The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Pragmatics

Vagueness-specificity in English–Greek scientific translation

Maria Sidiropoulou

Introduction

The study presented in this chapter intends to highlight that interaction between pragmatics and translation studies may benefit both disciplines bearing consequences for pedagogical practice. It tackles the “vagueness-specificity” pragmatic variable in English–Greek academic translation. It provides manifestations of phenomena which materialise the variable across English and Greek parallel data, such as in/definiteness, logical discourse connection, spatio-temporal deixis and lexical manifestations of the variable. The study involves three case studies designed to (1) examine in/definite and no-article use in parallel and comparable economic science discourse, (2) identify how quality face enactment (politeness theory) is performed in parallel academic discourse by observing a narrow set of vagueness-specificity shifts in English–Greek political science discourse translation and (3) provide independent evidence that tendencies in TTs meet expectations of target readers. Findings are also confirmed by a comparable sample of historiographical discourse. If shifts in target production seem to meet expectations of the target academic readership, then pragmatically-inspired research in translation studies can improve target version acceptability, enhance awareness of cross-cultural variation and limit the effect of “passive familiarity with hegemonic English”, which the target production of less widely spoken languages may display. The study also highlights the potential of translation studies to enlighten research in pragmatics.

1 Vagueness-specificity in pragmatics

Eriksen (2001) assumes that there is a direction in cultural history from the concrete to the abstract brought about by advances like printing technology, the invention of the clock, general purpose abstract money etc. Yet, as societies are becoming increasingly abstract “traditional forms of knowledge exist side by side with the modern ones” (2001: 42). The study reported on in this chapter addresses manifestations of concrete/abstract or specificity/vagueness values in discourse makeup, as identified in translation practice, to highlight the significance of a pragmatics-inspired perspective in translation studies.

Vagueness and specificity are values relating to the degree of abstraction cultures and languages tolerate in constructing reality. In painting, specificity may be manifested in the details of Japanese drawings and vagueness in the brush strokes of impressionist paintings. In linguistics, the phenomenon may overlap with deixis and the degree of salience or accessibility a contextual entity receives in discourse. John Lyons (1977) argues that deixis (person, spatio-temporal, social, discourse or other) is an egocentric phenomenon grammaticalised and lexicalised in language, and cross-cultural variation seems to derive from the fact that speakers relate aspects of reality to their own viewpoint very differently.

If the specificity-vagueness variable is manifested at the level of discourse cohesion (discourse deixis), the way cohesiveness is implemented may vary across languages. This seems to hold between English and German: House (2015) and Steiner (2015) suggest that the so-called linking constructions differ considerably between English and German and that these differences may limit English influence on German discourse norms via translation.

Societal and cognitive aspects of pragmatic theory may account for variation pertaining to deixis and the vagueness-specificity variable across languages. Societal pragmatics (e.g. politeness theory, Brown & Levinson, 1978/1987) would assume the specificity value manifests itself through the “speaker’s concern for the hearer” (positive politeness), arising from the speaker’s concern to assist the hearer with processing. Vagueness would be motivated by fear of “speaker imposition on hearer” (negative politeness) and the concern for allowing hearers freedom to retrieve meaning for themselves.

Cognitive theory makes use of Idealized Cognitive Models (ICMs), the mental representations of context in a speaker’s mind, to account for the connection between language and the mind, e.g. the analogy LOVE IS WAR is an ICM (Lakoff, 1987; Ariel 1998; Marmaridou, 2000). Cognitive theory would suggest that, when specificity prevails, certain discourse entities are making themselves more accessible in the speakers’ ICMs. The tendency may be manifested in discourse through heightened specificity. Grice’s (1975) Co-operative Principle suggests that the vagueness-specificity binary would arise from different observations of the maxim of quantity (make your contribution as informative as required) or the maxim of manner (avoid obscurity of expression and ambiguity). If what is ambiguous and obscure varies across cultures, the level of vagueness-specificity in discourse may vary too. In Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) Relevance Theory, the psychological relevance of speakers being specific or vague about contextual entities may also be motivated by speakers’ assumption that the information they are offering is relevant enough to be worth the audience’s attention.

A preference for specificity may be interpreted as an attempt for ambiguity avoidance. In Hofstede and Hofstede’s (2005) model of variation in communicative style dimensions across cultures, the specificity-vagueness binary may relate to the “uncertainty avoidance/tolerance” dimension. Although Hofstede and Hofstede’s model attempts to account for social behaviour and beliefs (in the family, in the market, in society etc), a parallel could possibly be drawn with the vagueness-specificity variable in discourse: uncertainty avoidance may be paralleled to enforced specificity in discourse, while uncertainty tolerance to vagueness (Sidiropoulou, 2012).

