Genre Issues in Translation Studies

Abstract

Genre issues have been addressed in Translation Studies prevalently within the framework of systemic functional linguistics. Theoretical research by B. Hatim and I. Mason (1990) and J. House (1997) are based on the model of speech variation as presented in M. A. K. Halliday and J. Martin, building a link between linguistic, situational and social contexts. Both research have functional linguistic basis and include genre as a higher-level semiotic category. However, similar theoretical treatment of genre results in opposite approaches to the analysis of particular examples. B. Hatim and I. Mason analyze particular features of micro-context as means of genre realization in terms of genre constraints and conventions. J. House provides a ‘holistic’ top-down description of the entire texts, identifying genre membership a starting point of analysis. Genre is the only constant of equivalence in J. House’s model, while B. Hatim and I. Mason focus on shifting to alternative genres in translation. The opposite procedural approaches to the analysis have a common feature. The identification of generic constraints and genre equivalence in both research is based on the authors’ intuitions about genre membership of particular texts. Therefore within both approaches, on the one hand, no element of recurrent language use may be undoubtedly assigned to have generic nature; on the other hand, any particular crosslinguistic contrast may be interpreted as an element of cross-linguistic genre realization or an element of genre remolding. The study of genre issues in Translation Studies should be embedded in the broader context of theoretical and empirical methods of systemic cross-cultural analysis of genres and genre systems. Depending on the focus of analysis, Translation Studies may approach genre within the frameworks of contrastive analysis of genres systems, hierarchical relation of genres and the methods of empirical study of generic structures and recurrent linguistic choices. Refs 40.