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1.4. Discourse Analysis and Translation
Since it was first used by Zellig Harris in 1952, the term discourse analysis has come to mean different things to different people. That what is involved is the study of language beyond the level of the sentence may in fact be just about the only thing that unites a broad array of disparate approaches, all of which would be vying for the label “discourse analysis”. For example, to some researchers, the term discourse includes all forms of writing and speaking [Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984], while to others, it covers only the way talk is “put together” [Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975]. Translation studies has not been less indeterminate, and translation-oriented models of discourse have been taking shape along these varied and diverse lines over the last 20 years or so.
From an applied linguistic perspective, it has been found useful to distinguish two basic kinds of discourse analysis emanating from two different senses of the term 'discourse' itself. The first of these is concerned with the way texts are put together in terms of product and form, sequential relationships, intersentential structure and organization and mapping. The second basic sense of discourse is that which concerns the way texts hang together in terms of negotiative procedures, interpretation of sequence and structure, and the social relationships emanating from interaction. Given that in actual practice the complementarity of the various approaches to discourse is inevitable, translational models of discourse have been necessarily eclectic. Within this eclecticism, however, one can detect a certain tendency to opt for the latter, more procedural sense of “discourse”; see, for example, House and Blum-Kulka [Blum-Kulka, 1986], Gambier and Tommola [Gambier and Tommola, 1993], Snell-Hornby, Pochhacker and Kaindl [Snell-Hornby, Pochhacker and Kaindl, 1994], and Dollerup and Loddergaard [Dollerup and Loddergaard, 1994].
Discourse, genre and text
Alongside this duality of form and procedure in the definitions of discourse, another useful distinction has been established in translation studies between discourse on the one hand, and genre and text on the other [Hatim and Mason, 1990, 1997]. At a general level, genre refers to the linguistic expression conventionally associated with certain forms of writing (for example the Letter to the Editor), text refers to a sequence of sentences serving an overall rhetorical purpose (such as arguing), and discourse refers to the material out of which interaction is moulded as well as the themes addressed.
Within this three-way distinction, however, discourse has been accorded supremacy and is seen as the institutional-communicative framework within which both genre and text cease to be mere carriers of the communication act and become fully operational as vehicles of meaningful communication. For example, by employing the Letter to the Editor as a genre and the rebuttal as a counter-argumentative text strategy, one could conceivably engage in any of a number of discursive practices (such as expressing racism or camouflaging real intentions). The general argument underlying this scheme of language use has been that, while awareness of the conventions governing the appropriate use of this or that genre or text format is essential in translation, it is awareness of what discourse implies that ultimately facilitates optimal transfer and renders the much sought-after translation equivalence an attainable objective.
Competing discourses
A particularly interesting phenomenon, and one with which translators often have to wrestle, is that of discourse within discourse, or the notion of competing discourses. This is when a given discourse borrows from or effectively 'hijacks' another discourse (Bakhtin’s “double voicing”), relaying in the process all kinds of marked meanings that the translator may wish to preserve by mastering:
(a) the рге-discourse norms of linguistic usage;
(b) the unmarked discourse to be departed from;
(c) the discourse being borrowed for a rhetorical purpose.
In the following analysis, which is largely theoretical in nature as translation-oriented empirical evidence is regrettably lacking in this most crucial field of communication, the domain is discrimination in discourse, and the discourse sample is a political speech by Enoch Powell, a British politician known at the time the speech was given for his contentious views on race relations. Sykes [Sykes, 1985] focuses on the treatment of the expression immigrants and their offspring; Powell was fond of using this in preference to, say, immigrants and their children. Within the analytic trend covering this type of discourse, elements such as offspring are seen both textually and intertextually. The textual analysis would involve assessing the choice of given linguistic elements in both syntagmatic and paradigmatic terms, that is in terms of what is included, and how, and what is excluded and why. As Sykes points out, Powell's lexicon for family relationships is a limited one. These are the terms relevant to immigrants and their children, together with their frequency of use in the speech:
immigrants and their offspring (2)
the offspring of immigrants (1)
immigrant offspring (1)
immigrant and immigrant-descended population (2)
In this particular domain of family relationships, expressions which could have been used but were not include: husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, parents, sons, daughters, families. The rule governing inclusion and exclusion of terms is most relevant to the translator who has to operate within similar constraints and pay special attention to the overall effect of this kind of restricted texture.