As the study will show, English–Greek translation practice provides ample evidence of variation along the vagueness-specificity continuum, with Greek rather displaying a preference for specificity, and English showing relatively more appreciation for vagueness. This may not be necessarily grammatical in the traditional sense; it may reveal a wider pragmatic perception of what may be appropriate cross-culturally. The following shift seems to be a vague/specific manifestation of a time span discursive representation e.g. the UK version of the new MINI Convertible webpage informs clients that the new electrical hood mechanism needs less than 20 seconds to open and the Greek homepage heightens specificity by opting for just 15 seconds (Sidiropoulou, 2018). Variation seems to manifest itself in transfer situations in various genres and in both translation directions, English–Greek and Greek–English. One may hypothesise that the English–Greek translation direction will show that there is a noticeable tendency for specificity in the Greek version. If the specificity value manifests itself in the opposite direction, in the Greek version of Greek–English parallel data, this may be evidence that the preference for specificity in the Greek version of the data is not exclusively a result of some explicitation tendency in translation. Thus, translation practice may be hypothesised to eloquently point towards pragmatically significant points of intercultural variation.

The study primarily addresses anthropological variation across languages (or genres) and does not suggest that critical considerations have no impact on the manifestation of the vagueness-specificity variable: there may be critical considerations which may motivate vagueness in the Greek version of parallel data for a reason (power relations in political discourse, mass auditor considerations in audiovisual translation etc), but this potential is outside the scope of this study.

The vagueness-specificity variable is relevant to translation practice and bears consequences for translation training. Awareness of cross-cultural pragmatically oriented variation is of paramount importance in translator-training settings (especially in the L1–L2 direction) and in the FL language classroom and syllabus design. It can boost intercultural awareness in translator trainees (and FL learners). For instance, translators in the Greek–English direction would be advised to curb their impetus for definiteness in the target language (English). Greek students who write their dissertations in English are likely to favour specificity due to mother tongue interference. They may not be producing ungrammatical structures but they seem to create an odd effect in English by overemphasising specificity over some degree of vagueness, which may be more preferable in English. Baker (2011) suggests that some cultures have had difficulty in understanding the Scriptures because of the information overload they display. Specificity may therefore tally with information overload.

Questions to be asked in the study are: What are some manifestations of specificity in Greek target versions of texts? Are vagueness/specificity markers traceable in original English/Greek text production, i.e., through comparable English and Greek data? Are adjusted markers in target versions in agreement with local taste? Are there traces of the binary “English vagueness vs. Greek specificity” in the translational direction Greek-to-English? If found, this would make it possible to distinguish the preference for what is understood as specificity from the translatorial practice of explicitation. Are there limitations in the approach the study takes? In what way could English–Greek translators resist the globalising influence of English?

2 Methodological considerations

The study makes use of parallel and comparable data to ensure that tendencies observed in translational data are traceable in the original text production of the target environment. A third source of data is native speaker insight in the target environment. The sources of data complement each other, in that the comparable data confirm that the parallel ones can point towards tendencies that are traceable in original text production in the target environment, while questionnaire results show that the tendencies observed in the translated versions of texts meet the expectations of readers and local taste or native insight.

The study first provides instances of the vagueness-specificity variable across English–Greek parallel data in various genres (economics, political science, historiography, press), manifested through various phenomena: in/definite articles, logical discourse connection, spatio-temporal deixis, adverbial movement and thematisation and lexical manifestations of the variable. It starts with comparing the use of in/definite articles (3.1) and logical connection (3.2) in ST economic discourse and its Greek target version. The study also shows that original Greek economic discourse prefers a higher degree of definiteness than translated economic discourse does. Spatio-temporal deixis is observed in English–Greek parallel press data (3.3), while adverbial movement (3.4) and lexical manifestation of specificity are also observed in the Greek version of parallel data.

The study then narrows down the set of phenomena, by focusing on logical discourse connection, spatio-temporal deixis and adverbial movement/thematisation, and attempts to show that the transfer of these phenomena across English–Greek political science discourse translation may vary diachronically, with certain TTs enforcing the adverbial cohesive network (namely how texture is created through adverbs and/or adverbial clauses), and others toning down adverbial cohesiveness, by using a limited set of relevant devices. This diversified implementation of cohesiveness is claimed to manifest a shift in mediation attitude. One attitude makes sure that the full force of the adverbial connective network is made good use of, in agreement with local taste in the target environment. Another tones down the connectivity potential, in passive familiarity with English. With the cumulative effect which translation discourses may have on local linguistic identities (Bennett, 2012), the target Greek versions seem to either resist the “vagueness” of ST discourse connection (1983 and 2005 samples), or allow a “passive familiarity with English” attitude in the Greek TTs (1989 and 2000 samples). A “passive familiarity with English” attitude, which triggers the weakened connective network, is expected to impoverish (“deterioralise” Tomlinson, 1999) the texture of Greek translated political science discourse, because

• as the study shows below, native speakers of Greek overwhelmingly valorise the enforced/specific cohesive network over the weakened/vague one, and because

• comparable 2000-word samples of English and Greek historiographical discourse confirm preference for enforced specificity in Greek.

Translation studies is thus shown to be making a considerable contribution to pragmatically-oriented research, in that it makes available evidence from a relatively new discipline to pragmatic agendas. Likewise insights from pragmatics (e.g. the vagueness-specificity variable) seem to enhance awareness of variation worth focusing upon in translation studies.

