ABSTRACT
One of the most intriguing differences between original sentences and their translations concerns the degree of explicitness preferred under source language and target language conditions. Stylistic registers may be characterized by a higher or lower degree of economy, and the Maxim makes us expect a similar profile for the same register in the translation. A legal document will, certainly, be more explicit than a warning in both English and in German. Yet if we study translations more closely, we will find that a similar degree of explicitness is by no means the rule.
