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1、Chapter 4Politeness and TranslationJULIANE HOUSEI want to explore the relationship between translation and politeness. To this end, I will first discuss the sociocultural phenomenon of politeness and critically review a number of recent conceptualizations with a view to their applicability to transl
2、ation studies. Second, I will address the issue of cross-cultural and cross-linguistic differences in politeness norms; I will here concentrate on the description and explanation of differences in German-English norms as they have emerged from my own work. Third, I will bring together politeness and
3、 translation by presenting a particular model of contextual translation analysis with which to demonstrate how equivalence of politeness can be achieved and assessed.Politeness Different ApproachesPoliteness is a sociocultural phenomenon, roughly to be defined as showing, or appearing to show, consi
4、deration of others. Politeness can thus be seen as one of the basic social guidelines for human interaction. The goal of politeness can then be described as reflecting or realizing the social or interpersonal function of language with politeness being a system of interpersonal relations designed to
5、facilitate interaction by minimizing the potential for conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange (Lakoff, 1990: 34). While politeness concerns human communicative behavior in general, I will here be concerned only with linguistic behavior.For many researchers, politeness is a feat
6、ure of language in use. Thus Brown and Levinson (1987) and Leech (1983) stress the importance of politeness as a contextualized phenomenon (although they use decontextualised sample sentences to illustrate their theories). Further, it is generally accepted that politeness is a pervasive feature in h
7、uman communication. Despite the recognized importance and omnipresence of politeness in day-to-day discourse, it has proved enormously difficult to describe and explain the operation of politeness. As Thomas (1995: 149) points out, there has been a lot of confusion in the vast literature on politene
8、ss over the past 15 years or so, and it has been discussed with reference to a number of phenomena that must be kept separate conceptually, such as (1) politeness as a real- world goal, (2) politeness as reflecting social norms and (3) as a pragmatic phenomenon. I shall discuss each of these in turn
9、.Politeness as a real-world goalAs a “real-world goal”, politeness is interpreted (psychologically) as the genuine desire to be “nice” to the speakers personal motivation and psychological state and is, as such, both inaccessible and uninteresting to linguists who have access only to what speakers s
10、ay and how their hearers react. This view of politeness is therefore obviously of no relevance to translation theory and practice.The social-norm view of politenessThe social-norm view of politeness (Fraser, 1990: 220ff) reflects certain social and behavioral norms and rules (embodied, for instance,
11、 in manuals of etiquette) holding in a given society, which one must observe in order to be “polite” in the sense of displaying good manners. Politeness is here intimately connected with the realization of speech styles and formality, and is often equated with deference. Deference is also part and p
12、arcel of certain languages such as Japanese, whose speakers are forced to make certain choices; it is, however, also built into the system of languages characterized by a “T/V subsystem”, e.g. in German. Fraser claims that the social-norm view of politeness has few adherents among current researcher
13、s. However, Watts et al. (1992) point out that a substantial body of recent non-Western (especially Japanese) research into politeness (see, e.g. Ide et al., 1992) corresponds to this view of politeness, and should thus not be dismissed prematurely. Watts et al. (1992) further point out that looking
14、 at politeness as a set of behavior patterns preprogrammed as social norms leads us to consider the wider social functions of politeness, e.g. in educational systems, prescriptive grammars and translation practices. This is why I think this view of politeness is important for translation theory and
15、practice.The pragmatic view of politenessThere are two major pragmatic views of politeness: politeness in terms of principles and maxims and politeness as the management of face.Politeness explained in terms of principles and maximsOne of the earliest proponents of this philosophical approach to des
16、cribing and explaining politeness is Robin Lakoff (1973). Lakoff posits two basic “interests” or strategies in human communication, first a strategy of “clarity” (captured by the maxims of Grices 1975 Cooperative Principle as a blueprint for “rational language use”), which guides the transmission of information, and second a strategy of “rapport” (captured by Lakoffs politeness rules). These two strategies are reminiscent of the two basic funct
