文档介绍：John Benjamins pany
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© 2008. John Benjamins pany
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Outlining a new linguistic theory
of translation
Massimiliano Morini
University of Udine — Italy
In the following article, an outline of a new linguistic theory of translation
is given that can be of use to theorists and practitioners alike. The linguistic
theories of the 1950s and 1960s were too normative and a-contextual to account
for all the forms and aspects of translation; while the ‘skeptical turn’ of Transla-
tion Studies has eeded in unmasking the ideological quality of all theories,
but cannot produce a ‘ics’ of translation, an account of how translation
is materially done. A new linguistic approach can produce such a practical ac-
count, provided that the pragmatic level of analysis is given a prominent role and
that a touch of non-scientific skepticism is maintained.
Keywords: translation theory, translation practice, linguistics, pragmatics, text
acts, cooperation, politeness, deixis
In what follows, a practice-based, and pragmatically-oriented, linguistic theory of
translation is proposed. Formulating a linguistic theory of translation is, on the
face of it, as obvious an operation as writing an ichthyological description of fish:
translations are linguistic objects, and