3 Manifestations of the vagueness-specificity variable through English–Greek translation

As suggested, accentuating specificity in the Greek version of English–Greek parallel data may be manifested in the use of a set of phenomena, grammaticalised or not, as in/definite articles, discourse connection, spatio-temporal deictic markers and lexically. Subsections below present instances showing higher specificity in the Greek target version.

3.1 In/definite articles

A grammaticalised manifestation of the specificity value in Greek might indicate a higher preference for definiteness. Some occurrences are obligatory and non-negotiable (e.g. the use of definite articles with proper names) but others may be renegotiated for in/definiteness in target versions. Negotiable instances may regulate appropriateness in a target genre and may be manifesting pragmatically oriented preference across languages and genres. Example 1 shows instances of in/definite article rendition in which deictic accessibility may be negotiable. The extracts are taken from a classic economic science text, Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus’ bestseller, Economics (19th edition), which has been translated into Greek and is used as a first year resource book in the Department of Economics and Political Science of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The no-article ST noun demand receives a definite article in Greek, and can appear with an indefinite article. The ST indefinite item A price reduction received a definite article in the target version, although it could be renegotiated for indefiniteness. The no-article ST item total revenue receives a definite article in the published version, although it could be renegotiated for indefiniteness.

ST1	A [Ø price] reduction increases Ø total revenue if Ø demand is elastic (Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, unit summary 4. Α4)
TT1	Η ζήτηση είναι ελαστική αν η μείωση της τιμής αυξάνει το συνολικό έσοδο (2000: 227) (BT): The demand is elastic if the reduction of the price increases the total revenue

Alternative options favouring a higher level of abstraction in Greek would be conveyed by:

Μια ζήτηση είναι ελαστική	αν μια μείωση Ø τιμής	αυξάνει ένα συνολικό εισόδημα
A demand is elastic	if a reduction of price	increases a total revenue

Measurement of in/definite and no article instances in an English ST academic discourse fragment (4086 words) shows that there is a much higher preference for definiteness in the Greek target version of the sample: 23 per cent of English ST definite articles rises to TT 64.5 per cent. 68 per cent of English ST zero article nouns reduces to TT 30.5 per cent, and indefinite nouns also diminish in the Greek TT. Unless highly advanced, Greek translator-trainees, who are asked to back translate a Greek TT extract of economic science into English, never seem to be able to reestablish the degree of vagueness manifested in the original version.

Back translation tests provide scope to highlight points of intercultural variation. The following extract displays a typical linguistic tendency of Greek undergraduate translator trainees to enforce definiteness when they are asked to translate back into English a Greek TT version of an academic coursebook sample: they opt for definite articles (in bold) where ST opted for zero articles.

Civic propensity, the narrowing of social and other inequalities, the collective action, the mass meetings, the class division and the popular participation are in debate in a participatory democracy. [. . .] do not ensure at all the solution of conflicts.

(Greek translator trainee production, Dec. 2015)

Likewise, when translator trainees try their hand at translating Greek financial LSP into English they also seem to heighten definiteness, at the points indicated by Ø, depending on their pragmatic competence level:

Greek ST

English TT

Ο Κώδικας Εταιρικής Διακυβέρνησης, ο οποίος είναι αναρτημένος στην ιστοσελίδα της Τράπεζας, περιγράϕει αναλυτικά τη δομή και την πολιτική εταιρικής διακυβέρνησης της ΕΤΕ, προάγει τη συνέχεια, τη συνέπεια και την αποτελεσματικότητα του τρόπου λειτουργίας του ΔΣ, αλλά και γενικότερα της διακυβέρνησης της ΕΤΕ και του Ομίλου.

The NBG Corporate Governance Code, which can be viewed on the Bank’s website, sets out in detail Ø NBG’s corporate governance structure and Ø policy, fosters Ø continuity, Ø consistency and Ø efficiency in the modus operandi of the Board of Directors, and generally the governance of the Bank and its Group (Feb. 2016, Greek trainee production).

Frequent use of definite articles in Greek seems to be an outcome of language evolution. Definiteness is a category which has gradually been grammaticalised in languages (Lyons, 1999). Modern Greek seems to display more stages of evolution than other languages do: Mycenean Greek displayed no apparent definite article, Homeric Greek exhibited some uses of it, until expanded usage displayed definite article use with proper names and generics (Manolessou & Horrocks, 2007). Other languages display fewer stages in the evolution of definiteness. For instance, in examining the distribution of the definite article in Modern Greek and Italian, Giannoulopoulou (2007) suggests that the Italian definite article is less lexicalised than the Greek one, thus displaying fewer stages of evolution. English displays even fewer stages of evolution than Italian. In examining the Greek definite article across time Guardiano (2013) suggests that in strong article languages (like Greek) singular count nouns are never bare.

