Introduction to Translating and Interpreting

Genre in Translation

Adinda Thalita Aulia

1705085042
B 2017

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
MULAWARMAN UNIVERSITY
 2019
A. Introduction
In the history of language study, there are generally two traditions of
classifying texts. One tradition is to classify texts according to purpose, while the
other is according to type, both of which are derived from Aristotle’s Rhetoric.
Here “type” means almost the same as “genre”. This may be the first mention of
genre in history. Later, anthropologists introduced the term “genre” into
linguistics. It is now generally accepted that genre is a discernible communication
event, the understanding of which restricts people’s reconstruction of the text.
Communication purpose is the decisive factor to set apart different genres (Swales
1990, Bhatia 1993). To be more specific, texts used in a particular situation for a
particular purpose, such as guidebook, business letter etc, are examples of
different genres. They are the "intellectual scaffolds on which community-based
knowledge are constructed" (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1995: 24).
Genre is a diverse phenomenon. There are various ways in which genre can be
constituted, and different genres realize different possibilities. Therefore an
adequate account of genre needs to shed light on this complexity, more so than
the accounts reviewed in this section can do. It should also be noticed that the
literature reviewed in this section does converge on some important insights:
genre is an aspect of context, and it is a cultural phenomenon. This indicates that
an adequate account of genre needs to be based on a pragmatic theory which
assigns context a central place and can shed light on cultural phenomena.

B. Notion of Genre
It is apparent that genre can be characterized in different ways:
− Motions: constituted of a small repertoire of formulas with highly
conventionalized meaning.
 − Greek epic (Odyssey): defined in terms of language style. The overall cast
is not different from narrative in general.
− Conversation: may contain conventionalized which differ from culture to
culture. The overall plan of a conversation is very flexible.
− Love song: characterized indirectly by theme, but more directly by
conventionalized symbols. The style is poetic like in other poetic genres.
A love-song cannot be determined by an overall (structural) plan.

While genres such as poetry or narrative seem to occur universally in all cultures,
others occur only in some, e.g. the English genre motion. Still others may occur
widely in cultures, but may be constituted differently in each, e.g. love songs.

Most existing theories of genre, however, concentrate on one aspect of what

constitutes genre. Thus, there are theories which distinguish a set of universal
genres on the basis of universal features such as narrative, argumentative,
hortatory, etc. (Werlich, 1982, Grimes. 1975, Longacre, 1983). Such approaches
of genre are in. general primarily interested in alleged influences of genre on
sentence structure and/or the meaning of morphemes (mostly verb forms) or
syntactic constructions.

Another influential account of genre is the systemic-functional register and genre

theory (Eggins & Martin, 1997; Downing, 1996; Vázquez Orta, 1996). The
central claim of this theory is that aspects of the social context in which texts a
produced influence the linguistic realization of the text in systematic ways. These
factors were first identified within the register variables mode (e.g., whether the
text was produced in a face-to-face interaction, a phone conversation, a lecture, a
book), field (subject matter, how much technical knowledge can be assumed,
etc)., and tenor (social roles of the communicators). More recently it has been
argued in systemic-functional linguistics that an important element of social
seüing is the staged structure of many communication situations (e.g. service
 encounters, buying in the marketplace). This aspect of context is what genre is
about: a structural schema of the organization of texts for a certain type of
communication situation. This schema is taken to be the ünk between the purpose
or function of the genre and the meaning of the individual text (Downing, 1996).

