Text analysis in translation — страница 9

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not be taken seriously. The communicative background of the addressees, i.e. all their general background knowledge and their knowledge of special areas and subject matters, is of particular importance for translation-oriented text analysis. According to the assessment of the audience's communicative background22, a text producer not only selects the particular elements of the code that will be used in the text but also cuts or omits altogether any details which can be "presupposed" to be known to the receiver, whilst stressing others (or even presenting them with extra information) in order not to expect too much (nor too little) of the addressed readership. How much knowledge can be presupposed in a reader depends not only on their education or familiarity with the

subject but also on factors relating to the subject matter itself, e.g. its topicality. In this respect, the situation often varies widely for ST and TT receivers, as there is usually (at least in written communication) a considerable time lags between ST and TT reception. Example For a Spanish receiver, the heading "Nuestra integration en Europa" above a commentary published in the Spanish paper El Pais in February 1984 is not a thematic title which informs about the content of the text, but refers to the then current discussion on special agricultural problems connected with the negotiations on the Spanish entry into the European Community. For German ' ''' or French newspaper readers the issue was not of topical interest at that time; under the heading "Spain's

entry into the EC" (or "Our integration into Europe", for that matter) they would have expected an article on the issue of Spanish (or German/French!?) integration into the European Community. Like the author, who has a specific intention in transmitting the text, the receiver, too, has a specific intention when reading the text. The receivers' intention must not be confused either with their expectations towards the text, which is part of their communicative background, or with their reaction or response to the text, which takes place after text reception and is thus part of the text effect. The information obtained about the addressee may throw some light on the sender's intention, on the time and place of communication (in relation to the receiver's age and

geographic origin), on text function (in relation to the receiver's intention), and on the intratextual features (e.g. the presuppositions). As was pointed out in connection with the sender, a fictitious receiver is part of the "internal" communicative situation and not of the external communicative situation. But even externally a text can be directed at different possible receivers. Example Whilst imprisoned for being a member of the Resistance movement against the Nazi regime, the German writer G. Weisenborn (1902-1962) wrote some letters to his wife, Joy Weisenborn, which were published after the war. In the original situation, these letters had one precisely defined and addressed receiver. Published later in a book together with some answering letters from his wife

and some songs and poems, they address a group of receivers that is much larger and not so clearly defined, i.e. anyone interested in the documents and personal testimonies of Resistance in the Third Reich. If a young man gives this book, which contains many tender love-letters, to his girlfriend many years later, the conditions of reception will be different again, not to mention those of a translation of the book into English, Dutch, or Spanish. Therefore, the translator must analyse not only the characteristics of the ST addressees (or receivers) and their relationship to the source text, but also those of the TT receiver, whose expectations, knowledge and communicative role will influence the stylistic organization of the target text. The stronger the orientation of the ST

towards a particular SL addressee or audience, the higher the probability that the ST has to be translated in a documentary way, which means that the target text can only give information about the source text in its situation but not fulfil an analogous function. How to obtain information about the addressed audience As in case of the sender, information about the addressees can first of all be inferred from the text environment (e.g. dedications, notes), including the title (e.g. Bad Child s Pop-Up Book of Beasts). It can also be elicited from the information obtained about the sender and his/her intention or from the situational factors, such as medium, place, time, and motive. Standardized genres often raise equally standardized expectations in the receivers. Example A