An Analysis of Translation from the Perspective of Pragmatics

楊錦瑜 張瀟

【Abstract】This essay will argue that a good translation should take pragmatics into consideration when translators or interpreters are doing their work. Translation is considered as a way to communicate， and Paltridge says that pragmatic competence is of importance as a component of communicative competence. Pragmatics is the study of the meaning in relation to the context in which a person is speaking or writing. Meaning here weighs more on intended meaning of text. Pragmatic translation is a translation that conveys the intended meaning of the source text.

【Key words】Translation from the Perspective;Pragmatics

1. Pragmatic Translation

Pragmatic translation means the study of translation practice from pragmatics view. That is to say， it solves the problems during translation， such as comprehension of the source text and re-structure of the target text on the basis of language usage and cultural differences; it also solves the problem whether or not there is a loss of meaning in the target text compared with the original meaning of the source text （Wang， 2009）. In order to achieve such a pragmatic equivalence， it is necessary for translators to have a good knowledge on the source language. Thus， they must recognize and understand both the literal and expressive meanings of the source text. Then they must infer the implicature meaning and the real purpose of the communication from the culture or context. Meanwhile， the translators should think about the target-language readers. The translators should assess the readers knowledge， cognitive competence， experience and reading expectations， in order to make readers to understand the translation and find out the implicature meaning. Afterwards， the source texts are processed into the target language with natural and easily understandable words and structures which convey the same language function. Only to translate the expressive meanings can the translation be useful.

2. Pragmatic Theories and Translation

Pragmatics aims to study the meaning of the sentences in a specific context. It varies from the communication context and participants （Lu， 2004）. Some principles in pragmatics area answer how individuals express their real purpose through parole and how individuals infer others expressive meanings to have a successful communication.

2.1 Speech Acts， illocutionary act and translation

Searles Speech Acts argues that language is used to ‘do things other than just refer to the truth or falseness of particular statements， and Austin argued that there are three kinds of act which occur with everything we say. These are the locutionary act， the illocutionary act and the perlocutionary act （Paltridge， 2006： 55）. Pragmatists study the illocutionary act （Lu， 2004）. For example， It is raining.

The only locutionary act refers to the weather. But its illocutionary acts can be many： it can be a request for someone to take an umbrella; to ask someone for a stay; or to refuse to go out for a walk. The correct understanding of the sentence bases on the understanding of the context. Speech acts proves that what people say is not their true purpose. People make decisions and act on the assumption that everything they say is understood by others.

Based on Austin and Searles Speech Acts Theory， a pragmatic translation mode is emerged. Compared with semantic translation， it is equivalence on pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics. Pragmalinguistics equivalence translation requests the translators convey the content of the source text with the most natural and equivalent parole of the target language from the lexical， grammar and semantics levels， which can achieve the function equivalence （Sun， 2002）.

2.2 The Co-operative Principle， Politeness Principle and translation

Grices co-operative principle and Leechs politeness principle are pragmatic theories that assure the communication is successful. Grice argues that the co-operative principle says individuals should aim to make their conversational contribution ‘such as is required， at the stage at which it occurs， by the accepted purpose or direction of the exchange in which we are engaged （Paitridge， 2006： 62）. By flouting or violating the co-operative principle， there must be some implicature. This implicature is the pragmatic meaning. Thus， the co-operative principle contributes to infer the pragmatic meanings.

Although Baker （1992： 228） says ‘the co-operative principle and its four maxims do not directly explain how we arrive at a particular inference or a conversational implicature， its notion of co-operative has practical guidance to translation practice （Hu， 2006）. Also， it is a theory based on oral communication， but it is still useful in written text， as written text is the literal recording of oral parole （Wang， 2007）. Translation is a bilingual and bicultural communicative activity. The translation of the pragmatic meaning involves the two languages and the two ways of using language. The way of using a language differs from another because of the different social cultures. Like Chinese usually emphasize on being modest. Chinese act condescendingly by say something like “Oh， no， no， I havent done well enough” when praised， otherwise they will be considered as proud and arrogant. However， people from English-speaking countries will say “thank you” with a smile. If the translators did not know these two different politeness ways， the translations would be weird and may course culture shock. Translators should have a good knowledge of the two ways of using a language， infer the pragmatic meaning and make readers or hearers understand it. When the pragmatic meaning of the source text is interfered by culture， translators should solve the problem by adding some information or use a similar parole to express the pragmatic meaning to the target-language readers. Like the example above， the translator can translate “Oh， no， no， I havent done well enough” into “Oh， I feel flattered” which also contains modest and become more acceptable for English speakers. A small change of the translation can make a better communication.

