9 A Pragmatic Concept of Translation

9. A Pragmatic Concept of Translation*
A Pragmatic account of translation
Pragmatics is defined as the science of the relations between signs and sign-users. It deals with problems such as the uses or functions of language, as, for example, when we classify the uses of language into cognitive, practical and esthetic ([3] or[4], p.16).However, it has a much wider scope than this. For instance, all the following affirmations fall within the scope of pragmatics:
(a) The word 'semiotic' is not used by Aristotle.
(b) In Denmark, people say 'Glaedelig Jul' when we would say 'Merry Christmas'.
(c) In Germany, people use 'Morgenstern'to denote a star.
(d) It is (pragmatically) undetermined whether the following is a sentence: 'Today is '.
To think about translation, when we rewrite a body of discourse D into another of body discourse D', we may, and often do, have in mind one of the following considerations:
(i)While D is in a certain language l, D' is in another language l1. For example, D is in English while D' is in German. That is to say, we want to translate a string of signs in English into another string in German.
(ii)While D is a certain literary style s, D' is in another style s1. For example, D is in poetic style, while D' is in prose style. That is to say, we want to translate a poem or a line of poetry into prose or into a sentence or sentences in prose form.
(iii)While D is difficult for some people x to understand, D' is easier for x to understand. That is to say, we want to translate a body of discourse which is difficult for a certain person or group of persons to understand into another body of discourse which is easier for him or them to understand.
But there are no pragmatic rules which require that something of this sort must be fulfilled in order that discourse D' may be called a translation of discourse D. For example, it is not always the case that we translate a string of signs more difficult for certain person(s) to understand into one easier for him (them). It could well be the reverse. We may on some occasions try to translate a paragraph easier for certain person(s) into one more difficult for him (them). Notably in war time's military correspondence, we try to send a code message instead of a message written in a plain language. In this case, we translate a paragraph (e.g., in English) which is more easily understandable for certain persons, namely, the enemies, into another for them more difficult one. Similar remarks hold for the other pragmatic considerations listed above.
There are, the several pragmatic considerations which are commonly practised but are not inviolable from a logical point of view. However, we can formulate a pragmatic rule which may not be violated in translation. As a preliminary formulation of this rule, we put down the following:
A discourse D' is said to be a translation of another discourse D if and only if utterances of D' and of D would serve the same purpose or purposes.
A discourse D' is a translation of another discourse D if and only if an utterance of D' and one of D would express the same concern(s) and indicate the same topic(s) of concern, i.e., if and only if they would signify the same purpose(s).
Two features of formulation R1a should be noticed. Each is a feature which will eventually necessitate some reformulation. (1) R1a is elliptical in two respects: it does not mention the languages, ,l1 and l, in which D' and D are framed. Neither does it refer the mentioned purposes to the presumed author of the original discourse D. The resulting discourse D' must be able to serve the same purpose(s) as the author of D intended to serve and to signify by his utterance of D.(2) R1a is so framed as to allow that both D' and D signify a multiplicity of purposes. The formulation suggests that all purposes that utterances of either one would signifies must be signified by utterances of the other. But surely this is too strong a demand.
Essential purposes
In discussing purpose, Leonard makes some suggestive distinctions.4For example, he notes that a person may have many purposes in mind in the performance of a single action. Of these purposes, some may be said to be primary, others secondary; that is, some may be the main things that he want to accomplish, others, the minor things. Again, some purposes may be (relatively) immediate, others (relatively) remote; that is , some may be things that he wants to accomplish right away, others, after a while. Further, one purpose of an action may be said to be subservient to another purpose of the same action: purposed as a means to accomplish the other. Or the two may be said to be independent: that is, neither is purposed as a means to, or in order to accomplish, the other.
This analysis has a special significance to our pragmatic account of translation. For example, a body of discourse may signify more than one purpose of its author, but the signified purposes may not be of equal weight. In doing translation, the primary purposes(s) intended in the original discourse must be preserved as primary in the resulting discourse, while the secondary purpose(s) may or may not be changed or sacrificed according to the insight that a translator has when he considers in what way he can best signify in the translation the author's original primary purpose(s).
