Developing the Supply-Driven Translation Model Beyond a Small Nation Context

文学在世界各地传播的方式--它被推广、资助和翻译成其他语言的方式--具有巨大的潜力，影响我们可以阅读的书籍，以及我们作为读者可以接触到的故事和声音。曾经有人说，在英国和爱尔兰出版的所有英文小说书中，翻译文学约占3%(Donahaye 2012)，但新数据显示，2001至2016年间，英国市场翻译小说的增长率为5.5%(出版展望2019年)。更重要的是，数据显示，在“一般/文学小说”子类别中，增长了20%，而同一类别中的非翻译英语小说保持不变。这些数字表明，人们对来自其他地方的故事越来越感兴趣，因此，理解影响谁的故事被阅读的因素比以往任何时候都更加重要。在翻译研究学科中，将文学的流通解释为一个系统的理论(甚至参见Zohar，1978,1990)倾向于假设权力在于所谓的“主导”语言，这些语言‘选择’文学作品以满足国内文学市场的特定需求，或填补空白。然而，那些文学作品可能永远不会因为市场需求而被翻译的国家的故事呢？我的博士研究是越来越多的翻译研究工作中的一部分，这些工作挑战了这样一种假设，即小国的文学作品只有在“主要”文学文化的市场需求出现时才被翻译；相反，小国的文学正在以创新的方式获得资金和生产，绕过了更“占主导地位”的文学国家的文化守门人。应当指出，“小国”一词与“小国”或“外围国家”等类似的标签一样，不仅仅是表示地理位置的大小；虽然“小国”没有单一的定义，但人们一致认为，“小国”指的是“文学流通的不平等国际环境”(Chitennis et al，2020)。当我们承认小国的文学是由于它们提供它的动力而产生的，而不仅仅是因为一个主要语言出版市场的需求，小国的文学不再是TS研究的边缘脚注，而是创新和斗争的场所，这些小国的文化代理人在断言文化软实力方面的作用比之前假设的要大得多。如果我们要了解谁的声音应该被阅读，以及当某些社会群体的声音不在我们的文化想象中时，翻译和出版专业人员应该如何干预，了解这种情况是如何发生的，为什么会发生这种情况，并使用多种研究方法来突出翻译过程中的人类机构，这是关键。增加关于翻译中文学流通的知识和更大的透明度，可能会对读者和出版业产生重大的长期社会和经济影响。当文学系统被赋予生命力时，读者可以以一种更有意义的方式参与他们对文学的消费，并有权对他们的阅读(和购买)选择进行干预，决定寻找谁的声音，而不是只与畅销书排行榜上的人对抗。值得注意的是，我的工作还突显了翻译在构建文化和社会形象方面的强大潜力，鉴于这项研究将使出版商能够通过观察小国如何推动其文学供应来绕过出版中的结构性偏见，这项研究有可能增加英国社会通过文学获得的声音的数量和多样性。

The way that literature moves around the world - the way that it's promoted, funded and translated into other languages - has huge potential to influence the books we can read, and with that, the stories and voices that we can engage with as readers. It used to be said that literature in translation made up around 3% of all fiction books published in the English language in the UK and Ireland (Donahaye 2012), but new data indicates that translated fiction in the UK market grew by 5.5 percent between 2001 and 2016 (Publishing Perspectives 2019). Even more significantly, the data shows 20% growth within the "general/literary fiction" subcategory, whilst non-translated English-language fiction in the same category remained flat. These figures point to a growing interest in stories from elsewhere, and as such, it is more important than ever to understand the factors that influence whose stories get to be read.In the discipline of Translation Studies, theories that explain the circulation of literature as a system (see Even Zohar, 1978, 1990) have tended to assume that the power lies with the so-called 'dominant' languages, who 'select' works of literature to suit a particular need, or fill a gap, in their domestic literary market. Yet what about the stories of nations whose literature will likely never be translated as a result of market demand? My PhD research is part of a growing body of work in Translation Studies that challenges this assumption that the literature of small nations is translated only as and when a market demand in a 'major' literary culture emerges; instead, the literature of small nations is being funded and produced in innovative ways that circumnavigate the cultural gatekeepers of more 'dominant' literary nations. It should be noted that the term 'small' nation, as with similar labels such as 'minor' or 'peripheral', is not merely an indication of geographic size of location; whilst there is no single definition of a 'small nation', there is agreement that 'small' points to 'unequal international context in which literatures circulate' (Chitnis et al, 2020).When we acknowledge that the literature of small nations is produced as a result of their drive to supply it, rather than solely as a result of demand from a major language publishing market, the literatures of small nations are no longer footnotes on the periphery of TS research, but are instead sites of innovation and struggle, and the cultural agents of those smaller nations are revealed to have much more agency in their assertion of cultural soft power than was previously assumed. Understanding how and why this happens, and using a combination of research methods to highlight the human agency in this systemic view of translation processes, is key if we are to understand whose voices get to be read, and how translation and publishing professionals should intervene when the voices of certain social groups are absent from our cultural imagination.Increased knowledge and greater transparency about the circulation of literature in translation has the potential to make significant long term social and economic impacts for both readers and publishing industries. When the literary system is brought to life, readers can engage with their consumption of literature in a much more meaningful way, and are empowered to make interventions in their reading (and purchasing) choices, deciding whose voices to seek out, as opposed to being confronted only by those on the top of bestseller lists. Significantly, my work also highlights the powerful potential that translations have to construct images of cultures and societies, and given that this research will enable publishers to circumnavigate structural biases in publishing by observing how small nations drive the supply of their literature, this research wields the potential to increase the number and diversity of voices available through literature in UK society.