TEXT, GENRE, AND

DISCOURSE SHIFTS
IN TRANSLATION
Presented By: Mariam Bouaoud
Fenna Nejjar
Ouafae Aarab
WHAT IS A SHIFT?

 ”A shift is said to occur if, in a given TT, a

translation equivalent other than
the formal correspondent occurs for a
specific SL element.“

 “Departures from formal correspondence in

the process of going from the SL to the TL.”
 Examples:

Au dehors Out of the window Outside

WHAT IS INTERTEXTUALITY?

 This term was first coined by the

French Feminist Philosopher and
Semitician Julia Kristeva (1986)

 “Any text is constructed of a mosaic of

quotations; any text is the absorption and
transformation of another.”
WHAT IS INTERTEXTUALITY?

 The life of the word is contained in its transfer

from one mouth to another, from one context to
another, from one social collective to another,
from one generation to another. In this process
the word does not forget its own path and cannot
completely free itself from the power of those
concrete contexts into which it has entered.
Bakhtin (***)
 INTERTEXTUALITY

 “A processing mechanism through which

textual elements convey meaning by
virtue of their dependence on other
relevant texts.”

Horizontal Vertical
Intertextuality Intertextuality
 Reference to another  Reference without
text either by quoting leaving a trace.
or paraphrasing**.
 Example:

Horizontal Intertextuality Vertical Intertextuality

 Tex
re

tm
Gen

atte
Horizontal Vertical

r
Discourse
WHAT IS TEXT?

 “ Any passage-spoken or written, of

whatever length, that does form a unified
whole […] A text is a unit of language in use.
It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or
a sentence; and it is not defined by its size
[…] A text is best regarded as a SEMANTIC
unit; a unit not of form but of meaning.”
WHAT IS TEXT?

 “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.”
TEXT SHIFTS

 Texts rhetorical purposes/ modes.

 Text Shifts Rhetorical Purposes Shifts

 How might this happen?

 «absolutely no doubt that»
Unimportant Omitted

• Certainly is seen as an emphatic device not a concessive connector

•***************************
WHAT IS GENRE?
 “‘genre’ is a conventionalized
form of speaking or writing which we
associate with particular ‘communicative
events’”.87

Fi
FO

ct
Po e Drama
L

n
io
KL

try
t io

n
O

ic
RE

nf
No
 Katharina Reiss
SO,

Genre
Strict Rules
and Norms
for What to
be said or
Written

Communicative
Form Defines Events
Genres Shifts
 Genres Shifts
NEWS REPORT

In parralel also

Pointed out/ insisted/ assured said

On the other hand meanwhile

Repetition
 Genres Shifts
Poor Translation

Negative
Interference from
MT
Why?
Unawareness of
Genres
WHAT IS DISCOURSE?
 “In their attempt to pursue a given rhetorical
purpose, within the dos and don’ts of a
particular genre, producers and receivers of
texts necessarily engage in the negotiation of
attitudinal meanings and the espousal or
rejection of a particular ideology
(e.g. Euro-scepticism, Thatcherism, feminism).”
WHAT IS DISCOURSE?

 “This attitudinal component which

exhibits a range of ideational, interpersonal
and textual values is what we shall now
specifically call discourse."
DISCOURSE SHIFTS
Text Genre

Language As Doing Something

enable
(Halliday)
The expression of an attitude

Discourse
DISCOURSE SHIFTS
ST
There was another soft
rustling, then silence.
She talked, mostly, and she
told me about modern
pictures and about painters.
she talked about what she
had written and what her
companion typed each day.
TT
She started to hear another
kind of rustling, then silence.
It was she who always talked
[actively], and thus talked to
me about modern pictures
and about painters.
she talked and
showed me [actively] the
many volumes of a
manuscript she was working
on and which her companion
was typing.
 UNIT B11
GENRE AND DISCOURSE
IN TRANSLATION
 OUTLINE
I. Introduction
II. Task 1 :
 The Three Sub-components of Context
 LSP & Specialized Translation
 The Notion of Multimodality

III. Task 2:
 Genre
 Genre & Specialized Translation

IV. Task 3:
 Discourse
 Discourse in Translation

V. Conclusion
 INTRODUCTION
 Text Typology is understood as a certain system of
classifying texts on the basis of the field they belong to,
their genre and purpose as well as the type of discourse. It
follows that there are several text types. Some of which
are texts proper (e.g. summaries), while others belong to
what we call genres (e.g. novels, eulogies, (even
translation can be seen as a genre in the abstract)), and
still others form part of discourse (e.g. textbooks,
historical book, etc).
TASK 1:
 The Three Sub-components of Context:
 Context :

 Context may refer to the circumstances that form the

setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms
of which it can be fully understood.
 It is also the parts of a discourse that surround a
word or passage and can throw light on its meaning.
THE THREE SUB-COMPONENTS OF CONTEXT :
 Context is divided into three sub-components,
namely field of discourse, tenor of discourse and
mode of discourse.
 Field of discourse: Setting is also comprised of
three components:
 Place & time
 Ends
 Subject matters
 Tenor of discourse: In systemic functional
linguistics, the term tenor refers to the participants
in a discourse, their relationships to each other, and
their purposes.
 Mode of Discourse (AKA Rhetorical Modes): It
describes the variety, conventions, and purposes of
the major kinds of language-based communication,
particularly writing and speaking.
LSP & SPECIALIZED TRANSLATION
 LSP: stands for Language for Specific Purposes, and it
has been used to refer to a branch of Applied
Linguistics which deals with a variety of language used
by members of a particular subject field, concentrating
on its genres, stylistic features and technical lexis. This
research is relevant for such problem-based areas as
language education, translation and the design of
specialized dictionaries.
 LSP has been primarily used to refer to two areas

within Applied Linguistics, namely

1. Education & Training

2. Research on Language Variation

 SPECIALIZED TRANSLATION:
 A term used in the translation business and in
translation schools. A text to be translated is
specialized if translating it calls for knowledge in
some field that would not normally be part of a
translator's or translation student's general
knowledge.
 MULTIMODALITY :
 The application of multiple literacies within one medium.
For example, understanding a televised weather forecast
(medium) involves understanding spoken language, written
language, weather specific language (such as temperature
scales), geography, and symbols (clouds, sun, rain, etc)
 Multimodality describes communication practices in terms
of the textual, aural, linguistic, spatial, and visual resources
used to compose messages
TASK 2:
 Genre:

 It refers to the type and structure of language typically used for a

particular purpose in a particular context.