In short, a translator must distinguish between tolerably sacrificable purposes and essential (i.e., not tolerably sacrificable) purposes signified by a body of discourse D, and R1a must be modified so as to demand of the translation D' that it signify all of the essential purposes of D.
R1b. A discourse D' is a translation of another discourse D if and only if utterances of D' and of D would signify the same essential purposes.
The next few sections of this paper are concerned with some questions relative to the distinction between tolerably sacrificable and essentials purposes.
Pragmatic theory of meaning
Here we seem to face a problem. That is, we may throw a doubt upon the claim that pragmatic considerations can provide a sufficient condition for a theory of meaning. According to this theory, meaning (of a deliberate sign) is defined in terms of pragmatic characterization. A body of discourse has such a meaning (or, such and such meanings) if it serves for a certain author to accomplish thus and thus a purpose (or, thus and thus purposes). And two bodies of discourse have exactly the same meaning(s) if and only if they serve exactly the same purpose(s). But now we seem to encounter a counter example. While (1)in English and (2) in German serve essentially the same purpose(s), they, nevertheless, have different meanings.
In view of the problem resulting from the translation of (A) and (B) into (A') and (B') above, we may ask the question what makes the translation under consideration become not a synonymy-preserving mapping? It is obvious that (A) and (B) are on different language levels, and when we make a translation for (A) and (B) into (A') and (B') respectively, then (B') is not talking exactly about the same object as (B) is, although (B') is connected with (A') in exactly the same way as (B) is to (A). This observation may suggest people to think that our counter-example to the pragmatic theory of meaning is nothing but apparent, or rather it is only a very special case. For example, we can avoid the above difficulty if Leonard writes the following (C) instead of (B) above.
Then, the difficulty seems to disappear. But it would seem more appropriate to say that in this special case, the difficulty is suppressed rather than disappearing, because it always has the danger that the difficulty may in some situation or other reappear and come up onto the surface.
Because of this difficulty, people may tend to make a proposal to the effect that in a theory of translation let the language-level distinction be taken into consideration. They may even propose to say that if we have two bodies of discourse D1 and D2, D2 taking D1 as its subject-matter, then in our translation D1' and D'2, we shall not call D'2 a translation of D2, but rather that D'2 is an explication or illustration or something of this sort to D1' in view of D2. Take our previous example, (B') in German will not be said to be a translation of (B) in English, but an illustration of (A') in view of (B). But in practice this amounts to the fact that we translate (B) into (B') with the necessary corrections or amendments in the light of (A'). Therefore, it seems to me that we can call (B') a translation of (B) in the light of (A') as well.
In case we rewrite D2 into D'2 without a radical change of the content of D2, it seems without any harm at all to think that the one is a translation of the other. For instance, in (C) and (C') above, we make no change as to the content of (C) in (C'), (C') can be said to be a translation of C, despite the fact that (C') is talking about (A') rather than about (A) , which (C) is talking about. However, I am also inclined to think of (B') in our example as a translation of (B) although in (B') we did make some substantial changes in the content of (B), namely, we change "thirty-four" into "twenty-eight", and "fifty-four" into "forty-one".
References
1.Leonard, Henry S. "Authorship and Purpose"Philosophy of Science, vol.26, no.4 (1959), pp.277-294.
2. "Interrogatives, Imperatives, Truth, Falsity and Lies."Philosophy of Science. vol.26, no.3 (1959). Pp.172-186.
3. Principles of Reasoning. Dover Publications, Inc. New York, 1967. Revised edition of [4].
4. Principles of Right Reason. Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1957.
5. "Synonymy and Systematic Definition." The Monist. vol, 51, no.1 (1967)
6.Mates, Benson. "Synonymity." In Linsky, L., Semantics and the Philosophy of Language. The University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1952, pp111-136.