Linguistic forms such as those from Powell's speech are intertextually seen by translators in terms of (a) a pre-discoursal linguistic norm in which synonymy could be said to exist (e.g. offspring=children); (b)an unmarked, register-based legal English (offspring = +legal); and (c) a marked, imported discourse which involves the hijacking of the normal discourse of (b) – Powell is not a lawyer but a politician, and the lawyer’s discourse would be a discoursal tool intended, say, to dehumanize, The competition of the various discourses can ultimately be reconciled by arriving at a reading which, while institutionally sound (the text producer couldn’t be taken to court for libel), is intertextually pernicious: in the particular context under study, Powell's remarks are reminiscent of statements often heard within racist discourse such as ‘they breed like rabbits’. Translators work with this intricate network of relationships,each of which would constitute the limits of discoursal expression which has to be reached before real intentions are properly relayed.
Overlapping discourses
Within and across cultural and geographical boundaries, different cultural assumption and ways of expressing these, underlie people’s capacity to communicate with each other in order to achieve both personal and global objectives [Tannen, 1984]. Against the background of such basic notions, research into cross-cultural communication has in recent years been particularly vigorous, a development from which translation and interpreting studies have no doubt benefited considerably [Barsky, 1993, 1996; Farghal, 1993]. For example, in one particular study of the kind of discourse in which two parties converse with one another via a non-professional interpreter/mediator, it has been found that different types of mediating roles emerge in the process, and that the mediator's role determines the criteria for what constitutes an adequate interpretation [Knapp-Potthoff and Knapp, 1987]. The analysis of a mediation session in a legal advice setting involving a Turkish client and a German legal adviser suggests that, in situations like these, two discourses run parallel to each other, and the major difficulty of the mediator's task consists of managing both while trying to relate them to one another (ibid.).
But, as Knapp-Potthoff and Knapp point out, the exchanges between the first party and the mediator on the one hand, and between the mediator and the second party on the other hand, are often not very closely related, with the interaction tending to drift into two different discourses only partially equivalent on the content level. For instance, at one stage in the advisory session referred to above, the German legal adviser and the mediator jointly work out that a document which the Turkish client had submitted as something important for the refunding of social security contributions is in fact unimportant. A few turns later, the mediator advises the client to retain the original of the document, to make a photocopy and to have this authenticated. He does not, however, mediate this advice to the legal adviser, but instead switches to the adviser's current discourse topic: the calculation of how much the refunds would be on the basis of documents which the client had not been asked for.
Courtroom discourse
Courtroom interaction has been a particularly fertile area for this brand of discourse analysis, which can yield more immediately accessible insights in translation studies, particularly into the process of interpreting. The central hypothesis entertained by this kind of research claims that, due to different modes of class-and sex-socialization, some defendants will be more able to cope with the authority situation at court than others; for example, middle-class defendants know the role expectations better than working-class defendants. The questions addressed by studies within this brand of discourse analysis thus run something like this: Are those who are unfamiliar with the system discriminated against? Does the defendant’s linguistic behaviour contribute to the outcome of the hearing? Would the interpreter make it a priority on his or her list to mask the incoherence of an incoherent defense? Perhaps more to the point, does the interpreter train him/herself to resist the temptation of stepping in to help an incoherent defendant? These are some of the problems with which practitioners are concerned and which have recently begun to attract the attention of the translation theorist; see for example Barsky [Barsky, 1993, 1996] and Morris [Morris, 1995].
