14. Pragmatic factors and the problem of translation (Shveitser’s approach)

Pragmatic meaning is the relation that exists between the user of the linguistic unit and through the linguistic unit to phenomena or reality of life. It includes all extralinguistic phenomena.

Shveitser starts from the point that the goal of translation remains the same in different situations – to convey the identity between the SL and the TL texts. Nevertheless the translation usually moves away from the close linguistic equivalency in order to try to achieve the same communicative (and artistic) effect.

The pragmatic factors according to Shveitser include:

1. the sender’s communicative intention

2. orientation towards the receptor

3. the translator’s personality

4. functional facet of the text

The transformations involved are replacement, addition, omission, explanatory translation and compensation.

In this respect we may speak of pragmatically adequate TL text but not semantically adequate.

15. Pragmatic adaptation and pragmatic reconstruction

Pragmatic meaning is the relation that exists between the user of the linguistic unit and through the linguistic unit to phenomena or reality of life. It includes all extralinguistic phenomena.

Pragmatic adequacy in translation is the process of finding similarities between the stylistic and emotional characteristics of the SL and TL text with the corresponding elements of the target language.

The investigation of the process of conveying pragmatic meaning is reduced to pragmatic adaptation that is to find similarity in pragmatic situations of the SL and TL text. E.g. “Brief Candles” – сборник Хаксли «Огарки»

Pragmatic reconstruction is the process of transference of stylistic and emotional characteristics of the text according to the general pattern but not to the exact items that constitute the text. E.g. Lords reject “opting out” Corporal Punishment Bill – Палата Лордов отказывается принимать закон об отмене телесных наказаний.

16. Pragmatic meaning and its constituent parts

The people who use the language are not impartial to it. And their subjective attitudes are stuck to the linguistic units and through them to objects and phenomena described and constitute a permanent component of their semantic structure. The translator must strive to create not only linguistically but also pragmatically relevant TL texts.

Pragmatic meaning is the relation that exists between the user of the linguistic unit and through the linguistic unit to phenomena or reality of life. It includes all extralinguistic phenomena.

The term pragmatic meaning of a word is not yet fully investigated. But some linguists point out that the pragmatic component of the word meaning, which is realized in various kinds of emotive and stylistic connotations, is individually-occasional or collectively used meanings. They reflect the conditions of a language unit use, such as situation and place of communication, subject and purpose of communication; social, ethnic, and individual peculiarities of communicants, their attitude towards one another.

The main components of pragmatic meaning:

1. stylistic characteristics of the word

2. register

3. emotional colouring

4. expressive components.