Communication Across Cultures

Translation Theory and Contrastive Text Linguistics

By (author) Prof. Basil Hatim

Publication date:

01 March 1997

Publisher

University of Exeter Press

ISBN-13: 9780859894906

While the literature on either contrastive linguistics or discourse analysis has grown immensely in the last twenty years, very little of it has ventured into fusing the two perspectives. Bearing in mind that doing discourse analysis without a contrastive base is as incomplete as doing contrastive analysis without a discourse base, the specific aim of this book is to argue that translation can add depth and breadth to both contrastive linguistics as well as to discourse analysis.

Authentic data from both spoken and written English is used throughout to add clarity to theoretical insights gained from the study of discourse processing. Each aspect of the model proposed for the analysis of texts is related separately to a problem of language processing and in domains as varied as translation, interpreting, language teaching etc. The global objectives pursued in this volume are the training of future linguists and the sensitization of users of language in general to the realities of discourse.

Figures

Preface

Arabic Transliteration System

Introduction

1. Contrastive Linguistic Decisions: the Need for Textual Competence

2. Foundation Disciplines

3. The Myth of the Single Register

4. Argumentation Across Cultures

5. Argumentation in Arabic Rhetoric

6. The Paragraph as a Unit of Text Structure

7. Background Information in Expository Texts

8. At the Interface Between Structure and Texture: the Textual Progression of Themes and Rhemes

9. Cataphora as a Textural Manifestation

10. Degree of Texture Explictiness

11. Emotiveness in Texts

12. Translating Direct Speech and the Dynamics of News Reporting

13. The Pragmatics of Politeness

14. Cultures in Contact

15. The Discourse of the Alienated

16. The Translation of Irony: a Discourse Perspective

17. The 'Other' Texts: Implications for Liaison Interpreting

Glossary of Contrastive Text Linguistics and Translation Terms

References

Index

"This book is a useful addition to the material currently available on Arabic/English contrastive linguistics and translation . . . It is full of interesting insights into the way modern Standard Arabic actually works, and the theoretical proposals and translation problems presented are typically intriguing and challenging, and presented in such a way as to stimulate further thought." (British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (2000), 27(1), 91-111)

"Communication across Cultures is an excellent application of contrastive textology to translation across two distant languages, worlds, cultures, ideologies, environments, and religions. Hatim's exposition is compelling and effective . . . The paperback edition is cheap enough to make this valuable book accessible to the wide number of people who ought to read it. The book will certainly inspire further research, particularly in relation to exploring Arabic approaches to the study of texts." (The Translator, 1999)

" . . . A fine book full of textual ideas and suggestions for further reflections." (IRAL, Vol. XXXVI/2, May 1998) ". . . A challenging book which . . . Will interest linguists, post-structuralists and translators of sophisticated texts in any language." (The Linguist, Vol. 36, No. 4, 1997)

"Introduces translation studies as an integral part of contrastive linguistics and discourse analysis, whose insights will both broaden and deepen research endeavours in these two areas. . . . This thought-provoking book counts as an indispensable reference in the contrastive linguistics rhetoric of English and Arabic from a translational perspective. It may be strongly recommended for advanced seminars on the interface between contrastive linguistics, discourse analysis, and translation studies." (Language, Culture & Curriculum, Vol. 13:2, 2000)