Semantic and pragmatic parameters of meaning

Abstract

Abstract This paper argues for the view that the sociolinguistic operations and procedures required for recording a source text A into a target text B must relate to semantico-pragmatic, language neutral parameters of meaning that become apparent when contrasting semantically and pragmatically equivalent texts. The data collected for experimental investigation consisted of a set of announcements, delivered in Greek and in English to passengers on board of an aircraft and assumed to be semantically, pragmatically and functionally equivalent within the respective socio-cultural frames. A contrastive analysis of these pairs of texts indicates that the semantic-pragmatic parameters of meaning affecting the orientation of encoded messages in the particular discourse type in the two languages appear as binary distinctions between addressee and speaker, transaction participant and transaction setting, personal direct reference and impersonal indirect reference, cause and effect, etc. The view may thus be entertained that the conceptual framework accounting for sociolinguistic appropriateness is identical to that accounting for linguistic meaning and discourse organization. As regards the contrastive analysis of texts, it is proposed that, once identified, such parameters of meaning can constitute a language neutral tertium comparationis at the level of discourse. Also, in relation to the production of translated texts, such parameters may serve to focus the translator's attention on those aspects of the message whose transfer to another language requires some kind of negotiation between two different socio-cultural frames.