On Appropriateness In Translation

Appropriateness is an indispensable and constitutive feature of a good translation. Appropriateness in translation is understood in both a narrow sense and a broad one. In a narrow sense, it usually refers to naturalness and fluency of the translation at different linguistic levels within the context of the target language and culture. In a broad sense, it means that the translation should be linguistically, stylistically and pragmatically natural and acceptable within the context of the target language and culture. In other words, it involves linguistic appropriateness, stylistic appropriateness and pragmatic appropriateness. Linguistic appropriateness is equal to appropriateness in translation in the narrow sense. Stylistic appropriateness in translation varies with the text type of the source text and the intended function(s) of the target text. To put it in another way, whether the source-text stylistic features should be well preserved or changed according to the general stylistic conventions of the target language and culture in the target text depends on the text type of source text and the intended function(s) of the target text. Pragmatic appropriateness in translation means that the translation should be pragmalinguistically and sociopragmatically acceptable to the target readers within the context of the target language and culture. But traditionally, appropriateness in translation merely focuses on stylistic appropriateness, with a stress on stylistic faithfulness to the original.Appropriateness is a basic and important aspect of translation. First of all, it has an immediate and great impact upon good readability and acceptability of the translation. More importantly, it largely decides on the achievement of the translation skopos. Besides, it also relates to the accomplishment of the fundamental translation purpose of serving the target readers and promoting communication and understanding across cultures. It is mentioned here and there in translation assessment and translation review. But this basic and important yet often neglected aspect of translation lacks in-depth studies and it is worth the efforts to have a close look at it.The research into appropriateness in translation has both theoretical value and practical significance. In theory, the research helps to explain from a new perspective some translation phenomena which were traditionally inexplicable. In practice, the research is beneficial to improve readability and acceptability of the translation in the target-culture context and hence the translation quality, which helps better serve the target readers and promote cross-cultural communication.This thesis, based on skopos theory of Katherina Reiss, Hans Vermeer and Christiane Nord, and related studies of contextual theory, semantics, stylistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, communication across cultures and so on, attempts to explore appropriateness in translation from the following three aspects: (1) linguistic appropriateness; (2) stylistic appropriateness; and (3) pragmatic appropriateness.