Lecture 2. Pragmatics and translation.

1.Concept of pragmatics
2.Text Pragmatics and Translation. Skopos
theory
3.Katharina Reiß’s text typology
4.Four levels of translating according to
P.Newmark.
5.The level of naturalness of translation
Concept of pragmatics
Pragmatics studies language in use, that is speech. It is the
study of meaning as conveyed and manipulated by
participants in a communicative situation, how a given text
comes to ‘make sense’ to a given readership.
When speaking, an addresser has a communicative intention,
or purpose of the speech act. An utterance has a
communicative effect on the receptor: it can inform a
receptor of something, or cause some feelings, etc.
A communicative effect is virtual. Communicative intention
does not always coincide with the communicative effect:
an advertising text may persuade a receptor to buy something
but the receptor may remain indifferent to the promotion
The potential effect of the utterance is its functional
force:
Interrogative sentence is used to ask for information
(direct speech act), but it can be used to make a request:
“Could you pass the salt?” Передайте, будь ласка, сіль
(indirect speech act).
A declarative is used to inform: The floor is very dirty.
it can be used to make a request: “You’re standing in
front of the TV.” Відійдіть від екрана, будь ласка
The following may also occur:
1/ [Form: request:] Can I ask you to please refrain from
smoking?
[Function: command:] (= Please stop smoking!)
2/ [Form: Statement:] We ask that you extinguish your
cigarettes at this time, and bring your tray tables and
seatbacks to an upright position.
[Function: command:] (= Stop smoking and sit up
straight!)
3/ [Form: question] Well, would you listen to that!
[Function: exclamation] (= That's really something to
listen to.)
The most important in translation is to preserve a
function
Pragmatics considers the Gricean implicatures (cf. Grice,
1975) and the theory of speech acts (cf. Searle, 1975).

Grice’s implicatures
Herbert Paul Grice (1975), British scholar, uses the term
implicature to refer to what the speaker means or
implies rather than what s/he literally says.

Discourse has certain important features: for instance, it

is connected (i.e. it does not consist of unrelated
sequences); it has a purpose; and it is a co-operative
effort.
Grice states that Implied meaning which is not signalled
conventially derives from the Cooperative Principle and a
number of maxims associated with it:
Quantity, Quality, Relevance (Relation), and Manner:
1. Quantity
(a.) Make your contribution as informative as is required
(for the current purposes of the exchange).
(b.) Do not make your contribution more informative
than is required.
2. Quality
‘Try to make your contribution one that is true’,
specifically:
(a.) Do not say what you believe to be false.
(b.) Do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence.
3. Relevance
Make your contributions relevant to the current
exchange.
4. Manner
Be clear, specifically:
(a.) Avoid obscurity of expression.
(b.) Avoid ambiguity.
(c.) Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
(d.) Be orderly.
Developed primarily for the spoken language, it is
relevant for translation as well. For example, the
politeness principle can be used in order to explain
decisions made while translating offensive texts into
languages where it is not customary to cause offence in
writing.
Speech act theory (J.L. Austin and J.R.Searle ) analyzed
speech acts and was suggested as an important theory
for translators.

Speech act is an utterance defined in terms of a

speaker's intention and the effect it has on a listener.
Three levels or components of utterances:
•locutionary acts (the making of a meaningful statement,
saying something that a hearer understands),
• illocutionary acts (communicative intention and
functional force, saying something with a purpose, such
as to inform), and
•perlocutionary acts (communicative effect, saying
something that causes someone to act).
The locution is the physical act of speaking.
Different grammatical forms that an utterance can have:
Declarative: “You are generous.” (2) Closed-
interrogative: “Are you generous?” (3) Open-
interrogative: “Who is generous?” (4) Imperative: “Be
generous!” (5) Exclamative: “How generous you are!”
Illocutionary acts carry a directive for the audience
(intention). It might be a promise, an order, an
apology, or an expression of thanks—or merely an
answer to a question, to inform the other person in
the conversation
“It is cold in here”
• a statement about the current temperature
• make the hearer do an action such as closing the
window.
Perlocutionary acts have an effect on the hearer, in
feelings, thoughts, or actions, for example, changing
someone's mind,
Perlocution is intended or unintended effect that the
utterance can have on the hearer:
“There is a good movie tonight.”
•“Thank you.”
•“ Never mind”
 Speech Acts
Direct Speech Acts explicitly illustrate the intended
meaning the speaker has behind making that
utterance:
A declarative is used to make a statement: “You wear a
seat belt.”
(1) An interrogative is used to ask a question: “Do you
wear a seat belt?”
(2) An imperative is used to make a command: “Wear a
seat belt!”
Indirect Speech Acts
The speaker does not explicitly state the intended
meaning behind the utterance. It is the translator’s
task to analyse the utterance to understand its
meaning and translate:

(3) An interrogative is used to make a request: “Could

you pass the salt?” Передайте, будь ласка, сіль.
(4) A declarative is used to make a request: “You’re
standing in front of the TV.” Відійдіть від екрана,
будь ласка
The floor is very dirty. (Indirect literal speech act; the
speaker does not make a statement that the floor is
dirty, but in fact, he asks his maid to clean it).
The translator shall see any sentence in its function as an
utterance, not only as a grammatical sentence.
Pragmatic equivalence can be achieved only by means of
interpreting extra-linguistic factors.