The question arises as to whether measurement in translated texts can adequately account for measurement in original text production, namely, whether the level of definiteness favoured in translated production is identical to the level of definiteness in original text productions of the same language. Research in translation studies has shown that translated and original text production of the same language may display different characteristics (Olohan & Baker, 2000). The present study claims that a target version could manifest tendencies which are typical in original text production of that language.¹

The phenomenon of in/definiteness, realised through in/definite article use, may allow scope for renegotiation of the vagueness/specificity variable, at least in some of its uses, as the alternative options for example 1 suggest above. With the rest of the phenomena, the translators’ freedom to renegotiate vagueness/specificity is greater, and systematic occurrence suggests a noticeable tendency for specificity in the Greek version.

3.2 Logical discourse connection

Another instance of enhanced specificity in Greek TTs can manifest in cases where connectives (like ST2 and), which can implicitly carry contrastive meaning, are rendered in terms of explicit contrastive connectives in Greek (like TT2 item ενώ [while]). TT2 favours specificity with respect to the relationship between propositions.

ST2	the rate of productivity growth has slowed markedly and real wages have stopped growing. (Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, unit summary 6.Α6)
TT2	Ο ρυθμός αύξησης της παραγωγικότητας έχει επιβραδυνθεί σημαντικά, ενώ οι πραγματικοί μισθοί έχουν σταματήσει να αυξάνονται (2000: 307).
	Back-translation (BT): the rate of growth of productivity has slowed markedly, while the real wages have stopped growing.

Several types of adverbial cohesive ties (additive, adversative, causal, temporal, Halliday & Hasan, 1976) are made explicit by substitution or movement (thematisation or simply preposing) in Greek TTs. No ST contrastive connective has been made implicit or vanished in the Greek version of the sample; instead, they may be enforced by using longer distance connectives, e.g. ST but→TT ωστόσο (however). Besides, contrastive connectives may be added to a Greek TT to enhance the persuasive force of an argument (Sidiropoulou, 2004), as the ST/TT3 pair indicates. Two contrastive connectives are added to TT3, cancelling what has probably been perceived in Greek as vagueness of a ST adverbial connection.

ST3	[Ø] a rise in the price of a complementary good [. . .] will in turn cause the DD curve to shift downward and leftward. [Ø] Still other factors – changing tastes, population or expectations – can affect demand (Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, unit summary 5.5)
TT3	Απεναντίας, μια άνοδος της τιμής ενός συμπληρωματικού αγαθού [. . .] θα μετατοπίσει την καμπύλη ζήτησης DD προς τα κάτω και αριστερά. Αλλά και άλλοι παράγοντες, όπως η μεταβολή των καταναλωτικών προτιμήσεων, ο πληθυσμός ή οι προσδοκίες μπορούν να επηρεάσουν τη ζήτηση (2000: 263).
	(BT): By contrast, a rise of the price of a complementary good [. . .] will shift the DD demand curve downward and leftward. But still other factors, like the change of consumption tastes, population or the expectations, can affect the demand

Evidence from English–Greek theatre translation suggests that enhanced specificity systematically occurs in the Greek version, regardless of the direction of translation. The 1977 Greek version of Twelfth Night (translator Errikos Belies) enforced cohesive ties (9 of 16 contrastive/concessive ties of the fragment examined were added rather than transferred). The English translation of Pavlos Matessis’ play Roar (Η Βουή 1977, translator David Connolly) omits connectives like and, in order to, but in the English target version of the play (Sidiropoulou, 2004).

3.3 Spatio-temporal deixis

Enhanced temporal and spatial deixis seems to be another manifestation of the specificity preference in Greek, which may be avoided in English. Example 4 shows a TT press extract, which displays spatial (see deictic marker there) and temporal deixis enforced in the Greek version of the extract (see immediately and after a little while). It is as if time and space are more prominent in the idealized cognitive model (ICM) of the Greek speaker and this is registered in interlingual transfer in the press.

ST4	He ate two spoonfuls of caffeine powder he’d bought online, and washed them down with an energy drink. He began slurring his words, then vomited, collapsed and died. “Generation jitters: are we addicted to caffeine?” Guardian Mar 7, 2014. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/07/caffeine-addiction-coffee-drug-energy-drink
TT4	Εκεί, αστειευόμενος, κατανάλωσε δύο κουταλάκια του γλυκού καϕεΐνης σε σκόνη, που είχε αγοράσει μέσω Διαδικτύου, για να τα ξεπλύνει με ένα ενεργειακό αναψυκτικό. Ο Μάικλ, που πρέπει να είχε καταναλώσει συνολικά 5 γραμμάρια καϕεΐνης, άρχισε αμέσως να εμϕανίζει προβλήματα στην ομιλία, προτού κάνει εμετό και λιποθυμήσει. Λίγη ώρα αργότερα, ο 23χρονος ήταν νεκρός. "Πόσο εθισμένοι είμαστε στην καϕεΐνη;" Kathimerini Mar 8, 2014 www.kathimerini.gr/757165/article/epikairothta/episthmh/poso-e8ismenoi-eimaste-sthn-kafeinh
	(BT): There, he jokingly used two spoonfuls of caffeine powder he’d bought online, and washed them down with an energy drink. Michael who must have used 5 grams of caffeine altogether immediately began slurring his words, before he vomited and collapsed. A little while later he was dead.

