Implicit Information in Literary Translation

As an instance of human communication, literary translation operates by certain laws and principles assumed to be built into our human make-up. These 'natural laws' of communication give rise to implicit information and are responsible for its special characteristics, such as graded strength of communication and its correlates, including poetic effects. They furthermore determine the interdependence of text, context and successful communication, and limit communicability in incompatible contexts. One important contextual factor consists in what kind of interpretive resemblance the audience expects between translation and original. The ultimate test for a translation is whether or not it achieves with the target audience what the translator intended it to achieve, rather than whether it conforms to some translation-theoretical notion of equivalence.

Published online: 01 January 1996
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.8.2.03gut