linguistic

1. Text, Genre and
Discourse Shifts in
Translation
Lina Affifatusholihah - 11131026

2. Introduction
Genre shift
Text shift
Discourse Shift
Points discussion

3. Introduction
• Fairclough 1989 ‘Two basic types of intertextual
reference may be distinguished’.
First, horizontal intertextuality, involving concrete
reference to, or straight quotation from, other texts.
The example:
• They had sworn to God previously that they would
not turn their backs, and an oath to God must be
answered for. (Al-Quran 33: 15)
The Guardian’s translation rendered the verse as follows:
• They had made a covenant with God that they would
not turn back in flight, and a covenant with God
must be answered for.・[Koranic verse]

4. Introduction
Second, effective vertical intertextuality is
that which, in addition to quoting, contributes
through the intertextual reference to:
• Clarity of expression and accessibility of the
intention (a text matter),
• The conventionality governing this mode of
political speaking (genre),
• The sense of commitment to a cause
conveyed (discourse).

5. Genre Shifts
• ‘Genre’ is a conventionalized form of speaking or writing which we
associate with particular ‘communicative events’.
• Participants in these events tend to have set goals, with strict norms
regulating what can or cannot be said within the confines of given
genre settings.

6. Translated news reports
> It is worth mentioning (when the news item in question is
least noteworthy)
> On the other hand (when no ‘contrast’ is stated or
implied, and something like meanwhile should have been
used)
> In parallel (when ‘also’ is intended)
> The Minister assured, insisted, pointed out, that (when
‘said’ would do).
Examples

7. Text Shifts
• Text is a vehicle for the expression of conventionalized goals and
functions. These are tied, not to communicative events as in genre,
but rather to a set of specific rhetorical modes such as arguing and
narrating.
• Rhetorical purposes of this kind impose their own constraints on
how a sequence of sentences becomes a ‘text’

8. These are some of the concessive and adversative signals
that often go unheeded:
Concessive: to be sure, of course, granted, naturally, no
doubt, certainly
Adversatives: still, but, however, nevertheless, yet.
Example

9. Discourse Shifts
• Genres and texts, then, ultimately serve to ‘enable’ the expression of
an attitude involved in a given discourse. Discoursal values relay
power relations and help define ideology.
• This aspect of meaning is properly the domain of what Halliday
(1978: 112) refers to as the ‘participatory function of language,
language as doing something’.

10. Checking the Arabic translation of example above, writer
found that agency was restored to the heroine and the
discourse thrust compromised in ‘she was possessed by a
pagan passion’.
Example
A pain that could rend her in two . .
. Her heart missed a beat . . . It
took her breath away . . . Tears
welled in her eyes . . . An answering
pagan passion leapt to control her

11. Thank you