Microsoft Word 05 descriptions doc

5.2.4 Descriptivism in Holland and Flanders 

 

The third strand concerns a group of scholars working in Holland and Flanders (the 

Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), sometimes referred to as the “Low Countries” school. 

Names here would include American James S Holmes

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 in Amsterdam, and the 

Belgians  José Lambert,  Raymond Van den Broeck,  André Lefevere and Theo 

Hermans. Their connection with Russian Formalism is far less important or direct than 

in the other cases. Major texts of the Russian school had been translated into French 

(1965, edited by Todorov) and English (also 1965, edited by Lemon and Reis; then 

1971, edited by Matejka and Pomorska), but the intellectual climate was by this stage 

imbued with the prestige of structuralism anyway. The tenets of east-European thinking 

certainly also reached the Low Countries scholars through a series of personal contacts, 

particularly with Anton Popovič, who also met Even-Zohar and Toury. This led to a 

rather broader meeting of minds.  

 

                                                 

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 A strange piece of Translation Studies folklore maintains that the middle S in the name “James S 

Holmes” stands for his mother’s name; it should apparently be written with no stop after it. The writings 

of Gideon Toury consistently omit the stop.  

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