CBS Guest Lecture: The Significance of Pragmatics in Translation

Title: The Significance of Pragmatics in Translation

Date: April 22, 2022

Time: 15:00 (Hong Kong time)

Abstract:

Although research into pragmatics began in the first half of the twentieth century, it was not until the second half that it became a full-fledged discipline. Translation scholars and practitioners soon acknowledged the significance of pragmatics, as attested by the work of authors such as Eugene Nida and Leo Hickey. This talk will discuss the importance of conversation analysis, speech act theory and politeness theory, among others, for the translation practice, and concepts such as inference and implicature, as well as locution and illocution. Originally, the work of Austin, Searle, Grice and others focused on the English language. However, in the twenty-first century, we can talk about an intercultural turn that also considers differences, difficulties and challenges in communication when more than one language is involved. This includes translation. Translation scholars have illustrated this in studies that analyze, for example, the translation of swearwords.

About the speaker:

Roberto A. Valdeón is a Full Professor in English Studies and Translation at the University of Oviedo, Spain, and a member of the Academia Europaea. He is the author of about 200 publications, including contributions to Language and Intercultural Communication, Across Languages and Cultures, Meta, Intercultural Pragmatics, Terminology, The Translator, Journal of Pragmatics, Target, Babel, Journalism, and Translating and Interpreting Studies. He has guest-edited special issues of Target, Meta, and Language and Intercultural Communication. He is Editor-in-Chief of Perspectives Studies in Translation Theory and Practice and General Editor of the Benjamins Translation Library. He is the author of Translation and the Spanish Empire in the Americas and has co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Spanish Translation Studies among other books.