The preference for specific spatio-temporal deixis in the Greek version seems to also appear in other genres beyond the popular scientific discourse of the type appearing in the press. In editing a postgraduate translation of Virginia Woolf’s The Mark on the Wall into Greek, at the beginning of the millennium, postgraduate translation trainees, who were well aware of the grammaticality/acceptability distinction in translation practice, were keen on highlighting deictic specificity over some vagueness of the English source text. Trainees tended to adjust spatio-temporal deixis by adding adverbs like here (εδώ) and then (τότε) in the Greek TT. In addition, they tended to adjust the “discourse” deixis by adding adverbial connectives like but (αλλά), therefore (επομένως) etc. to the Greek target version (Sidiropoulou, 2003).

3.4 Adverbial movement and thematisation

Specificity may be enforced when adverbials are thematised or simply preposed in a target version. Greek target text producers are assumed to be providing clearer (logical, spatio-temporal or other) grounding for their arguments, by enhancing specificity in these aspects of the message. In TT5 the temporal adverbial has been thematised.

ST5	. . . and added “I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher than it is today within a few months” (:279, Galbraith, The Great Crash [1929])
TT5	. . . και πρόσθεσε “Μέσα σε λίγους μήνες, περιμένω να δω το χρηματιστήριο πολύ υψηλότερα απ’ ό,τι σήμερα” (:168)
	(BT): . . . and added “Within a few months I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher than it is today”.

The tendency for thematising (or preposing) temporal markers in the Greek version of translated production was also frequently found in Greek translated historiographical discourse (in the translated Greek version of David Nicholas’ The Evolution of the Medieval World, 1992). Similar instances of thematised or simply preposed adverbials may be assumed to be functioning as specificity signposts through discourse. Post-posing adverbials is assumed to signal vagueness and less concern on the part of the author for explicit adverbial cohesion.

3.5 Lexical manifestations

Another instance of enhanced specificity in Greek TTs appears when TT adjectives like particular or specific are added to Greek translated versions to render an indicative adjective (or no adjective at all). For instance, the ST6 indicative adjective in that input becomes TT6 the particular input, although the ST item could have been rendered literally in Greek.

ST6	the amount of that input increases (P. A. Samuelson and W. D. Nordhaus, unit summary 6. Α2)
TT6	θα αυξάνει η ποσότητα της συγκεκριμένης ροής (2000: 306).
	(BT): the amount of the particular input will increase

Likewise, Greek researchers often produce structures like in this particular chapter, or in this specific way, in their English language projects, when there is no need for a high degree of specificity. They should probably be made aware that the degree of specificity they intuitively opt for may need to be lowered in their L2 ESP production, and vice versa: they should feel free to enhance specificity, if necessary, in their Greek LSP translations or ESP projects.

The opposite translation direction, namely, Greek–English translation practice can show instances of specificity curbing in English target versions. Example 7 is from the website of the Greek Parliament, where the Greek version is the ST. It provides evidence that the English version has avoided the ST item specific (συγκεκριμένοι) in favour of TT many. Such instances suggest that specificity seems to be preferred in the Greek version of the data, regardless of the direction of translation.

ST7	Υπάρχουν συγκεκριμένοι λόγοι εξ αιτίας των οποίων οι Βουλευτές μπορούν να χάσουν το αξίωμά τους. www.hellenicparliament.gr/Vouleftes, 27-12-2016
	(BT): There are specific reasons why an MP can forfeit from office.
TT7	There are many reasons why an MP may forfeit from office. www.hellenicparliament.gr/en/Vouleftes, 27-12-2016

More lexical manifestations of the tendency for specificity in the Greek version of parallel data on the Greek Parliament website may arise in items like ST The Constitution does not specify exactly the number of MPs . . . (Το Σύνταγμα δεν προσδιορίζει επακριβώς τον αριθμό των Βουλευτών . . .) rendered as The Constitution does not determine the total number of parliamentarians.

The shifts highlighted in sections 2.1–2.4 are not an exclusive set of specificity-vagueness manifestations but they seem to be a key set of phenomena adjusting specificity-vagueness levels in various genres. For instance, specificity may also be enforced when English low-force modal markers expressing doubt (e.g. may) are rendered in terms of Greek modal markers of higher-force (e.g. has to); heightening certainty by avoiding English low-force modals and hedges is assumed to materialise the preference for specificity over vagueness in the Greek version of the parallel data. For instance, certainty may be heightened through the οϕείλει να (has to) modal, translating ST may: The government may step in to correct these failures (Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, unit summary 2.C7) →The state has to step in to heal these failures (Το κράτος οϕείλει να παρέμβει για να θεραπεύσει αυτές τις αποτυχίες, 2000: 148, Sidiropoulou 2015a). Translator trainees and L2 learners may need to renegotiate the modal force of their arguments.

