Literary Translation : Aspects of Pragmatic Meaning

116 Pages·0.907 MB·English, Arabic

by  Bahaa-eddin Abulhassan Hassan

Literary Translation

Literary Translation:
Aspects of Pragmatic Meaning
By
Bahaa-eddin Abulhassan Hassan
Literary Translation: Aspects of Pragmatic Meaning,
by Bahaa-eddin Abulhassan Hassan
This book first published 2011
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © 2011 by Bahaa-eddin A. Hassan
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-3358-4, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-3358-5
To my family

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface........................................................................................................ix
List of Abbreviations...................................................................................x
Chapter One.................................................................................................1
The Pragmatic Approach
1.1 Literary Translation: Different Approaches
1.2 Literary Translation: Aspects of Pragmatic Meaning
1.3 Relation between Pragmatics and Translation
1.4 Recognition of Pragmatic Problems
1.5 Strategies of the Pragmatic Approach
Chapter Two..............................................................................................24
Equivalent Force in Literary Translation
2.1 Speech Acts
2.2 Pragmatic Translations of Speech Acts
Chapter Three............................................................................................38
Pragmatic Translations of Implicit Meaning
3.1 Implicit Meaning
3.2 Pragmatic Translations of Presuppositions
3.3 Pragmatic Translations of Conversational Implicatures
Chapter Four..............................................................................................63
Pragmatic Translations of Politeness
Chapter Five..............................................................................................74
Pragmatic Translations of Deixis
5.1 Pragmatic Translations of Person Deixis
5.2 Pragmatic Translations of Place Deixis
5.3 Pragmatic Translation of Time Deixis
5.4 Pragmatic Translations of Discourse Deixis
5.5 Pragmatic Translations of Social Deixis
viii Table of Contents
Conclusion ................................................................................................88
Notes..........................................................................................................90
Bibliography .............................................................................................91
Index........................................................................................................103
PREFACE
This book is a revised version of the author's Ph.D. dissertation and has
been developed for all those who embark on the study of literary
translation and have little or no prior background in pragmatics. It is also
intended for the general reader in linguistics and translation. Because of
this, technical terminology has been kept to a minimum. Where specialist
terms have been introduced, they are explained in the text.
This book focuses attention on pragmatic aspects in translation such as
speech acts, implicatures, presuppositions, politeness and deictic expressions.
It falls into five chapters. The first chapter explores the different models of
translation and the features of literary translation. It provides some facts
that are relevant in the subsequent analysis in which focus is given to the
importance of examining pragmatic principles in translation. The second
chapter explores the translation of speech acts. The third chapter is
concerned with translating implicit meaning such as presupposition and
implicature. The fourth chapter explains the translations of politeness
expressions. The fifth chapter presents the translation of deictic
expressions. The book explores the pragmatic problems involved in an
English translation of Naguib Mahfouz’s Trilogy. The Trilogy, namely
Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street, has been translated by
Hutchins et al. This translation is compared with the source text. The book
tries to figure out whether the translation of the trilogy as a literary text is
pragmatically equivalent to the source text or not.
One forever owes a debt to one’s professors. I would like to express
my gratitude to Prof. Ibrahim Maghraby for his effort and academic
guidance. I am also very grateful to Prof. Ahmed-Sokarno Abdel-Hafiz
whose remarks and suggestions contributed to the present outcome of the
book. His ideas and advice were momentous. I also owe a great debt of
gratitude to Dr. Nabil Abdel-Fatah, Prof. Laila Abdel-Raziq and Prof.
Mustafa Riyad for their help in the structure and development of the book.