Translatology II: 1st Practical Work

Mark Newmark

Cohesion and Coherence

> Cohesion is the structural, syntactical and lexical means by which we relate parts of a sentence in a text so that they fit together well, forming a united whole.

• Structural cohesion: (1) standard paragraph structure;  (2) clause and phrase level parallelism; (3) theme/rheme relations between sentences.
• Syntactic cohesion: (1) reference: anaphoric, cataphoric, exophoric, pronouns, demonstratives; (2) substitution; (3) ellipsis; (4) reiteration / collocation; (5) conjunction.

> Coherence is the quality that makes a text semantically meaningful, as well as makes it pleasing to read because all the parts fit together well and logically.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is the way in which we relate textual occurrence to areas of our previous textual experiences. These areas are called intertexts, which in one sense, are viewed as a reference to a previous text.

The use of intertextuality shows that texts are never totally original or particular to a given author as they always depend on previous texts. Intertexts may take the forms of imitation, plagiarism, parody, citation, refutation, or transformation of texts.

Contratextuality: It is an aspect of intertextuality in which writers or speakers systematically employ opponent's discourse for their own purposes. Thus, a politician may borrow an element from an opponent's ideology in order to strip it of what it genuinely stands for.

Text Styles

Narrative: It is a sequence of events, where the emphasis is on the verbs

Description: It is static, with emphasis. There are lots of linking verbs and adjectives as well.

Discussion: It is a treatment of ideas.

• Argumentative text: The dominant function of the text is to steer the situation a a favorable manner to the text producer's goals.
• Expository text: The focus is on providing a detached account of a situation.

Instructional: There is an attempt to regulate through instruction the way people act or think.

The Readership

The usual type of readership aimed by the average text for translation tends to be an educated, middle class one in an informal, not colloquial style.

These features of the ST readership or recipient mist be elicited by the translator and then matched against those of the TL readership. Since there are always differences between the ST and the TL readership, the adaptation of said features is of significant importance.

Language Function

> Expressive Function: Here, utterances are used to express feelings. This function is usually used in:

_ Serious imaginative literature: poetry, short stories, novels, plays.

_ Authoritative statements: These are text of any nature which derive their authority from the high status or the competence of their authors. Such texts have the personal "stamp" of their authors, although they are denotative, not connotative. Examples: political speeches, legal documents, etc.

_ Autobiographies, essays, personal correspondence.

> Informative Function: This function gives emphasis to the external situation, the reality outside the language. Its formats are usually textbooks, articles in newspapers, scientific papers, etc. Additionally, the informative function may take a form with any of the following features:

1. A formal, non-emotive, technical style for academic papers, characterized in English by passives, present and perfect tenses, literal language, jargon, empty verbs, no metaphors.
2. A neutral or informal style with defined technical terms for textbooks, characterized by the first person, plurals, present tenses, dynamic verbs, and basic conceptual metaphors.
3. An informal, warm style for popular science or art books, characterized by simple grammar structures, a wide range of vocabulary to accommodate definitions and numerous illustrations.
4. A familiar, non-technical style for popular journalism, characterized by surprising metaphors, short sentences, unconventional punctuations and colloquialisms.

> Vocative Function: The core of this function is the addressee as he/she is the object on which the text in intended to persuade. Their acting, thinking or feeling is the vocative text's primary concern. Something that characterizes vocative texts is:

_ First: the relationship between the writer and the readership, which can be seen in the different ways the grammar is employed or the forms of addressing the reader. For example, the pronoun usted in Spanish, or the use of imperatives, infinitives, subjunctives, passives, first or family names; tags, such as "please". All these grammatical devices play their part in determining asymmetrical or symmetrical relationships, if power of equality prevails, if its a command, a request or persuasion.
_ Second: The language must be immediately comprehensible to the readership. This for translation, the linguistic and cultural level of the SL text has to be reviewed before it is given a pragmatic impact.

Stylistic Scales

Scales of Formality

• Official: sophisticated type of language used in legal documents.
• Formal: The use of words from Latin rather than phrasals.
• Neutral: It is normally understood by the average reader, yet some expressions may not be found in every day speech.
• Informal: There is use of phrasal verbs, contractions and every day language.
• Colloquial: Language used among friends; very informal.
• Slang: It is a language used by a specific social class, which may sound rude to many people.

Scales of Difficulty

• Simple: The vocabulary and structure are simple and easy to follow.
• Neutral: Here, a basic vocabulary is used, and the average reader is able to understand it.
• Educated: Words from Latin are used and it is probably not accessible to an uneducated reader.
• Technical: It is only accessible to experts and specialized people on a given subject

Emotional Tone

• Intense: There is a profound use of intensifiers, abundance of adverbs, adjectives, etc.
• Warm: It denotes the presence of the author's feelings towards the subject.