Manifestation of the vagueness-specificity variable in the English–Greek parallel data may be viewed from a diachronic pragmatic perspective, through translation practice, and raise critical questions about its globalising influence on transfer practices.

The following section focuses on logical and spatio-temporal marker shifts in parallel English–Greek political science discourse to highlight self-representation and face enactment practices. The hypothesis is that a diachronic shift occurs in transfer practices, an indication that a pragmatic aspect of discourse meaning shifts or fluctuates over the years, with consequences for the linguistic identities of less-widely spoken languages.

4 A face theoretical perspective into political science discourse

From a face theoretical point of view, the vagueness-specificity variable seems to relate to one of the three levels of self-representation and face analysis. Spencer-Oatey identifies three aspects of self-representation and face, borrowed from Brewer and Gardner (1996, in Spencer-Oatey, 2007: 641), namely, “quality face”, “social identity face” (Spencer-Oatey, 2002: 540) and “relational face” (Spencer-Oatey, 2007). Quality Face (individual level) satisfies our fundamental desire for people “to evaluate us positively, in terms of our personal qualities; our competence, abilities, appearance etc.” (Spencer-Oatey, 2002: 540). Social Identity Face (collective level) satisfies our fundamental desire for people “to acknowledge and uphold our social identities or roles, e.g. as group leader, valued customer, close friend” (ibid.). Relational Face (interpersonal level) may realise the “relationship between the participants (e.g. distance–closeness, equality–inequality, perceptions of role rights and obligations), and the ways in which this relationship is managed or negotiated” (Spencer-Oatey, 2007: 647; see also Mapson this volume).

Vagueness-specificity seems to be a “quality face” variable, in that speakers satisfy their fundamental desire to appear specific (and facilitating addressee processing) or vague (and non-imposing) enough in a communicative situation, in enacting self-representation acts through discourse. The study reported on here focuses on a narrower set of vagueness-specificity features (than the previous section) to identify patterns of transfer diachronically. It leaves in/definite articles and lexical manifestations aside: the former as ubiquitous, the latter as fairly unsystematic. Instead, the section focuses on logical and spatio-temporal connectives in four samples of English ST political science discourse and their Greek translations published between 1983 and 2005.

Table 14.1 Specificity-vagueness shifts in target versions of political science Greek TTs (ST 24,000 words)

The question arises as to how logical and spatio-temporal cohesive ties materialise in parallel academic translation data, how cohesive patterns develop in target versions and to what extent they meet reader expectations and target linguistic taste. Table 14.1 shows variation in cohesive shifts as renegotiated in target versions of Greek political science discourse samples (ST word-count c. 6000 each, total 24,000) from the following works: (1) John Stuart Mill On Liberty (1869), (2) John Kenneth Galbraith The Great Crash 1929 (1954), (3) Anthony Giddens Sociology:A Brief but Critical Introduction (1982) and (4) Thomas H. Eriksen, Tyranny of the Moment (2001). In their attempt to produce an appropriate target version, the translators renegotiated quality face through logical and spatio-temporal ties, by adding, enforcing, thematising or simply preposing cohesive ties. Table 14.1 shows number of shifts per shift type occurring in the Greek version of the sample.

Adding or simply enforcing logical connection, let alone definiteness, is assumed to be a specificity marker and the same holds for adverbial thematising or simply preposing. Omitting logical connectives or postponing adverbials is assumed to be a vagueness marker because it tones down the prominence of “marked” thematic positions with reference to logical and spatio-temporal markers.

Text connectivity marker use seems to differ in the four versions in the sample, with the 1983 version favouring logical tie additions (11 specific minus 1 vague=10) and enforcing ties or preposing adverbials, the 1989 version majoring on adverbial thematising (13) and preposing (18 preposed minus 8 postposed=10), the 2000 version showing preference for simply thematising adverbials, and the 2005 version showing awareness of the significance of almost all specificity patterns, as Table 14.1 shows. If native speakers of Greek agree that certain patterns are preferable in quality face enactment, in local academic discourse, the question arises as to what impact and cumulative effect these face enactment patterns have on Greek academic discourse. The 2005 version also suggests that the globalising influence of translation on local discourses may be resisted through translation practices, which do justice to linguistic relativity.

5 The dialectics of local taste

The question arises as to how local taste receives shifts introduced in the target Greek version of academic discourse. Evidence from native speakers of Greek and contrastive analysis of comparable data samples confirm the appropriateness of shifts. This section attempts to provide evidence of this, with a view to suggesting that enhanced specificity in the Greek version is more than a manifestation of some explicitation tendency manifested in the translation process, and that translation data can provide valuable insights to a pragmatically-oriented perspective in language analysis.

