Pragmatic Aspects of Translation

Abstract

With the advent of pragmatic and functional theories of language, linguistics was able to offer a broader framework that approaches translation as an act of communication. Therefore, translators were able to move outside the rigid circle of linguistic meaning and textual equivalence to contextual meaning and the set of extra-linguistic factors enveloping the text. Noteworthy, these circumstantial configurations are relevant to the specific situation, social system, and culture, where the text is written. Similarly, the linguistic choices made by the text producer reflect the system of beliefs, preferences, and world experience in that culture. What follows is that the task of the translator is twofold. The analysis of the context is important to fully understand the source text's (ST) meaning. On the other hand, the production of the target text (TT) requires awareness of the target culture’s characteristics and peculiarities, as well as the target reader’s expectations and knowledge of the world. This paper puts forth some pragmatic aspects of translation to highlight their relevance and importance in translation. The literature review provides an overview of the pragmatic aspects of language that represent translation challenges. These difficulties are illustrated by examples of the pitfalls translators may face when translating speech acts in legal documents and irony in literary texts.