How to obtain information about the medium

If the source text is not available in its original medium, but only in a copy or typescript (which actually occurs fairly frequently in translation practice), the translator must insist on having detailed information about the medium, as it is rather difficult to identify the medium from intratextual analysis alone. There may be some clues in the dimensions of the sender and his/her intention or motive; time and place, too, sometimes narrow the field of possible media. In some cases, the choice of medium is determined by convention since there are favourite media for particular communicative purposes in every culture (e.g. posters or newspaper advertisements for product promotion, leaflets for tourist information, etc.).

Checklist

The following questions may help to find out the relevant information about the dimension of medium or channel:

1.Has the text been taken from a spoken or a written communication? By which medium was it transmitted?

2.Which medium is used to present the text to the target audience? Is there any extratextual information on the medium?

3. What clues as to medium or channel can be inferred from other situational factors (sender, intention, motive, function)?

4. What conclusions can be drawn from the data and clues obtained about the medium as regards

(a)other extratextual dimensions, such as the addressees and their expectations, motive, and function, and

(b)the intratextual features?

Place of communication

The dimension of space refers not only to the place of text production, i.e. the actual situation of the sender and the text producer, but also, at least in connection with certain media, to the place of text reception. It cannot be equated with the dimension of medium. The dimension of space is of particular importance where languages exist in various geographical varieties (such as the Spanish spoken in Spain as opposed to Latin America or even Peru, Mexico, Argentina etc., and the English spoken in Great Britain as opposed to the United States, Australia, India etc..

Example

The Portuguese version of the information brochure published by the Tourist Office of Munich was accepted unhesitatingly as being correct and appropriate by a group of Brazilian teachers in a seminar on translation, whereas their colleagues from Portugal classified the text as "more or less understandable, but unidiomatic and not conforming to normal usage". In this case, an analysis of the dimension of place could not throw any light on this problem because the text had been produced in Munich for "Portuguese"-speaking receivers. As the name of the translator was not specified in the text imprint, the participants in the seminar could only assume that the translator - whether he or she was a native speaker or not - had used the Brazilian variety of Portuguese. The sender/initiator (the Tourist Office) had probably not been aware of the problem. For the German version of this brochure, however, the dimension of place (of reception) would suggest that the text is written in the variety used in Germany (as opposed to Austria or Switzerland).

In addition to the linguistic aspects, the dimension of space can be important for the comprehension and interpretation of a text in that the place of text production may be regarded as the centre of a "relative geography". The distance or significance of other places must often be judged in relation to this centre. The translator has to take into account that the "relative geography" from the standpoint of TT production may be quite different from that of ST production.

Example

a)The difference in cultural or social level could be called "downgrade" or "upgrade", depending on whether it is seen from the lower or the higher level.

b)The distance between London and Liverpool is much "shorter" as perceived by a Texan than by an Englishman,

c) The names of places, areas and tribes listed in Act 2, 9-11, do not make sense as a description of the "horizon of the Jewish world" unless Syria is assumed to be the place of text production, and not Jerusalem, where the Pentecostal event is set.

What to find out about the dimension of space

In the dimension of space we have to consider not only linguistic aspects but also cultural and political conditions. A text published in a country where literature is censored must be read "in another light" than a text whose author has not been subject to any restrictions, since authors under censorship often write "between the lines".

In addition to the name of the state or country the text comes from, it may even be necessary to know the exact area or town of text production in order to be able to interpret the deictic elements correctly. This applies to the ST as well as to the TT, which would normally be read in the target cultural environment.

Example

In the case of newspaper articles, the place where the paper is published is normally taken to be the place of text production as well. Therefore, readers of the Sunday Times can assume that the information "Mortgage cut in sight" refers to Great Britain, while all articles on the first page of the international edition of the Herald Tribune have to indicate the place the article refers to: "U.S. Banks Lower Prime Interest Rate", "In Leipzig, Protesters Fear Resurgence of Communist Power", "Tamil Guerrilla Army Nears Goal in Sri Lanka", etc. If correspondents send their reports from somewhere else, the place of text production is usually specified together with the author's name ("By David Binder, New York Times Service, Bucharest") or at the beginning of the text ("LEIPZIG, East Germany"), so that the reader can interpret a sentence as "Now everything is quiet around here again" correctly. In a translation, too, the dimension of place has to be specified either externally (e.g. in an introduction) or internally (e.g. "Now everything is quiet around Leipzig again").

Information about the place of text production also gives an indication of the cultural affiliation of the sender and/or the addressees, the medium (in the case of culture-bound or culture-specific media), the motive (at least where combined with the dimension of time) arid the in-tratextual features (such as regional dialect or deictic expressions).