World view and perspective
Within cross-cultural communication studies, world-view analysis has featured prominently. This has stressed that discourses refer “to the many different ways of speaking that are associated with different social contexts” [Lee, 1992]. Adopting such a view, a number of translation scholars have attempted to tackle the issue of socio-cultural practices, their role in discourse production and the wider implications they have for the work of the translator and interpreter.
One of the more interesting hypotheses underlying work in this area has been that while all literate language communities possess a number of modes of text development (for instance an aural or a visual mode), particular preference for some of these and not for others can usually be detected. Such predilections reflect different world views and are motivated by a variety of sociolinguistic factors, including shared experience, receiver expectations and feedback, power, solidarity, politeness and so on. For example, the aural mode, which is drawn upon heavily in a language such as Arabic, is normally not acceptable for written prose in English. In translation, the failure to switch modes results in negative transfer and breakdown of interaction [Sa’adeddin, 1989].
Extending the scope of cross-cultural studies to include what may be termed ideological perspective [Hodge, 1979; Fowler, 1985; Kress, 1985], discourse analysis has in recent years been particularly active in tackling not only political discourse, but also other modes of communication such as academic and industrial encounters [Kress and Fowler, 1979]. The general thrust of the argument in this kind of perspective-analysis relates to the tendency in given discourses to suppress unpalatable semantic features and give more prominence to other, more favourable shades of meaning.
An example of the application of this kind of discourse analysis in translation studies can be seen in Crick’s [Crick, 1989] assessment of translations of Freud into English, which exhibit a number of distinctive features. First, there is a tendency to replace the humanistic perspective (i.e. way of thinking and writing) by a clinical, quasi-medical, Greco-Latin terminology; for example Ich becomes Ego, and so on. Second, there is a tendency towards depersonalization — by changing actives into passives, for instance. Finally, the variety of registers and mobility of tones apparent in the source text are consistently replaced by a uniform medical/scientific style. It may be instructive here to recall the words of A. Strachey, one of the translators of Freud (and one of the culprits, according to Crick): “The imaginary model I have kept before me is of the writings of some Englishman of science of wide education born in the middle of the nineteenth century” [Strachey, 1925].
In this domain of discourse, translation scholars have thus focused on the constraints placed on the translation process by the sociocultural content of communication. The ideological and cultural background initiated in the text by the author and read off by both reader and translator governs the way in which the overall meaning potential is realized at both ends of the communicative channel. Furthermore, the way in which a reader constructs a representation of the text and relates this to the real world seems to be of crucial importance in dealing with discoursal meanings [Campbell, 1993].
The metaphorical process exploited
The metaphorical process has perhaps been one of the more significant markers of world-view and ideological perspective in the discourse analysis under discussion. This may be illustrated from areas of language use as varied as propaganda and persuasion on the one hand and poetry on the other. From the kind of insights yielded by such a brand of discourse analysis, one basic fact about figurative expression may be underlined as being particularly relevant to the task of translating. This relates to what in discourse circles has recently become known as the intimacy theory: metaphors do not operate singly; they form a network, as it were. Thematic/poetic links are established not only within the same stretch of language (say, a paragraph or a single oral encounter) but also within much wider spans, as in the case of a short story or novel [Abu Libdeh, 1991]. This has not only enabled translators to see metaphoric expression in a new light, but it has also encouraged translation theory to support a 'beyond-the-cosmetic' view of so-called embellishments. In poetry, for example, and in the maze of cultural and ideological allusions, aspects of the message such as sound symbolism, rhyme, metre, alliteration and so forth are no longer seen as divorced from semantic content, but as part and parcel of the overall import and effect of the text [Campbell, 1993].
1.5. Pragmatics and Translation
In 1955 at Harvard, the psychologists were buzzing with excitement about the lectures being given by Noam Chomsky on his theory of Transformational Generative Grammar. In the same year, the British philosopher John Austin was also at Harvard delivering the prestigious William James lectures and presenting what was to have an equally strong impact on a wide range of disciplines. This was a new perspective which was to radically reshape our view of language and the way it operates. Since then, the domain of pragmatic inquiry has emerged as a discipline in its own right, attending to such matters as “the study of the purposes for which sentences are used, of the real world conditions under which a sentence may be appropriately used as an utterance” [Stalnaker, 1972]. This new perspective, and some of its main findings, soon found their way into the literature on translation.
