Exploring Pragmatics and Phonetics for Successful Translation

Abstract

Translation Studies has already started to interact with Pragmatics, as part of the inescapable interdisciplinary character which solid research in this field should take on. This paper will claim that exploring Pragmatics further from the standpoint of TS will probably provide more revealing insights and/or theoretical tools for translation research and practice. Similarly, the need to pay more attention to a discipline which has hardly been explored by translation researchers or practitioners -Phonetics and Phonology- will also be stressed. Taking into consideration the role played by phonetic features for communicative purposes in the different languages -e.g. intonation features in English vs Spanish- is of crucial importance in translation, for there is considerable divergence in this regard.
The exploration of these two fields will be particularly revealing about the linguistic and pragmatic differences that translators/translation researchers are constantly faced with, while providing them with some safe ground for their choices/ conclusions along their complex path. This should ultimately have a positive impact on translation teaching too, contributing some valuable information and instruments of reflection in the practice of various important aspects in cross-linguistic verbal communication.