that, according to Toury (2000), 'There is no necessary identity between the norms themselves and any formulation of them in language (p. 200). He believes that the observed regularities in translational behaviors are not themselves the norms; they are rather 'external evidence' which reflect the existence of norms (Toury, 1999: 15). Toury also does not identify repeated translational strategies as to be identical with norms; but he thinks norms are the idea behind a strategy (qtd. in Schдffner, 1999: 84). Therefore, Baker's interpretation of norms as 'regularities of translational behavior within a specific socio-cultural situation' (Baker, 1998: 163) or 'strategies of translation which are repeatedly opted for, in preference to other available strategies, in a given culture or textual system' (qtd. in Shuttleworth & Cowie, 1997: 114) seems to be an oversimplification of this concept.

Chesterman (1993) looks at the concept of norms from a different perspective. Whereas Toury does not pay too much heed to the role of the readership and their feedback in norm construction, Chesterman (1993: puts distinction between expectancy norms, which are the expectations of the target readership and the client etc., and the professional norms which explain the translator's tendency to observe these expectancy norms.

According to Toury (2000), norms themselves actually are not observable. He declares that what are actually available for observation are rather norm-governed instances of behavior or the products of such behavior (p. 206). Toury introduces two major sources for reconstruction of translational norms:

• 1. Textual: the translated text themselves, for all kinds of norms, as well as analytical inventories of translation (i.e., 'virtual texts'), for various preliminary norms;

• 2. Extratextual: semi-theoretical or critical formulations, such as perspective 'theories' of translation, statements made by translators, editors, publishers, and other persons involved in or connected with the activity, critical appraisals of individual translations, or the activity of a translator or 'school' of translators, and so forth. (Toury, 2000: 207)

Likewise, Baker (1998: 164) introduces studying of a 'corpus of authentic translations' as a means for identifying regular instances of translational behavior which are represented in that corpus by the translator, and, thus, for identifying the translational norms.