Pragmatic Markedness Equivalence Principle

This dissertation is a tentative study of translation equivalence based upon Markedness Theory, highlighting our Pragmatic Markedness Equivalence Principle, which is a new approach to translation evaluation. The entire dissertation is made up of 7 chapters, the first 5 dealing with linguistic and pragmatic markedness, Chapter 6 elucidating our principle and its evaluative power as demonstrated in the NEV comparisons of two or more translation versions.In this world of somewhat asymmetrical symmetry, usual, common, first learned, easily accessible, expectable entities and their corresponding expressions are unmarked items/terms ([U]), while unusual, uncommon, later learned, inaccessible, unexpected things and their sayings are called marked items/terms ([M]).Supposing the processing effort (X) for the interpretation of an utterance is N, then,(1) if X equals (=) default value N, then utterance is [U], easy to process; (2) if X almost equals (-) N, utterance is weakly marked ([M ~ ]), not hardto process; (3) if X is bigger or smaller than (>/<) N, utterance is moderately marked([M+]), a little hard to process; (4) if X is much bigger or much smaller (>+/<+) than N, utterance isstrongly marked, hard to process.Eugene A. Nida's Dynamic Equivalence has been influential ever since the 1960's. Equivalence, in spite of the term, does not mean equality or identicalness of meaning, but approaching sameness or nearness of function or effect.The highest standard for our PMEP is a full representation of the ST in markedness value, in M-Term numbers and degrees so that TT is read by TT readers in the same manner as ST is read by ST readers. This standard, like Nida's, is but an ideal, as explained by the 12 Axioms of PMEP (see 6.2) and the following pragmatic-markedness equivalence model (ibid.):Section 6.7 is designed to demonstrate how the PMEP can be used in the comparison of two versions (by 杨宪益 & 戴乃迭 and by Hawkes) of the translation of Chapter 110 of The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin and Gao E, macroscopically in terms of a) Word-Class and Syntactic U/M Opposition, b) Negation and Markedness, c) Pragmatic U/M Opposition -Speech Act and Principles, and Indirectness. To be specific (at the sacrifice of brevity perhaps), our comparison should cover all M-Value Parameters (M-Parameters) like PRINTING, WORDING, ADDRESS TERM, TOPICALITY (part of STRUCTURE), NEGATION (part of STRUCTURE), STRUCTURE, IMPLICATION, (PRAGMATIC)PRESUPPOSITION, POLITENESS, RHETORIC (part of INDIRECTNESS), VAGUENESS (part of INDIRECTNESS), INDIRECTNESS, and so on and so forth, so long as they count in the evaluation of M-Value of TT. The following table serves as illustration: The ST column is supposedly found with a certain text that is translated; the TTl column is assumed to be the M-Values and then its NEV calculation of a certain translation version, whilst the TT2 column is the M-Values and then NEV calculation of another translation.Our inference is that TT1 is more equivalent to ST (better) than TT2.Like Nida's, our PMEP may sound prescriptive, but we are not so concerned with the vague effect or effect equivalence as with pragmatic markedness equivalence, which is more objective, more quantitatively tangible, and more applicable.