 Two Types of Genre:

 Spoken.

 Written.

According to Kim Grego, genres are cognitive and

communicative models – or containers – featuring their own
specific sets of linguistic patterns.
GENRE SHIFTS IN TRANSLATION:
 Translation-oriented genre analysis has focused on
identifying differences in generic structures, conventions
and expectations across languages and cultures
(contrastive rhetoric, textology), as well as strategies for
dealing with generic differences between the source
language and the target language (genre fidelity, genre
violation). Another important area of research invesitgates
how genres affect the translators' decision-making
process.
 With genre being one of the main analytical tools
in discourse analysis, the growing interest in genre
(rather than text type) was a natural consequence
of the application of discourse analytical methods
to translation studies in the late 1980s and 1990s.
 MAIN CONTRIBUTORS :
 Hatim and Mason (1990, 1997),
 Neubert and Shreve (1992),
 Trosborg (1997, 2002).

Were the first to promote the use of the concept of

genre in translation studies, in particular in translator
training.
GENRE & SPECIALIZED TRANSLATION:

 The 1990s mark a shift in research into cross-linguistic differences

between comparable genres in the source language and the target

language, especially for specialized translation purposes.

 Genres are of relevence not only for translation theory but also for

translator training and practice in that the translator's specialization may

be limited to certain genres within the specialized domain, e.g. some

translators may translate only novels, poems, drama, financial

statements, etc. In reality, however, most translators handle more than

one genre.
TASK 3:
 Discourse:
 Generally, it refers to a variety of written & oral
manifestations which share common thematic or
structural features.
 Discourse, according to Bruce, is dispersion of texts
whose historical mode of inscription allows us to
describe them as a space of enunciative regularities.
 Discourse has often been examined under different
rubrics, but all share one common denominator:
human interaction through language should be
examined at both the macro and micro strata of
communication. Still, most models of discourse
analysis consider textual realizations by users
within particular contexts.
 DISCOURSE IN TRANSLATION:

 Discourse Analysis (D.A) is a discipline which concerns the

study of the relationship between language and the context in
which it is used. In other words, Discourse Analysis is a
branch of applied linguistics which investigates the study of
language in use. As McCarty explains (1978: p 5) “This field
of study grew out of work in different disciplines in 1960s
and 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology,
anthropology and sociology”.
 One of the most interesting fields of study which has been
recently affected by Discourse Analysis is a newly –born trend
called Translation studies. This new area of research which is
going from strength to strength delves into the systematic study
of translation. It is assumed that D.A and Translation studies
have much in common. Some of the areas of research which
have been affected by D.A are Halliday’s systematic functional
grammar, Julian House model of translation quality assessment
and Katherine Reisis text typology in translation.
CONCLUSION
 To sum up, genres are ‘conventionalized forms of texts
adjusted to the goals of social occasions, while discourses
reflect attitudes, even though genre may be a less important
variable than the social context of translation .
 Basil Hatim and Ian Mason (1990, 1997), UK-based
translation scholars, applied discourse analysis and critical
discourse analysis to their model of translation based on the
genre-text-discourse framework which reflects the socio-
textual practices of discourse communities.
 Hatim and Mason identify genre and genre
membership as key factors which affect the
translator's decision-making process.
EXPLORING TEXT SHIFTS
IN TRANSLATION
Unit C11
PRESENTED BY: Ouafae Aarab
 REGISTER

• Field (what) is the subject matter of the text.

• Tenor (who) is the relationship between those
involved in the communicative act, e.g. writer

It consists and reader, speaker and listener.

• Mode (how) refers to text construction, looking
of three at whether it is based on written or spoken

aspects: forms of communication.

TASK C11.1
 Example C11.1a English ST

Informative text
C11.1B BACK-TRANSLATION

The aspects of register are optimally preserved by

Example C11.1b.
 Basil Hatim shows that to establish real differences
or similarities, we must therefore invoke another
set of criteria to do with INTENTIONALITY.
 The pragmatic orientation of Example C11.1a is to
monitor a situation impartially by producing a
fairly detached summary, while that of Example
C11.1b is to manage a situation by arguing for the
merits or demerits of a particular scheme.
EXAMPLE C11.2A

 The above text is drawn from a Mills & Boon novel.

A salient feature of this narrative (and of the entire
novel from which it is drawn) is the predominantly
inanimate agency (E.g. Gabrielle’s ears strained)
 Mills & Boon tends to be heavy on the suppression
of human agency, deliberately letting actors other
than the human take over. There is also a clear
tendency to use what Carter and Nash (1990) call
‘core’ verbs.
EXAMPLE C11.2B
 Back-translation from Arabic of part of the above
passage:

 what strikes you in this back translation?

 In the back-translation, quite a number of the
inanimate subjects were turned into animate ones,
and many of the ‘core’ verbs lost their ‘coreness’.
DISCOURSE SHIFTS IN TRANSLATION