1.4 Towards a Working Definition

As can be seen from the above discussion,some of the definitions are more descriptive,others more prescriptive or stipulative; some of them are aestheticoriented,others linguistic-oriented; some are socio-cultural-oriented and still others philosophical-oriented.Comparatively speaking,those lingual-aestheticoriented and those lingual-cultural-oriented definitions are preferable as they are more comprehensive,capturing more of the essence of translation and those with a dialectical view are preferable as they have avoided going to the extremes.

While we are fully aware that there will not be a single definition of translation that can tell of all the essential features of translation it is the requirement of our study to specify translation for the criticism of it.What is more,as Lv Jun(2004)says,“[h]ow to define translation involves one's perception of the essence of translation and at the same time,it determines the point of departure of his scientific research”.Based on the critical review of the definitions of translation,we will set out to propose a working definition hereafter in this section.The authors think it necessary to have a working definition of translation simply because we are facing so many different definitions of translation and it is quite possible that when we come to our discussion about translation,though we use the same term “translation”,actually the “translation”in Tom's mind is quite different from that in the mind of Dick.

Xu Jun(2003)once gave a fairly comprehensive summary to the characteristics of translation saying that the activity of translation is social,cultural,interlingual,creative and historical.As Lv Jun(2004)once commented,this is a comparatively thorough description of the essential features of translation.On the basis of all the above-discussed definitions,especially following Xu Jun and Lv Jun's ideas and in light of the famous sociolinguist Dell(Hathaway)Hymes' sociolinguistic framework for the analyses of “communicative event” or “speech event”,the authors of this book will make an attempt to define translation in a sociolinguistic way.

“Sociolinguists believe that the study of language must go beyond the sentences that are the principal focus of descriptive and theoretical linguistics.It must go beyond language and bring in social context…The focus of attention shifts from the sentence to the act of communication,the speech event”(Spolsky 2000: 14).Hymes first proposed the notion of “speech event” in his article “Ethnography of Speaking”(1962),which he later changed to “Ethnography of Communication”(1964)to reflect the broadening from instances of language production to the ways in which communication(including oral and written)is conventionalized in a certain speech community,calling for a new area of study,a kind of linguistics that explores language not just as a formal system of vocabulary and grammar,but as something culturally shaped in the contexts of social life,and a kind of anthropology that takes speaking,and communication in a broad sense,as its primary subject matter.This actually has brought about a new discipline,featured by the combination of a kind of linguistic study grounded in the social life and a kind of cultural study focused on speaking and verbal and non-verbal communication in a general sense.Hymes introduces several concepts as basic units for the ethnographic study of communication.“Speech event” is one of them(the other concepts are chiefly communication act,communication situation,and speech community etc.)This notion of “speech event” is coined by Hymes to be used as the unit of analysis of contrasting patterns of language use across cultures or speech communities.This term shows his dissatisfaction with the previous approach which focused on ostensibly distinct “languages” as an ideal construction covering up complexities within and“across” linguistic boundaries.It obviously indicates a pragmatic turn,focusing on language in use.

A speech event is also called a communicative event which normally consists of several communicative act or speech act(Zhu Wanjin 1992: 182).It involves actions of many kinds that are socio-culturally bounded with a beginning and ending and can be understood by formulating norms or rules about it.A communicative act is a specific social interaction,most typically parts of larger sequences of integral aspects of a communication event and of a social action(Carbaugh 2007).

Hymes developed a model to assist the identification of components of a speech event in the context.Actually,as Brown and Yule(1983/2000: 38)once commented,Hymes “sets about specifying the features of context which may be relevant to the identification of a type of speech event in a way reminiscent of Firth's”.

Hymes' model lists many components or contextual features that can be applied to the analysis of speech events: message form; message content; setting; scene;speaker/sender; addressor; hearer/receiver/audience; addressee; purposes(outcomes);purposes(goals); key; channels; code; forms of speech; norms of interaction; norms of interpretation; and genres(Hymes 1974: 53-62).

The authors of this book hold that translation is an intercultural and interlingual speech event involving the translator's expressing in the target language his/her understanding and interpreting of the source language discourse in a specific sociocultural context.This is intended to be a working definition of translation in this study.Such a definition can meet,to a great extent,the requirements for a formal definition and the need to specify the study object of this research.First,it is brief and concise as required by a formal definition.Second,it tells of the family to which translation belongs.Thirdly,it tells of the distinguishing features of translation as a speech event that distinguish it from other forms of speech events.Fourthly,as a speech event has a beginning and ending,this definition includes both the process and product of translation.The word “intercultural” indicates that this kind of speech event(translation)involves at least two cultures and is therefore not a pure linguistic transfer between two languages.There are many culturally-bounded norms to be observed in the transfer.Of course,some other merits of this definition can be mentioned.The term “speech event” is in a broad sense,social action and therefore translation is embedded in the social life and calls for different approaches,including of course,a sociolinguistic approach.As a social action,translation has its purposes or in Hymes' term,“Ends”,including the various intended goals and the actual outcomes.And as a social action,it may sometimes involves intralingual and intersemiotic translation as a speech event may involve different codes or signs.The word “speech” also tells of the nature of historicity of translation as it indicates the dynamic use of language instead of language as a static system.Besides,it is easier for us to put different types of linguistic transfer,including oral interpretation and abridged translation,into this definition and potentially excludes machine translation from this study.In brief,to take a sociolinguistic view on translation and define translation as an intercultural and interlingual speech event in a specific context has,in a sense and in a way,captured the changing feature of translation as a speech event is always an event in a specific context.The concept of translation as a speech event is,to a certain extent,just like the concept “field” used by quantum physicists—treating translation as something between the physical and metaphysical planes.Last,but not least,dialectically,this proposed working definition,can be said to be both descriptive and prescriptive as when describing what translation is,it simultaneously tells us what should not be regarded as translation.