Contrastive Pragmatics and Translation

Evaluation, epistemic modality and communicative styles in English and German

Svenja Kranich | Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027256669 | EUR 90.00 | USD 135.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027267276 | EUR 90.00 | USD 135.00

This book provides the first comprehensive account of English-German pragmatic contrasts in written discourse and their effects on English-German translations. The novel and multi-dimensional corpus-based studies of business communication and popular science writing presented in this book combine quantitative and qualitative approaches and focus on the use of evaluative adjectives and epistemic modal markers. They provide empirical evidence that English and German differ in systematic ways and that translations, while being adapted to target audience’s preferences to a large extent, are clearly susceptible to source language interference when it comes to more fine-grained differences. The book discusses which general factors determine the degree of impact of source language features on translations and also comments on the possibility of source language influence on target language norms via translations. The book is of interest to researchers and students in a variety of fields, such as pragmatics, translation studies, genre analysis and stylistics.

[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 261] 2016. xiv, 204 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 19 May 2016

https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.261

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements | pp. ix–x

List of tables | pp. xi–xii

List of figures | pp. xiii–xiv

Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 1–16

Chapter 2. General hypotheses, data and methods | pp. 17–22

Chapter 3. The five dimensions of English-German communicative contrasts | pp. 23–28

Chapter 4. Contrastive perspectives on English-German pragmatic and stylistic contrasts | pp. 29–50

Chapter 5. The impact of English-German pragmatic and stylistic contrasts on translations | pp. 51–66

Chapter 6. English-German contrasts in evaluative practice | pp. 67–94

Chapter 7. English-German contrasts in epistemic modal marking | pp. 95–164

Chapter 8. Translations as trigger of linguistic change? Changes in the genre of popular science in English texts, English-German translations and German originals | pp. 165–178

Chapter 9. Conclusion and outlook | pp. 179–190

References

Index | pp. 203–204

“This work contributes to the empirical research in contrastive linguistics by investigating the pragmatic dimensions of language contact between English and German on the one hand, and by shedding light on the influence of translations within this language pair and thus on language change through translated text on the other. Both aspects are highly innovative.”

Silvia Hansen-Schirra, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz

“I highly recommend this empirical corpus-based study of the relationship between German-English pragmatic contrasts, translation and language change.”

Juliane House, University of Hamburg & Hellenic American University, Athens

“This book offers an in-depth analysis of pragmatic contrasts found in English and German business communication and popular scientific writings and their rendition in translations. It throws light on the different rhetorical strategies used in English and German letters to shareholders and popular scientific articles and proves that formal and functional systemic differences are more prone to adaptation in translations and original texts than pragmatic contrasts. The study provides invaluable guidelines for translators and their trainers, who should be aware not only of structural contrasts between languages but also pragmatic and stylistic ones.”

Anna Ruskan, Vilnius University, in Kalbotyra, Vol. 69 (2016)

“The book is very readable and well structured. It provides useful insights into communicative practices in two linguacultures and professional communities and convincingly indicates where translators should concentrate when working between English and German.”

Naomi Truan, Université Paris Sorbonne - Paris IV, On Linguist List 28.1458 (23 March 2017)

“Kranich’s volume is a very valuable, well-documented and well-written work on contrastive pragmatics and translation, offering innovative approaches and convincing analyses and interpretations. The study helps paving the way for more research in this area, adopting a similar approach while focusing on a larger variety of linguistic features, linguacultures and genres. The book will prove particularly inspiring for scholars in pragmatics and translation studies, and it may also be interesting for English-German translators as well as university students with German and English in their curriculum.”

Sofie Decock, Ghent University, Belgium, in Journal of Languages in Contrast 17:2 (2017)

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