ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of previous research and methods in the area of contrastive pragmatics and translation. Contrastive approaches to pragmatics and translation are characterised by a focus on contrasts concerning pragmatic conventions between source language and target language, which are then taken as a starting point for the investigation of pragmatic characteristics of translations. Often, broader contrasts in communicative styles, e.g. a tendency towards implicitness vs. explicitness or towards content- vs. addressee-orientation, are taken as a starting point in hypothesis formulation in this research tradition, which then leads to the investigation of linguistic variables potentially influenced by these general communicative contrasts (e.g. the frequency and contexts of use of personal pronouns will be influenced by greater or lesser addressee-orientation). The chapter provides an overview of previous research within this tradition, focusing on corpus-based approaches, while also highlighting the potential of onomasiological (as opposed to the ‘classic’ corpus-based semasiological) approaches. It ends with suggestions of interesting areas for further research.