Greek preference for enhanced specificity in cohesive patterns was confirmed by a questionnaire answered by 80 first-year undergraduates (Department of English Language and Literature, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), who have been generously exposed to “scientific” Greek discourse through their secondary education. Respondents were asked to evaluate the appropriateness of these shifts in Greek academic texts. Students were asked to assume they had been hired by a Greek publishing company as translator editors and say which one of two Greek translated samples of John Stuart Mill’s essay “On Liberty” (slightly adapted) they would recommend for publication. They were asked to choose between members of TT fragment pairs of Mill’s essay, which differed in that

• logical connectives were preserved/added/deleted from certain discourse samples

• logical connectives were enforced or neutralised by thematisation/preposing or postposing, respectively,

• spatio-temporal adverbials were added, thematised or preposed in one of the versions or not.

The questionnaire also sought to elicit evidence as to whether

• vagueness/specificity lexical items were appreciated (were considered appropriate),

• definite articles were appreciated at points where vagueness would be grammatical.

The questionnaire findings showed overwhelming preference for specificity markers. Table 14.2 shows a back-translation of the questionnaire fragment pairs with the relevant specificity/vagueness markers in bold. The percentages show a degree of local appreciation, with respect to the first option of the relevant item pair (in bold), which does not meet the expectations of target readers, although specificity markers were not always presented first in the questionnaire.

Table 14.2 Back translation of adapted Greek TT fragments carrying alternative specificity/vagueness markers. Percentages manifest level of preference for the first alternative option in each fragment

The results show local appreciation for the enhanced specificity markers. This seems to suggest that the “impoverished” specificity patterns of the 1989 and 2000 samples in Table 14.1 have been a result of a mediated communication diverging from the local norm of enforced specificity, although both TTs are perfectly readable.

Another question arises as to the patterns that emerge in comparable data, and whether vagueness-specificity markers are favoured in original academic discourse samples across languages. Specificity marker occurrence was measured in a comparable sample of historiographical discourse, on the Greek civil war to identify the extent to which original academic Greek production favours enhanced specificity markers (more than English comparable discourse does). Table 14.3 presents specificity marker frequency in four 500-word comparable samples of English and Greek historiographical discourse, on the Greek civil war. Measurement of occurrences shows that the number of specificity markers increases in original Greek text production: definite article occurrence average is 46 (in English) vs. 93.5 (in Greek), logical discourse connection occurrence average is 2.5 (in English) vs. 9 (in Greek), spatio-temporal deixis and deictic adjective occurrence average is 3.5 (in English) vs. 7.5 (in Greek).

Table 14.3 Specificity markers in comparable English and Greek 1000-word historical discourse samples, 1993–2000

Frequency of specificity marker occurrence in comparable English and Greek historiographical discourse suggests that enhanced specificity in Greek TTs is a manifestation of a tendency which may be enforced by explicitation, but it is more than an explicitation tendency. Translator insight seems to be a good predictor of tendencies in original production of a target language, and thus translation practice is of paramount importance in identifying conventional tendencies across languages and genres. The contribution of translation may also be invaluable, in the sense that it can aptly highlight instances which could not have been easily identified in comparable data, like for instance a relatively open-ended set of lexical manifestations of a phenomenon (see 2.5).

Α limitation of the study is that the data are derived from the translation direction English–Greek, i.e., towards a target language favouring specificity, which may overlap with or be mistaken for the translatorial practice of explicitation. A data set in the direction Greek–English (like the translation of Pavlos Matessis’ play Roar [Η Βουή 1977], by translator David Connolly, referred to in section 3.1, or the text fragment from the website of the Greek Parliament in 3.5) would have avoided a potential overlap between specificity and explicitation. The English target version would have manifested vagueness, which may be distinguished more easily from explicitation.

Another limitation of the study is the fact that it uses a range of academic data sources (economics, political science, historiography). The assumption is that the specificity preference in Greek permeates all genre types, which may not be totally true. This is because generic conventions may occasionally impose constraints on translatorial practices, e.g. the quantity of information included in translated Greek press headlines was shown to differ among political, medical and economic press texts (Sidiropoulou, 1995).

Concluding remarks

Cross-cultural preference with respect to pragmatic value binaries in discourse structure, namely vagueness-specificity, is shown to provide ample evidence of its workings through parallel academic data. Tendencies manifested in parallel data seem to be confirmed by (1) tendencies surfacing in comparable data and (2) a questionnaire evaluating acceptability of vagueness-specificity markers in Greek TT samples. Translation thus seems to have a potential to contribute valuable insights to pragmatically oriented research.

As shown in section 3, translation practice may display shifts in the implementation of certain discourse patterns over time, which may manifest the globalising influence of translation (Bennett, 2014). Quite a few scholars have acknowledged the value of mediated communication and its contribution to the study of language transfer processes. Tomlinson (1999) focuses on globalising mediated communication and “the delivery of deterioralized cultural experience” (1999: 150, emphasis added). Translation seems to be a language-contact situation where features of a language may deteriorate through contact with another (often hegemonic) language. For instance, in examining the use of epistemic modality in texts written in English by Spanish scholars, Pérez-Llantada observes that the texts instantiate a “dialectics of change”, as a facet of globalisation, manifested by the fact that they tend to display a hybrid discourse in which textual features of academic Spanish “seep into the scholars’ use of normative academic English” (2010: 25). Schäffner and Adab also assume that the hybrid translated versions of texts “do not derive from translator incompetence” (1997: 325), and that there seem to be other factors which produce hybridity and lead to a deterioration of features.

