How to obtain information about the dimension of space

As a rule, information about the dimension of space can be found in the text environment in the form of the place of publication, the name of the publishing company, the first edition details, or newspaper headlines, or in the secondary literature. Sometimes, it is presupposed to be part of the receiver's general background knowledge (e.g. in the case of publications by international organizations or institutions or by world-famous writers). From the intratextual point of view, certain linguistic features may provide a clue as to where the text was written or intended to be read.

Other clues may be obtained from the information about the sender (e.g.: Where did s/he live, work, etc.?), the addressed audience (e.g.: What culture-specific information may be presupposed to be known by the receiver?), medium (e.g.: Is it bound to a certain culture?), or motive (e.g.: Is it a culture-specific motive?).

Checklist

The following questions may help to find out the relevant information about the place of communication:

1.Where was the text produced or transmitted? Is any information on the dimension of space to be found in the text environment? Is any information on space presupposed to be part of the receiver's general background knowledge?

2.What clues as to the dimension of space can be inferred from other situational factors (sender, receiver, medium, motive)?

3.What conclusions can be drawn from the data and clues obtained about the dimension of space as regards

(a)other extratextual factors (sender, receiver, medium, motive) and

(b)the intratextual features?

Lecture 3. The relevance of the dimension of time and text function

Time of communication

Every language is subject to constant change in its use and its norms. So the time of text production is, first and foremost, an important pre-signal for the historical state of linguistic development the text represents. This applies not only to language use as such (from the sender's point of view) but also to the historical comprehension of linguistic units (from the receiver's point of view), which is itself bound to a certain period or epoch, since linguistic changes are usually determined by socio-cultural changes.

Moreover, this process of change affects the area of text types. Certain genres are linked to a particular period (e.g. oracles and epic poems as opposed to weather reports and television plays), and, of course, genre conventions also undergo change. Depending on the age of the text, the receiver/translator may have totally different expectations as to the typical features of the text type in question. S/he may even expect obsolete forms that are not used any more.

Example

Being asked what they thought to be the typical syntactic feature of a German recipe, the majority of competent native speakers of German mention the subjunctive of the present tense: "Man nehme...", whereas modern German recipes are written exclusively in infinitive constructions. Today, thesubjunctive is used only to give a recipe an old-fashioned touch, as if it was from Grandmother s Recipe Book.

In addition to the linguistic aspects, the dimension of time can throw some light on the communicative background of the sender and the addressed audience, and thus provide a clue to understanding the sender's intention. In the case of text types of topical interest, such as news items and news reports, political commentaries, election speeches, weather reports, etc., the dimension of time can be the decisive criterion as to whether there is any point in a text being translated at all, or, if there is, under which circumstances and with which skopos it may be worthwhile.

In connection with the dimension of space, deictic elements refer directly to the situation. Like spatial deixis, temporal deixis can only be interpreted correctly if the receiver knows the time of text production.

Example

In the International Herald Tribune of January 9, 1990, we find the following notice: "NEW YORK - The hopes entertained that the grippe was relaxing have been destroyed by the mortality returns of yesterday (Jan. 7), which show an increase of nearly 100 over the toll given three days ago, with 134 deaths traceable to the epidemic." No need to be alarmed: the notice is to be found under the heading "100, 75 and 50 years ago", and dates from 1890.

However, it may also be necessary to know the genre conventions in this respect, as the following example shows.

Example

In Madras, I was surprised to read in the morning paper lying on my breakfast table that "there was a train crash this afternoon". Of course, the text had probably been written late at night, and the author was quite right to say "this afternoon" - but in a German newspaper (and normally in British and American papers as well) the author would have written yesterday afternoon because it seems to be a convention here for newspaper writers to imagine themselves in the situation of the reader who receives the text the next morning, whereas obviously the Indian readers are expected to put themselves in the writer's shoes.

Sometimes it may be wise for the translator to check on the validity of the information given in the source text (if possible) or at least to point out to the initiator that some information in the text may not be up to date.

Example

In some tourist information leaflets, the information on opening hours, prices etc. or warnings such as "is being repaired" (cf. example 3.1.4./2a) are not up to date. For example, the latest (translated) published information on the famous Altamira caves in Northern Spain specifies that the caves can be visited by anybody "on request". When I went there to have a look at the prehistoric paintings, I found out that there was a pavilion with beautiful reproductions of the paintings - but the caves had not been open to the public for the past few years. Only persons presenting proof of a particular research project were allowed to enter.

The dimension of time influences directly or indirectly the dimensions of sender (e.g.: Is s/he a contemporary of the receiver/translator or not? What situational presuppositions can be made?), intention, audience (expectations, temporal distance between ST and TT addressees), medium (historical or modern forms of medium), motive (e.g. topicality), and, above all, intratextual features (e.g. presuppositions, historical language variety, deictic elements).