Speech acts
Speech acts are the acts we perform when, for example, we make a complaint or a request, apologize or pay someone a compliment. The pragmatic analysis of speech acts sees all utterances in terms of the dual function of “stating” and “doing things”, of having a meaning and a force. An utterance, in this view, has:
(a) a sense or reference to specific events, persons or objects;
(b) a force which may override literal sense and thus relay added effects such as those associated with, say, a request or admonition;
(c) an overall effect or consequence which may or may not be of the kind conventionally associated with the linguistic expression or the functional force involved.
For example, shut the door is in a sense an imperative that could conceivably carry the force of a request, which in turn could be used simply to annoy the hearer. To these three aspects of message construction, Austin [Austin, 1962] assigned the labels locution, illocution and perlocution, respectively.
In translation and interpreting, these distinctions have proved extremely important, particularly when force departs from conventional sense, or when the ultimate effect defies the expectations based on either facet. In pragmatics-oriented models of the translation process, the assumption generally entertained has been that the act of translation itself can be viewed as an attempt at the successful performance of speech acts. In their quest to achieve “sameness of meaning”, it has been argued, translators constantly attempt to re-perform locutionary and illocutionary acts in the hope that the end-product will have the same per-locutionary force in the target language [Blum-Kulka, 1981]. Actual examples of pragmatics at work in the general domain of translation can be found in Baker [Baker, 1992].
As far as interpreting is concerned, cases of communication breakdown due to misinterpretation of speech acts have also featured prominently in the literature. To take one practical example, in response to the question What were the contents of the letter you handed to King Fahad?, a Tunisian minister is reported to have replied rather curtly what should have been interpreted as “This is a matter solely for the Saudis to consider”. Not aware of the pragmatic meaning involved, the interpreter rendered the original Arabic sentence literally as This matter concerns the Saudis. The statement was obviously intended to carry the pragmatic gloss “Do not pursue this line of questioning any further”, a meaning which the English journalist would have no doubt appreciated. However, lured by the kind of inviting answer he received through the interpreter, the journalist did pursue the initial line of questioning, only to be rebuked the second time round [Hatim, 1986; Hatim and Mason, 1997].
In assessing the potential of speech act analysis, translation theorists shared some of the misgivings expressed by critics of speech act theory. The theory was primarily more concerned with combating alternative philosophical views than with attending to the practical aspects of dealing with language use in natural situations. Naturalness is a key term for the practicing translator or interpreter, and actual use of language can and does throw up different kinds of problems from those that speech act theory would wish us to focus on. For example, there is a huge difference between acts such as “promising” or “threatening”, on the one hand, and more diffuse acts such as “stating” or “describing” on the other. Yet, both lists are merged under the single heading of “illocutionary force”.
Appropriateness conditions
beyond the single speech act
In attempting to apply speech act theory to translation and interpreting, mainstream translation theorists soon became aware of the fact that a text is not a one-dimensional, linear succession of elements glued one to the other evenly; rather it is a complexly constructed edifice with some elements enjoying a higher communicative status, some a less prominent one, within an emerging, evolving hierarchical organization [de Beaugrande, 1978]. It is this insight into the way texts are perceived which underpins an influential body of work on the extension of speech act analysis. Both theoretically and in various domains of applied pragmatics, it has been demonstrated that the interpretation of speech acts depends crucially on their position and status within sequences. The variation in status which underlies the interrelationship of speech acts within sequences leads to the notion of the illocutionary structure of a text, determining its progression and defining its coherence [Ferrara, 1980].
