Tetiana Kovalevska

Vinnytsia Institute of Trade and Economics KNTEU, Ukraine

Pragmatic Failure in Consecutive Translation

Everybody knows it’s not just WHAT you say, It’s How you say it. But what if you are not the one delivering your message to the addressee? Consecutive interpreting is used to help people speaking different languages overcome the barriers to cross-cultural communication. But what accompanies consecutive translation at some point is pragmatic failure, which inevitably leads to misunderstanding. In consecutive interpreting, interpreters’ main task is to convey the possible meanings of the speakers. When the interpreter makes grammatical errors, native speakers seldom have difficulty understanding the meaning and the communication is likely to continue; however, pragmatic failures can lead to an unpleasant conversation because one speaker is apt to be irritated by pragmatically inappropriate meaning conveyed by the interpreter, which is assumed to be the other speaker’s original meaning.

Jenny Thomas defines pragmatic failure as such occurring on any occasion “on which H (the hearer) perceives the force of S’s (the speaker’s) utterance as other than S intended she or he should perceive it” [3, 94]. Thomas also offers the following cases to illustrate the point:

· H perceives the force of S's utterance as stronger or weaker than S intended s/he should perceive it;

· H perceives an utterance as an order which S intended s/he should perceive as a request;

· H perceives S's utterance as ambivalent where S intended no ambivalence;

· S expects H to be able to infer the force of his/her utterance, but is relying on the system of knowledge or beliefs which S and H do not share [3, 96].

On the basis of the nature of the failures, Thomas classified pragmatic failures into two categories: pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure.

The pragmalinguistic failure “ arises when the pragmatic force mapped by speakers onto a given utterance is systematically different from the force most frequently assigned to it by native speakers of the target language, or when speech act strategies are inappropriately transferred from Language1 to Language2” [3, 99]

Sociopragmatic failure occurs when the non-native speakers fail to choose the appropriate language because of lacking the knowledge of cultural differences according to Thomas [3, 100].

Pragmatic force, or illocutionary force in Speech Acts Theory of pragmatics, is the intended meaning for a given message. There are two major kinds of pragmatic force, implicit, below the surface, unstated, hidden between the lines, and explicit, on the surface and stated. It is important to identify the implicit forces as they appear in their various social contexts, because often the apparent intention of a message is not the same as the actual intent [2]. Thus, a pragmalinguistic failure in consecutive interpreting can be defined as the interpreter’s failure in conveying the intended meaning of the message as the result of the inappropriate use of language.

The causes of pragmalinguistic failure can be further subdivided into the following categories:

· inappropriate transfer of semantically identical structures;

· lack of knowledge on the contrasts between the source language and the target language;

· inappropriate choice of language style and language function [3].

Interpreters’ inappropriate transfer of some semantically identical structure from their mother tongue is the main cause of pragmalinguistic failure. For example, the common opening salutation of both formal and informal letters in English is “Dear X”, which can be easily translated into Ukrainian as “дорогий” in case of an informal letter, but never so in case of a formal letter. The appropriate way for the interpreter to translate “Dear X” in case of a formal letter would be “шановний”. In order to make the proper choice, the interpreter should know, that while English “dear” is applicable in both formal and informal correspondence, Ukrainian translation demands “дорогий” in informal one, as it bears an emotional connotation, and “шановний” in formal one, which has no such connotation.

The lack of knowledge on the contrasts between the source language and the target language can be easily illustrated by the following example: while English word “tonight” contains the meaning of “this evening”, its Ukrainian equivalent is “сьогодні ввечері”, which would seem redundant to an English speaker, as it literary means “today tonight”.

The pragmalinguistic failures can also occur as the result of inappropriate choice of language style and funciton. Language can perform seven basic functions: phatic, directive, informative, interrogative, expressive, evocative and performative [1].

The native speakers intuitively change their speech from one variety or style to another, depending on the situation. Different styles should be adopted in different situations and to fulfill different purposes. The interpreters with a good command of the foreign language may also make mistakes in it. For example, the Ukrainian equivalent of the English dialogue “Would you like some tea?– Please.” would sound “Чи не бажаєте чаю? – Так, дякую.” , Ukrainian version literary being “Don’t you want some tea? – Yes, thank you.”. The first remark of the Ukrainian variant would seem too impolite for the English speaker, while it is a perfectly conventional formula for offering beverage in Ukrainian. Besides, while the English “Please” is self-sufficient in the dialogue, meaning the speaker would like some tea, in Ukrainian “yes” is likely to appear to avoid ambiguity and “please” is likely to be rendered as “thank you”, which is more typical in Ukrainian in the case, when the speaker agrees to the offer.

Sociopragmatic failure is caused by mismatches which arise from intercultural different assessment within some parameters affecting linguistic choice: social distance and relative rights and obligation etc. [3]. To be more specific, sociopragmatic failure in consecutive interperting is a failure that stems from the interpreter’s unawareness of the different sociocultural rules in source language and target language societies.

In fact, the distinction between pragmalinguistic failure and sociopragmatic failure is not always clear-cut. Viewed from different perspectives, the same pragmatic failure may be regarded either as a pargmallinguistic failure or as a sociopragmatic failure.

To sum it up, pragmatic failures of both kinds are inevitable and should be regarded as a regular part of interpreting practice. One of the main tasks of the interpreter is to minimize the instances of the pragmatic failures. Since consecutive interpreters start interpreting after the speakers finish their speech, they have time to analyze what the speakers intend to mean, thus having chance to avoid mistakes in rendering the pragmatics of the utterance. Only with a good command of both linguistic knowledge and cultural knowledge can interpreters fulfill the task of helping the speakers from different cultural background communicate successfully.

References:

1. Crystal D. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language. – Cambridge: CUP, 1995. – 490p.

2. Leech,G. Principles of Pragmatics. – London: Longman, 1983. –250 p.

3. Thomas, J. Cross-culture pragmatic failure. – Applied linguistics, 1983, 4 (2). –92-112 pp.