Pragmatics of translation

Tamara I.Leontieva Lectures on Translation Theory

• Department of Cross-cultural Communication and Translation Study
• Foreign Languages Center
• Vladivostok State University of Economics
• 2008

PRAGMATICS OF TRANSLATION

• General notion and linguistic pragmatics

What is pragmatics?

• Pragmatics, n (used with a singular verb)
• The noun “pragmatics” is regarded from different sides, the simplest of which is “practical considerations” [1935-40] - Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, 1996. - P.1518.

PRAGMATICS

• Logic, Philos. The branch of semiotics dealing with causal and other relations between words, expressions, or symbols and their users.

PRAGMATICS

• Ling. The analysis of language in terms of (a) situational context within which utterances are made, including (b) the knowledge and beliefs of the speaker and the
• (c) attitude between speaker and listener.

Linguistic Pragmatics

• SEMIOTICS
• semantics pragmatics
• syntax

Authors of Linguistic Pragmatics

• Charles Morris (US) - introduced pragmatics as part of semiotics
• Charles Peirce (US) formulated linguistic pragmatics under the influence of  John Austin’s (Great Britain) theory of speech acts (in the 60-ies and 70-ies of the XX century)

The Phenomenon of Linguistic Pragmatics

• Speaker Addressee
• Linguistic Pragmatics
• Situation Interaction

Linguistic Pragmatics Terminology

• Illocution (the speaker’s communicative intention: question, order, information, etc.)
• Presupposition (the speaker’s background knowledge of the addressee’s interests, opinions, scope of information)
• Locution - the utterance sense (request, promise, information, order, etc.)
• Perlocution - the communicative effect of the utterance on the addressee