Text, Genre and Discourse Shifts in TranslationLina Affifatusholihah - 11131026

Introduction

Genre shift

Text shift

Discourse Shift

Points discussion

Introduction

• Fairclough 1989 ‘Two basic types of intertextual reference may be distinguished’.

First, horizontal intertextuality, involving concrete reference to, or straight quotation from, other texts.

The example:

• They had sworn to God previously that they would not turn their backs, and an oath to God must be answered for. (Al-Quran 33: 15)

The Guardian’s translation rendered the verse as follows:

• They had made a covenant with God that they would not turn back in flight, and a covenant with God must be answered for.・ [Koranic verse]

Introduction

Second, effective vertical intertextuality is that which, in addition to quoting, contributes through the intertextual reference to:

• Clarity of expression and accessibility of the intention (a text matter),

• The conventionality governing this mode of political speaking (genre),

• The sense of commitment to a cause conveyed (discourse).

Genre Shifts• ‘Genre’ is a conventionalized form of speaking or

writing which we associate with particular ‘communicative events’.

• Participants in these events tend to have set goals, with strict norms regulating what can or cannot be said within the confines of given genre settings.

Translated news reports> It is worth mentioning (when the news item in question is least noteworthy)> On the other hand (when no ‘contrast’ is stated or implied, and something like meanwhile should have been used)> In parallel (when ‘also’ is intended)> The Minister assured, insisted, pointed out, that (when ‘said’ would do).

• Examples

Text Shifts• Text is a vehicle for the expression of

conventionalized goals and functions. These are tied, not to communicative events as in genre, but rather to a set of specific rhetorical modes such as arguing and narrating.

• Rhetorical purposes of this kind impose their own constraints on how a sequence of sentences becomes a ‘text’

These are some of the concessive and adversative signals that often go unheeded:Concessive: to be sure, of course, granted, naturally, no doubt, certainlyAdversatives: still, but, however, nevertheless, yet.

• Example

Discourse Shifts• Genres and texts, then, ultimately serve to ‘enable’

the expression of an attitude involved in a given discourse. Discoursal values relay power relations and help define ideology.

• This aspect of meaning is properly the domain of what Halliday (1978: 112) refers to as the ‘participatory function of language, language as doing something’.

Checking the Arabic translation of example above, writer found that agency was restored to the heroine and the discourse thrust compromised in ‘she was possessed by a pagan passion’.

• Example

A pain that could rend her in two . . . Her heart missed a beat . . . It took her breath away . . . Tears welled in her eyes . . . An answering pagan passion leapt to control her

Thank you