Fundamentals of Translation

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 2 considered how textual functions and other extra-linguistic factors shape texts in both monolingual and translational contexts. The role played by translation norms, which are implicit behavioral practices regarding translation activity, was also examined. Chapter 3 will focus on language and translation functions by examining pragmatics and its relevance to translation. After a brief introduction to the concept of pragmatics, this section covers the differences between grammatical/syntactic functions and pragmatic functions, speech acts, which are closely related to function and intention, presuppositions (in connection with the idea of information shared by writer and reader) and the non-linguistic context.

What is pragmatics?

Pragmatics is a discipline that investigates language use in its social and cultural context. In particular, pragmatics studies how language is interpreted by users beyond the literal meaning of the actual words used. In order to do that, it considers the effects of the linguistic and non-linguistic context on that interpretation. The non-linguistic context includes participants, their relationships, attitudes and emotions, inferencing procedures, cultural and word knowledge, etc. Much of what we covered in the previous section in connection with functionalism in translation falls under the purview of pragmatics.

To better understand what pragmatics is, consider Example 3.1.

Example 3.1: Pragmatic adequacy

[In the street, to a stranger]

In English, (i) is normally interpreted as a request for the time, despite the fact that the question is not “What time is it?” As a result, the pragmatically adequate answer is (b). We may wonder how we come to interpret the question “Do you have the time?” as “What time is it?” – as a request, rather than a question asking for information.