Text Analysis

De Beaugrand and Dressler

De Beaugrand and Dressler suggested an approach to help you find out. They
set out 'Seven Standards of Textuality' and hypothesized that, if any one of
them was not met, the text would not be communicative:
 The Seven Standards of Textuality
1. Cohesion 4. Acceptability
2. Coherence 5. Informativity
3. Intentionality 6. Situationality
7. Intertextuality

1, 2 and 3, are largely writer oriented

4, 5, and 6 are approximately the converse and depend on the reader
7. Is a special type of powerful 'wild card' or 'trump' which may have a
meme effect; in short, it triggers an association with other well established
ideas.
Cohesion: "sticky tape" semantic markers linking ideas (a set of
verbal 'signposts' to guide the reader).

Coherence: the writer’s text world and its relation to our

experience of the phenomenal world depends less on overt
markers, more on the ways situations are described and
sequenced, issues of causality and time in the construction of the
text worlds. E.g. No milk in the fridge. Have gone to the shops.
Interpretation depends on assumptions about similar experiences.
(Unity, harmony)
Intentionality is reflected in the writer’s manipulation of
rhetorical devices: commands, questions and suggestions etc.
The effect is literally to make some waves and movement in the
text.

Acceptability involves recognition on the reader’s part of 1 and

2.

Informativity effects the readers beneficially e.g. new

information.
Situationality recognises that the appearance of a text at a given time or in a
context will influence the readers in their interpretation.

Intertextuality recognises that all texts contain traces of other texts. Writers
may wish to emit echoes of certain texts, though, readers may pick up these
or others that they have read.
Christiane Nord
 The role of a translator

The recipient and sender need

a mediator in communication

TRANSLATOR

One who mediates

between two cultures
 Functionalist Theory
• Translation depends on the function and purpose that is involved in
the text.
• Would it be the same to translate a text addressed to children, adults,
religious or secular people?

• Would it matter the medium in which the text is going to be

published; for example in a brochure or in a newspaper ?
For Nord, the culture is the most important aspect in
translation; it is even more important than language

It determines the way we understand each other

If the translator does not know the cultural codes of a

country it would be better not to translate at all
 Parallel texts

• According to Nord, the process of translation is to produce a text in a

target language from a source language (the original text)

• The translator must know sufficient cultural and linguistic knowledge

about both cultures

• If the translator lacks this knowledge he must get acquainted with it

by means of research
 In the translation process the translator
should have:
1. The ability of abstraction
2. The ability of decision
3. The ability of transfer
4. The ability of criticism

These abilities are needed to learn how to translate adequately

 The translator also has to gain some knowledge and learn
some techniques throughout the translation process:

• Syntactic and grammatical structures: if the translator does not see

concordance in the sentences; between nouns or adjectives

• Shortcomings in the thematic competence: the translator does not

have a lot of objective knowledge to understand the message of the
original text

• Vocabulary: morphology, collocations,terminology

 Equivalence versus Adequacy
• The translator is the first recipient of the text (source text)

• He produces the text taking into account sociocultural codes of

that culture (meta audience)

• Adequacy comes when a translator produces a piece of

information suitable to the communicative purposes