2.3 The Relevance Theory and translation

The relevance theory argues that people know things on the basis of relevance （Lu， 2004）. Although every speech acts should have been paid attention to， people usually realize those information which are relevant with them. Translation view from a perspective of relevance theory argues that it is a theory that cannot be violated in the translators minds （Wang， 2007）. Translators should infer the purpose of the source text authors from its phonetic level （oral text）， syntax level and pragmatic level， making correct context assumption from the existed context based on the relevance theory. Whats more， they need to make correct assessment of the target-language readers literacy degree so that they can choose proper words and sentence structures to fit the purpose of the source text. The meanings from the source texts usually contain explicit and implicit meanings. The translators should avoid the ambiguities， clear the references， and add some information to demonstrate the explicit meaning. The implicit meaning needs expressing when the target-language readers cannot understand that for some reasons. Thus， in order to achieve the most relevance， the translators are necessary to do the translation from a perspective that has the most relevant with the readers.

From the view of relevance theory， translation is also a kind of communication， an ostensive-inferential process which combines informative intention and communicative intention （Wang， 2011）. Ostensive and inferential are two aspects of communication process. From the angle of speaker， communication is the ostensive process， that is， to convey the information clearly and correctly. From the angle of hearer， it is an inferential process， that is， to infer the communicative purpose of the speaker from the ostensive act and context. Thus， the process of translation is also a communication， while the ‘speaker and ‘hearer is the translator. He and Zhang （2001） explained more specifically of the process. They addressed that there are three participants in the whole process of a translation， namely the author of source text， the translator and the reader of target text. Thus there are two ostensive-inferential processes in the translation practice. In the first ostensive-inferential process， the author expresses his communicative intention to the translator， and translator infers and understands the authors communicative intention with the context， the parole and relevance theory. In this process， the translator is the reader or hearer. Then it is the second ostensive-inferential process. The translator becomes the author or speaker in this process. After he assesses the readers cognitive ability and their expectation， he expresses the communicative intention to the target-language reader according to his understanding in the first process. Therefore， the translation process involves two communicators and two receivers， and the translator is a communicator and receiver. That being said， according to relevance theory， translation is pragmatic equivalent translation of a ternary relation which are the author， the translator and reader （Wang， 2007）.

Translators first should cognize the authors communicative intention， then find out the differences between the source language and target language with the knowledge of the two languages， and then translate into the target language with proper and natural words. If the translator copied the same expressive way of the source text， and ignored the readers cognitive ability， it would burden readers with reading challenges， leading them to lose interest in the translation or cannot understand it. This is a failed communication. For example， if the author took Liang Zhu as an example in his text or speech， it might be hard for English speakers to understand such a Chinese characteristic story. Liang Zhu is a very famous sad romantic story in China. Liang was the male Liang Shanbo， and Zhu was the female Zhu Yingtai. The young couple loved each other but could not get married. Finally， they both died for love and became butterflies. It takes too much time to explain and maybe they still cannot understand. If it the translator could use the example of Romeo and Julia， it would be quite easy for English speakers to understand， because they were both sad romantic story with a same ending.

2.4 Context and translation

Paltridge （2006： 53） says an understanding of how language function in context is central to an understanding of the relationship between what is said and what is understood in spoken and written discourse. That is in the process of translation， context is an essential key term for understanding and expressing. As Wang （2009） said apart from the bilingual competence of the translator and structure features， it is also important to have a specific context.

Here is an example from Wang （2007）：

A： Going？

B： Gone！

A： Any？

B： Some.

Without the context， it is hard to know the meaning of the dialogue. Given that A saw B coming around with a fishing rod on his shoulder and a bag in his hand， it becomes easy to comprehend. That is：

A： Are you going fishing？

B： Ive gone.

A： Were there any fish you got？

B： I got some.

It is the same with translation practice. If the translator translated without considering the context， it was both hard to translate and hard to understand， because it was a translation with poor coherence.

3. Conclusion

Translation has a close relation with pragmatics. They both emphasize on meanings， the former concerns the meaning in a specific context， the latter concerns the illocutionay meanings for the participants. Pragmatics is a kind of pragmatic equivalence translation. Thus， from a pragmatic view， no matter the translator adopts whatever theories or ways to translate， as long as it can express the intention of the source text， it is a good translation. With a theory guiding correctly， translation skills are flexible used in the translation process.

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