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LIT-1845: Translation and Relevance

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Properties4
StatusActive — skimmed 2026-10-30 (NOTE-1435) from the UCL Discovery eprint (discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1317504/1/241978.pdf, 309 pp., OCR text layer): the abstract, preface and contents, the critique of functional equivalence (pp. 22–27), the relevance-theoretic chapter's account of interpretive resemblance (pp. 50–76), the critique of dynamic equivalence (pp. 118–130), all of chapter 5 on faithfulness as optimal resemblance (pp. 160–193), all of chapter 6 on communicative clues (pp. 194–248) and the opening of chapter 7 with its definition of direct translation (pp. 249–257). The rest is unread. Worth reading as the thesis that became Translation and Relevance (LIT-784), and as the only reading of Gutt's account the record holds. On it, two utterances interpretively resemble each other to the degree that the assumptions each communicates in its own cognitive environment overlap, so resemblance is judged by what is communicated, not by wording or propositional form. A translation is faithful when it resembles the original closely enough in the respects that make it relevant to its audience. Direct translation is the limiting case, complete interpretive resemblance in the context the original envisaged. Read it as the 1989 thesis, not the book: what the book changed is unread.
Tagstranslation, pragmatics, linguistics
Cited as “grounds” byCLAIM-205 — Functional and relevance-theoretic accounts of translation, as Nida, Nord and Gutt state them, need not fix one context or a static stance profile of the rendering, CLAIM-501 — Gutt's interpretive resemblance also predicts that judged pragmatic observables beat text similarity, so the central theses' defeat conditions cannot tell the thesis from a relevance-theoretic account either
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-1435 — Gutt — Translation and Relevance (thesis, 1989)

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Ernst-August Gutt (1989), Translation and Relevance, PhD thesis, University College London (University of London). UCL Discovery eprint 1317504.

Key takeaways

From the reading, NOTE-1435, which skimmed the thesis and read the chapters named in the status note.

  • No separate theory of translation. Most kinds of translation are interpretive use across languages, and relevance theory accounts for them without a typology of texts or functions (abstract; pp. 186, 190).
  • Resemblance between utterances is resemblance in what they communicate. Two utterances interpretively resemble each other “to the degree that the sets of assumptions which each conveys in its own cognitive environment overlap”, that is, in their explicatures and implicatures (pp. 74–75). Identity of propositional form is not sufficient for identity of interpretation (p. 72).
  • Faithfulness is optimal resemblance. A translation is presumed to resemble the original “closely enough in relevant respects”: in the assumptions that make it adequately relevant to its audience, expressed so that they are recovered without unnecessary effort (pp. 162–164). What counts as relevant depends on the audience’s cognitive environment.
  • Direct translation is the limiting case. A receptor-language utterance is a direct translation “if and only if it purports to interpretively resemble the original completely in the cognitive environment envisaged for the original” (p. 254). The communicative clues it preserves (semantic representation, syntax, pragmatic connectives, formulaic expressions, sound) are identified by their effect on the interpretation, not by their form (pp. 199–201, 253–255).
  • Against equivalence. Functional equivalence gives a basis for comparison but not for evaluation (pp. 22–27), and dynamic equivalence’s “equivalence of response” is unrealistic where the receptors’ cognitive environment differs from the original audience’s (pp. 122–127).

Standing in the record

Filed on 2026-10-30 as the readable precursor of Gutt’s book (LIT-784), which no lawful copy reached. The record names Gutt’s account as a rival to the pragmatic-transport line’s theses: CLAIM-501 asks what it predicts, and CLAIM-205 whether a relevance-theoretic account is tied to one context. This is the record’s only reading of the account. It is the thesis, and what the book revised is unknown here.

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