Interpersonal and Intertextual Design in Translating

1
Interpersonal and Inter-textual Design in
Translating

• Ian Mason
• Heriot Watt University

2
Minimal mediation in translation

• Ayatollah Khomeini (Iran), translated in The
  Guardian (U.K.)
• Internal policy speech about Islam and Irans war
  against Iraq (1989)

3
Genre

• The political speech
• The religious sermon
• Legal deontology

4
Discourse

• Cohesion
• repetition
• metaphor
• Over-lexicalisation
• Style-shifting

5
Text type

• Conventions of argumentation
• The counter-argument
• Of course But
• Of course this does not mean that we should
  defend all clergymen.

6
Minimal mediation

• Being literal?
• Trying to give the TL reader access to the ST
  voice (foreignisation)?
• Trying to show Khomeini as violent and
  fundamentalist?

7
Functionalist theories

• Human activity generally goal-directed.
• Translating is a human, social activity.
• Overriding consideration is the purpose (skopos)
  of the task.
• ST as an offer of information.
• Intra-textual coherence (TT) comes before
  inter-textual coherence (ST/TT).
  (Vermeer, Nord, etc.)

8
ST/TT relationship

• Nord loyalty
• Toury moral principle inappropriate in a
  descriptive model
• the Co-operative Principle (Grice)

9
The Co-operative Principle

• Make your contribution such as is required, at
  the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted
  purpose or direction of the talk exchange in
  which you are engaged
• Grice (1975)

10
Skopos

• action in relation to end-user
• action in relation to end-use
• action in relation to all other participants
• action in relation to socio-textual practices
  (genre, discourse, text type)
• all governed by co-operative principle

11
Problem

• intra-textual coherence (making sense) does NOT
  seem to be the main priority in the case of the
  Khomeini translation.

12
Audience Design (Bell 1984)

• Addressees (whose presence is known, who are
  ratified participants in the event and are
  directly addressed)
• Auditors (known, ratified but not directly
  addressed)
• Overhearers (known but not ratified participants
  and not addressed)
• Eavesdroppers (presence not known)

13

• Initiative and Responsive Design
• Referee groups (in-group/out-group)

14
This is an extract from a message addressed by
the Ayatollah Khomeini to the instructors and
students of religious seminaries. It has been
abbreviated and edited from a text broadcast on
Tehran Radio and transcribed and translated by
the BBC Monitoring Service.
15
Khomeinis Design

• Addressees Instructors in seminary
• Auditors Students
• Overhearers Listeners to Tehran Radio
• Eavesdroppers BBC Monitoring Service

16
Translators Design

• Addressee Employer (BBC Monitoring Service)
• Auditors In-house users, government, etc.
• Eavesdroppers Guardian readers

17
Maximal mediation in translation

• English translation of Montaillou by E. Le Roy
  Ladurie
• Social history of French medieval village
• The deleted discourse

18
Competing discourses in ST

• Academic/intellectual discourse
• Quid (Latin) catholicity catharo-metempsych
  otic slay
• Informal tenor, colloquialisms
• grass squeal
• Jokes
• His Holiness the Wholesaler feathered friend

19
Deleted discourse in translation

• Detached, matter-of-fact style
• Unfortunately, no Catholic records were kept at
  that time
• the names of those who had informed against
  him
• Etc.

20
ST audience design

• Addressees
• French intellectual readers in general.
• Auditors
• Other French readers critics reviewers.
• Referee in-group
• Historians in the Annales school of historical
  writing

21
TT audience design

• Addressees
• General English readers, interested in French
  social history (paperback edition).
• Auditors referee out-group
• Specialist readers English-language historians,
  critics, reviewers.

22
Audience Design in Translating

• Khomeini text different audiences different
  purposes.
• Interpersonal and intertextual design.
• Multiple sets of end-users.
• Intertextual impact on end-users.
• Inter-cultural factor.

23
The translators priorities

• To be revisited in Session 4.
• cf. the Co-operative Principle (Session3).
• cf. the full range of participants in a
  translating/interpreting event (Session 1).
• All these points are relevant to translator
  training (Sessions 5-7).