The adequate translation is the one whose

communicative effect is close to that of the source text;
at best, its communicative effect coincides with the
author’s communicative intention.
Regarding this principle, P.Newmark introduced two
types of translation – communicative translation,
which attempts to produce on its receptors an effect
as close as possible to that produced on the readers of
the original, and semantic translation, which attempts
to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic
structures of the second language allow, the exact
contextual meaning of the original.
Beware of the dog! Обережно, зла собака!
(communicative translation) or
Стережіться собаки! (semantic translation).

Close to translation adequacy is the concept of

translation acceptability (naturalness), developed by
Israeli theorist of translation studies Gideon Toury.
TEXT PRAGMATICS and Translation
The communicative effect of the source and target
text upon the receptor should be similar. A lot depends
on the functional style (register), genre, language and
speech norms.
Sometimes the translator faces the contradiction
between a text form and its function (potential
pragmatic effect). In this case, It is the text function that
should be kept in translation first and foremost, not the
form. For example, the phatic function of formal greeting
in English normally has the form of the interrogative
sentence: How do you do? In Ukrainian translation, the
form is shifted by the imperative Добридень to preserve
the function.
 Here is another example:
The Elgin marbles seem an indisputable argument in
favor of the preservation of works of art by rape.

Статуї, зняті лордом Елгіном з Парфенона і

завезені до Англії, очевидно, є незапаречним доказом
того, що можна зберегти твори мистецтва,
викравши їх
Here is another example:
 
I was sent to a boarding school when I was very little –
about five – because my mother and father … couldn’t
afford anything so starchy as an English nurse or a
French governess
Мене відправили до пансіону, коли я була ще дуже
маленькою, мені було років 5, тому що мої батьки
не могли мати ні англійської няньки у
накрахмаленому чепчику і фартусі, ні манірної
французької гувернантки
The difficulty there lies not only in the pragmatic aspect
of the adjective “starchy” but also in its use in two
meanings, direct and indirect, simultaneously
(1. накрахмалений; 2. манірний, церемонний).
In non-literal texts, it is necessary to distinguish between
the functions of the source text and those of the
translated texts. This idea brought to life the so called
Skopos theory developed in Germany in the late
1970s (Hans Vermeer)
It is the intended purpose of the target text that
determines translation methods and strategies
Depending on the skopos, the translation can be full or
partial (restricted). This classification, in terms of the
extent of translation, belongs to J. Catford.
In full translation, every part of the source text is
replaced by the target language text material.
In partial translation, some part or parts of the source
language text are left untranslated.
Katharina Reiß (1971) developed a text typology
oriented towards translation:
• the informative text type is fact oriented like
documents, reports, hand books etc.,
• the expressive text type is sender oriented like
literature,
• the operative text type is behavior oriented like
propaganda, advertisements, etc.
This might determine the method of translation.
This orientation towards the structure of texts in their
situation opens the view to pragmatic aspects of
translation.
P.Newmark. A textbook of Translation: p 13:

THE INTENTION OF THE TEXT

In reading, you search for the intention of the text, you
cannot isolate this from understanding it, they go
together and the title may be remote from the content
as well as the intention.
FOUR LEVELS OF TRANSLATING
1 - THE TEXTUAL LEVEL Your base level when you
translate is the text.
2 - THE REFERENTIAL LEVEL Whether a text is technical
or literary or institutional, you have to make up your
mind, what it is about, what it is in aid of, what the
writer's peculiar slant on it is.
3 - THE COHESIVE LEVEL The structure follows the train
of thought; At this level, you reconsider the lengths of
paragraphs and sentences, the formulation of the title;
the tone of the conclusion
4 - THE LEVEL OF NATURALNESS When the main
purpose of the text is to convey information and convince
the reader, a method of translation must be 'natural’;
'Naturalness' is both grammatical and lexical, and is a
touchstone at every level of a text, from paragraph to
word, from title to punctuation.
In all 'communicative translation', whether you are
translating an informative text, a notice or an advert,
'naturalness' is essential
Natural usage comprises a variety of idioms or styles or
registers
To achieve Naturalness pay special attention to:
(1)Word order.
He regularly sees me on Tuesdays. (Stress on ‘regularly’.)
He sees me regularly on Tuesdays. (No stress.)
On Tuesdays he sees me regularly. (Stress on 'Tuesdays')

(2) Common structures can be made unnatural by silly

one-to-one translation from any language, e.g.:
The packaging having a sufficiently clear label, the cider
vinegar consumer could not confuse it with other kinds
of vinegar
Пакування маючи достатню чітку етикетку,……….
(incorrect)
Оскільки на пляшці була чітка етикетка, ………(correct)
3) Cognate words. 'The book is actually in print' (Книга
фактично (не актуально) у друці).
(4) The appropriateness of gerunds, infinitives, verb-
nouns
(5) Lexically, perhaps the most common symptom of
unnaturalness is slightly old-fashioned, rather 'refined', or
'elevated’ usage of words and idioms possibly originating
in bilingual dictionaries. Check and cross-check words and
expressions in an up-to-date dictionary (Longmans,
Collins, COD).
It is particularly difficult to match equivalence of meaning
with equivalence of frequency of a SL expression.
Keep in parallel the four levels - the textual, the
referential, the cohesive, the natural. Remember: Your
first and last level is the text