In translation studies, it is now accepted that what needs to be relayed in the normal course of events is this overall picture and not a series of unstructured sequences whose equivalence in the target language is determined piecemeal (i.e. speech act for speech act). This sequence-oriented, global view of the force of action has been made possible by the emergence in pragmatics of the notion of the text act. Here, the force of a given speech act is assessed not only in terms of its contribution to the local sequence in which it is embedded, but also in terms of the contribution it makes via the local sequence to a more global sequence enveloping the entire text [Homer, 1975].
In an attempt to extend the analysis beyond the individual speech act, there has been a considerable shift of focus in the analysis of the translation process and entire text formats began to be considered from the view point of pragmatics. For example, argumentative texts have been found to display a global problem-solving structure, with the problem section being typically “assertive” in its illocutionary value, and the solution section typically “directive”. Such global characterizations are informed by both functional and hierarchical criteria governing the various speech acts involved, and ought to be heeded in their globality by the translator [Tirkkonen-Condit, 1986].
In text type-oriented translation studies, a major issue addressed has been that of the indeterminacy which a particular speech act can exhibit and which can only be resolved by reference to the global organization of the text. For example, describing a given peace plan as slightly better than the previous ones could pragmatically mean “only slightly and therefore negligibly better” or “appreciably better”, depending on whether the overall stance is pro- or anti-plan. The initial sequence is indeterminate and is settled only when we subsequently read there are reasons for hope. There are languages, such as Arabic, which have to mark such distinctions, and where a number of alternative lexico-grammatical structures are available to cater for the alternative readings involved [Hatim and Mason, 1990, 1997].
Implied meaning and the Cooperative Principle
One of the basic assumptions of pragmatic analysis is that, in communication, being sincere is a social obligation [Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969]. However, language users can evoke and interpret implied meanings by leaving certain things unsaid (as speakers) or interpreting what is said against the background of what could have been said (as hearers). Given this potential for generating and retrieving meanings other than those that are stated explicitly, Grice [Grice, 1975] attempted to account for where, how and why the smooth ongoingness of interaction is intentionally thwarted, leading to various kinds of implicature. He stipulated a Cooperative Principle which guides human interaction on the basis of a number of Maxims to which language users conventionally adhere, unless there is a good reason for them not to do so. These Maxims are Quantity (Make your contribution as informative as is required), Quality (Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence), Relevance (Be relevant), and Manner (Be communicatively orderly). The Maxims, Grice argued, may be obeyed or disturbed, and disturbance can take the form of flouting or disobeying the rules in a motivated, deliberate manner.
The notion of implicatures arising from the deliberate flouting of the cooperative Maxims has proven particularly helpful to practising translators and interpreters. In purely receptive terms, appreciation of implied meaning facilitates comprehension which would otherwise be blurred. In terms of re-producing the message in the target language, on the other hand, the meanings which are implied and not stated could be the last court of appeal in assessing adequate equivalence. This last point is particularly relevant in working with languages which are both culturally and linguistically remote from each other, where different pragmatic means may have to be opted for to achieve a given ultimate effect.
Within this cross-cultural domain of pragmatic analysis as applied to translation, a plausible assumption entertained for some time now has been that, by examining the various rules that govern successful performance in any given language, it might be possible to make predictions regarding the possibility or otherwise of reconstructing the same indirection in another language [Blum-Kulka, 1981]. A case that springs to mind here is that, through failure to assess the effectiveness of target renderings in preserving implied meanings in the source text, Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) has certainly lost much of its irony in the published translation into Arabic [Hatim, 1997]. For example, in the source text element // these facts are facts, at least one maxim has been flouted, that of Quality, with the resultant implicature in the relevant context of “who is Balfour kidding, it is a pack of lies”. In the Arabic translation, a literal rendering is opted for and a similar maxim is ostensibly flouted in the hope that an equivalent implicature would result. Regrettably, this has not been the case, and the pragmatic procedure adopted simply misfired. In such a context, flouting Quality could only produce the opposite effect in Arabic, i.e. achieving emphasis and leading to a statement of conviction. To ensure that sarcasm, irony, etc. are optimally preserved, the translator could have more felicitously flouted the maxim of Quality (by being unnecessarily verbose).
Politeness and implicature