Abstract
Newspaper and advertising texts have traditionally been 'difficult children' for translation studies to deal with, mainly for one thing: they seem to be systematically norm-flouting. In fact, in traditional approaches, they were customarily quoted as typical examples of 'free translation', 'unfaithfulness' or, in some cases, out right creation of a new text. Although it is true that these texts present certain translation peculiarities, this is by no means a random process of transfer where translators set their 'wild imagination' to work. Quite on the contrary, it is argued here that it is precisely these texts that demonstrate how systematically translators are capable of forecasting the average target recipient and of adapting the texts to reader expectations by fulfilling pragmatic and semiotic considerations in the process of transfer; these seem to be the two guiding parameters for the occurrence of 'translation incidences' in newspaper binomials. To prove this claim, we present the results obtained from a descriptive study carried out with a selection of semiotic and pragmatic factors on a corpus of newspaper texts published by The Guardian and their subsequent translations into Spanish, published by El Mundo.
Highlights
According to current translation theories, a translation would be defined as any text accepted as received as such within a given polysystem regardless of its quality, fidelity to the original, or even the existence of an original
Source-oriented approaches are increasingly disregarded to favour targetoriented2 studies (Toury, 1985: 25; Snell-Hornby, 1988: 44; Baker, 1993: 239), and this process has had an immediate impact on the concept of equivalence, which is understood as the relationship existing between a source text and a target text which is "redefined for each and every act of translation" (Chamosa González, 1997: 44,45, my translation)
Whereas it is common to find single sentences as text closures in English, ttiis is not —as yet— a textual accepted genre convention in Spanish. This is why in all the texts under study, whenever there was afinalsentence functioning as closure in the source text, it was systematically merged with the previous paragraph in the target text
Summary
According to current translation theories, a translation (as a product) would be defined as any text accepted as received as such within a given polysystem regardless of its quality, fidelity to the original, or even the existence of an original The inclusión of conceptual, textual, pragmatic, semiotic and communicative models of translation in the current teaching syllabus, as many theorists have long been claiming (Rabadán Álvarez & Fernández Polo, 1996; Rabadán Álvarez, 1996; Hatim & Masón, 1990 and 1997; Hurtado Albir, 1996a, 1996b and 1999; Neubert & Shreve, 1992 to quote but a few), would pave the way for a more open and realistic approach to equivalence, which would contémplate, as Toury had foreseen as early as 1985, the inclusión of what were traditionally called 'anomalous equivalences' or 'exceptions to the rule', such as 'zero solutions' or the creationof linguistic material from < 0 > (Toury, 1985: 25) Armed with these basic principies and with an open mind, it is our aún here to approach the motivations and patterns underlying the concept of equivalence applied in the text binomials studied in the corpus, which is made up of STs published by The Guardian and their translations published by El Mundo
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