In language-contact studies, there seems to be a contact-induced change mechanism referred to as “passive familiarity” which “involves partial activation of a foreign system” (Thomason, 2001: 139) in a reception language. Translation, as a language contact phenomenon (Malamatidou, 2016), seems to also activate a contact-induced mechanism, which may affect original production in a target language. These are instances which may be broadening a historical pragmatic research scope, by considering the impact of translated text inflow on original text production in a target context, doing justice to pragmatic aspects of contact-induced change. As “[r]esearch into language change is becoming increasingly diversified” (Hickey, 2010: 198), exploration of contact-induced language change through translation seems to be a recent addition to the methodologies employed so far. Translators seem to enter a “bilingual language mode” when at work, where the salience of certain features (e.g. definiteness) is toned down as a result of the contact situation. Language contact is seen as a conflict situation where L1 and L2 features combat each other, with L2 ultimately winning over L1 (Schäffner & Adab, 1997).

The assumption is that translation can eloquently point towards diachronic shifts worth examining in diachronic pragmatics, which may have far-reaching consequences for target language identity. Furthermore, translators can possibly limit English influence on less widely spoken languages, through awareness of potential power imbalances. For instance, if cohesiveness is weakened in Greek target texts by the globalising influence of English, it is the task of translators to heighten specificity in Greek target versions, in agreement with local taste. If the influence of the state wanes in a globalising era (Hay & Lister, 2006), translators should be made aware of their paramount role in society as “language activists” (Fairclough, 2006) who can safeguard specificity levels in a Greek target version; otherwise, the cumulative effect of incoming translated books will ultimately shift local taste with reference to what creates texture.

Translation studies seems to be in a dialectic relationship with pragmatics. It can borrow insights from pragmatics to identify some worth exploring loci of intercultural variation manifested through translation practice, while lending insights to pragmatic research, in that translation studies extends the scope of data categories pragmatic research may draw on for its own disciplinary purposes.

For instance, Spencer-Oatey has opened up debate with regard to the kind of data needed for research into face (2007). This study suggests that parallel data may be one of the data types Spencer-Oatey is seeking. Multiple versions of the same text may potentially reveal face enactment practices, which may not be easily obtained otherwise. Out of the three aspects of self-representation and face enactment (quality face, social identity face and relational face), translation practice could yield insight into which face enactment aspect is more prominent in academic discourse. Furthermore, if the evaluative role of the hearer is fundamental in the relational turn in politeness research, translator-trainees’ evaluations of multiple versions of a text may function as the lay person’s perspective, which is so cherished in current politeness research methodologies (Sidiropoulou, 2015b, 2017) and beyond.

Translation studies findings may also shape pedagogical practice in foreign language teaching and syllabus design (Cook, 2010). Among the aims and focus of English for academic purposes (Cox & Hill, 2004) are assumed to be the use of grammar and critical thinking. A traditional grammatical issue a student may need to work on, Cox and Hill suggest in their introduction, may be the grammatical “article”. I doubt that the authors had the Greek–English paradigm in mind, but their suggestion seems right for the Greek–English direction of translation, as this study shows.

Another aim Cox and Hill refer to is “critical” thinking, namely thinking “about power relationships” (2004: iv). They conclude that they want trainees to “respect and admire” (ibid.: v) their own academic culture while adding to it their knowledge of another language in that context. In a globalised context, less widely spoken languages need enhanced linguistic identity awareness as a boosting mechanism, and the assumption in this study has been that pragmatically-oriented translation studies can provide one. L1 awareness raising, for instance, in combination with an in-depth familiarity with genre conventions may contribute to what Cronin (2003) would call “cultivating a linguistic and translational self-confidence” of “minor” languages. They also carry high translation expertise through the bulk of work assumed by massive inflow of “major” language material into the reception environments.²

Notes

1 The study attempted measurement of in/definite articles in original Greek production in a related academic economics sub-genre, which is claimed to display similar features to the chapter summaries sub-genre (from the Samuelson, Paul A. and William D. Nordhaus Economics text). The study measured occurrence of in/definite articles in original Greek production, namely, book content descriptions culled from a Greek publisher’s website (Gutenberg, Dardanos Publishing, Athens, 1037 words). Findings show that definiteness increases in original Greek production as contrasted to the translated version of the chapter summaries sample. Zero article instances and indefiniteness decrease in the Greek versions in favour of definiteness. Definiteness, in the book descriptions sample, is even higher in Greek; zero article instances and indefiniteness decrease to boost definiteness. Results are summarised in Table 14.4. Figure 14.1 shows findings in a chart.

2 I am indebted to the editors and my anonymous reviewers for insightful comments.

Table 14.4 Distribution of in/definite and no-article instances in English–Greek original and translated economic summary texts