C. Genre and Pragmatic Theory

1. Inference, relevance, and comprehension
Relevance theory follows the basic insight of Grice (1957; 1967; both
reprinted in Grice, 1989) that communication works basically by inference:
the communicator produces an ostensive (i.e. overtly intentional) verbal
and/or non-verbal stimulus which the addressee needs to process in context as
a piece of evidence for inferring the communicator's intention.
2. Expectations of relevance and genre
In order to relate the relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure more
specifically to genre, we need to further examine the role of the presumption
of optimal relevance and the expectations of relevance raised in a particular
case. The presumption of relevance is a member of the set of assumptions
which are communicated by the stimulus; it is one that - unlike others - is
communicated by principle. As with all communicated assumptions, the
addressee doesn't have to accept it at face value.
On this relevance-theoretic account, genre is a cultural concept which gives
access to information which helps the addressee to fine-tune expectations of
relevance. This information is accessed in the normal course of the cost-
sensitive comprehension procedure in a process which adjusts context, content
and implicit import in a parallel inferential procedure (Sperber & Wilson,
1998; Wilson & Sperber, 2000). In contrast to this, most other theories of
genre assign the recognition of genre a special place: Kitis (1999) and
Holdcroft (1979) claim that the genre regulates which conversational maxims
become operative. Genre recognition would therefore be a process which
 precedes the maxim-based pragmatic comprehension procedure. The
cognitive role of genre is to provide access to information which may focus
the inferential processes on a certain direction by making expectations of
relevance more specific. So even if some genre concepts may contain schemas
of the form discussed e.g. in Eggins & Martin (1997), this relevance-theoretic
account assigns them a different place in pragmatics.

D. Genre Analysis in Translation Studies

Generally defined as the study of situated linguistic behavior in institutionalized
academic or professional settings, genre analysis has its crucial characteristics for
our translation purpose (Bhatia, 1997: 205):
 Genre analysis shows a genuine interest in the use of language to achieve
communicative goals rather than a detailed extension, validation or otherwise
of one linguistic framework to the other. So it is not just an extension of
linguistic formalism.
 Genre theory exploits all aspects of socio-cognitive knowledge situated in
disciplinary cultures in order to analyze construction, interpretation and use of
linguistic communication to achieve non-linguistic goals.
Fortunately, the relevance of genre and genre analysis has begun to be recognized
if not widely studied in translation theory and practice in recent years, especially
in a textlinguistic approach to translation. Such an approach has helped to
increase our sensitivity to the linguistic patterning at various levels and thus
makes us aware of the complexity of translation competence (Schäffner, 2000).

E. Genre Analysis and Its Implications for Professional Translations

1. Advantages of genre analysis in translation
Genre analysis helps to make translators become aware that different
professional genres require different steps of restructuring. Genre analysis
 before the translation work can help the translators to keep in mind of the
macrostructure of both the source text and target text, to be aware of the
context of situation which helps to form the target text and to notice the role
played by the "generic structure" when they begin to construct the target text.
With the generic features of the target text in mind, the translator can organize
its structure and select the appropriate words and expressions in a more
efficient and effective manner.
2. Genre analysis and genre integrity in professional translation
Genre analysis leads us to reevaluate Nida’s equivalence theory as well as the
traditional way of doing translation. Generally speaking, when doing
translation, most people would direct most of their attention to the analysis of
sound, vocabulary, grammar and meaning, but seldom see the importance of
analyzing genre. Chances are, when a source text is translated into a target
language text, its genre may not necessarily remain the same. That's why we
need to maintain genre integrity when we translate professional texts.
3. Strategies to maintain genre integrity in translating professional
discourse
When a professional text is translated, its genre will either change or stay the
same. Some professional genres, such as legal documents, when translated
into the target language text, still maintain the same genre. Therefore, when
treating these genres, the translator usually does not need to make additional
adjustments to its corresponding text in target language. While for some other
professional genres, when translated into the target language, do require some
adjustments in the target language text in order to achieve genre integrity.
These genres include advertisements, travel brochures, business letters etc.
4. Strategy of changing form
Sometimes we need to change the form or graphology of the target language
so as to maintain genre integrity in the target situation and culture. Translators
should be aware of such region-specific genre conventions embedded in
 different discourse communities so that when they are handling translations
for clients from different regions, an appropriate choice should be made.
5. Strategy of changing structure
Sometimes we have to reorder the sentence structure with the prerequisite of
not changing its content so as to maintain genre integrity.
6. Strategy of reducing/expand the content
Sometimes because of cultural differences, we should omit some unnecessary
details in the target language text in order to maintain genre integrity. While at
other times, also due to cultural differences, we need to add something to the
original meaning in the target language text so as to breakdown
communication barriers in the target culture and situation.
Sources:
https://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/5324/4/RAEI_14_17.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283867674_Genre_analysis_and_th
e_translation_of_professional_discourse