Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Albert Vermes: Proper names in translation: a case study

also has a propositional form - a thought, for instance - in virtue of a resemblance between the two propositional forms," that is, interpretively (228-9). Interpretive resemblance between propositional forms means that the two propositions share at least a subset of their analytic and contextual implications (their explicatures and implicatures) in the given context (Wilson and Sperber 1988: 138). 2.2 Translation as interpretive language use If we want to take account of the fact that utterance meaning is not wholly propositional (see, for instance, Lyons 1995), this definition needs to be amended. Gutt (1991) extends the notion of interpretive resemblance to linguistic utterances. Since explicatures and implicatures are assumptions and the function of utterances is to convey assumptions that the communicator intends to convey, the definition can be generalised in the following way. Two utterances (or any two ostensive stimuli) "interpretively resemble one another to the extent that they share their explicatures and/or implicatures" (Gutt 1991: 44). He then goes on to define translation as interpretive language use across languages. In interpretive language use in general, and in translation in particular, the principle of relevance entails a presumption of optimal resemblance

: what is rendered by the communicator (translator) is (a) presumed to interpretively resemble the original and (b) the resemblance has to be consistent with the presumption of optimal relevance. Here we have a new notion of faithfulness in translation (or equivalence - although Gutt himself abstains from using this term), which will constrain the what and the how in translation: the translation should resemble the original in that it offers adequate contextual effects to the audience (comparable to those offered by the original); and it should be formulated in such a way that it yields the intended interpretation at a minimum processing cost (Gutt 1991: 101-2). Since the notion of interpretive resemblance rests on the notion of optimal relevance, its fulfilment is heavily dependent on the similarity of the contexts available for the source and target language readers. The same (or, at least, similar) effects can be achieved in the translation with minimum processing effort only if the two contexts are not essentially different. 164