ABSTRACT
The way we understand reading is crucial to translation. This chapter moves on from the discussion of style and its role in translation in Chapter 1 to the way style affects literary reading, and explains theories of reading in relation to translation.
Of particular importance are views on how we draw inferences, with the help of the style, from what a text actually says to what it might mean. Relevance Theory is useful in explaining how textual style allows such inferences. It makes sense to think of “reading for translation” as a particular type of analytical reading that considers how the style, and the inferences the translator makes, might be recreated in the translated text. Relevance Theory is seen within the wider context of Reader-Response Theory, which places the responsibility for textual meaning on the reader, and consequently on the translator, as reader of the source text. Elements of the style of the source text are central to the original author’s attitude and way of thinking, and also to the effects the text has on its readers, including the translator.
