ABSTRACT
Chapters 6 to 11 focus more concretely on the ST as a linguistic object that uses particular forms of language in order to achieve particular effects. Any text is the product of a series of choices made at every level, from the smallest linguistic units — individual speech-sounds or letters — to the largest — distinct textual genres. All the points of detail, no matter how large or small, where a text could have been different (that is, where it could have been another text) can be designated as textual variables: the form of a parliamentary speech rather than that of a marketing presentation; an allusion to the Bible instead of a quotation from Shakespeare; the Spanish preterite tense rather than the imperfect; a colloquial term preferred to a more formal one; a question mark where there might have been an exclamation mark (compare ‘Was he drinking?’ and ‘Was he drinking!’); or differences signalled by a single letter or change of intonation or stress (‘a French teacher’ — ‘un profesor francés’ or ‘un profesor de francés’?). A successful translation strategy, having established the generic characteristics of the ST and assessed its cultural implications, must be based upon pinning down as precisely as possible what the textual variables are and how they are designed to achieve their effects on SL readers or listeners. Identification of the relative importance of each of the different formal properties of the ST then enables the setting of priorities for translation, informed by an understanding of the different linguistic resources available in the source and target languages.
