Introduction

Translation and interpreting studies scholars have long looked to pragmatics to help explain and account for meaning-generation in translation and interpreting processes, products and their reception. Early developments in translation studies reveal various appeals to pragmatics in developing theories and models of translation. Pragmatic translation, therefore came to be associated principally with texts for specific purposes that constitute specific ‘text acts’, such as providing instructions. I. Mason draws attention to the fact that in much pragmatics-oriented research the data used is ‘confected’ as opposed to naturally occurring, which is particularly problematic given the general unavailability of context for analysis. In theoretical terms, developments in the way translation is performed, whether collaborative and participatory or synchronous and asynchronous, and the contexts in which it is performed have inevitably given rise to a whole new set of questions for translation studies scholars. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.