Sociolinguistics

and Translation
Sara Ramos Pinto

DRAFT VERSION

The development of Translation Studies (TS) as a discipline has, at times, been marked by an
(already

plentifully

diagnosed)

tension

between linguistic and cultural

approaches to

translation. Fortunately, it is now frequently acknowledged that both disciplines have much to
offer to each other, thus rendering such a dichotomy largely obsolete. Regarding the particular
case of Sociolinguistics, it is important to first contextualise the attention given to it by
translation scholars within a broader functional and communicative approach to text during the
1980s and 1990s along with the turn from structural to functional linguistics. One of the central
criticisms of linguistic approaches to TS is in the underlying assumption that meaning is stable,
as well as independent of language and culture. Such a view is in stark opposition to
Sociolinguistics, which understands meaning as dynamic, subjective and context-dependent, as
briefly explored in the following section.

1. The scope of sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics encompasses a very broad area of research, which, as Meyerhoff (2006) puts it,
"can be confusing if you are coming new to the field". Hence, it is important to start by clarifying
what can be taken as sociolinguistic research.
In clear contrast with other linguistic approaches (such as Psycholinguistics), the focus of
Sociolinguistics is on language use, that is, on what can be said in a particular language, by
whom, to whom, in whose presence, when and where, in what manner and under what social
circumstances. For sociolinguists, the process of acquiring a language is not just a cognitive
process involving the activation of a predisposition in the brain, but a social process as well. It is
thus not enough to acknowledge language as a set of linguistic items. The focus lies on
understanding the uses of language within a society. This implies studying the possible
relationship between linguistic items and concepts such as identity, class, power, status,
solidarity and gender.
Within Sociolinguistics, a distinction has sometimes been made between core Sociolinguistics
and Sociology of Language. Though the distinction is not always clear-cut, Sociolinguistics is
largely concerned with the study of the possible correlations between certain social attributes
(e.g. class, sex, age) and certain language varieties or patterns of use in an attempt to understand
how social structures influence the way people talk. Sociology of Language, on the other hand,
focuses on issues such as how these social groups can be better understood through language,
the attitudes behind the use and distribution of speech forms in society, the protection,
replacement or change in languages and the interaction of different speech communities

(Coulmas, 1997: 2). There is also a methodological division between authors who believe
sociolinguistic research should be limited to correlation studies, and authors claiming that the
aim of Sociolinguistics should be not only to provide an account of how language is used in a
given community but also to investigate its causes (Chambers, 2003: 226). This second
perspective shows an underlying assumption of language use as an identity-creating practice,
thereby stimulating studies into how power relations in society constrain linguistic expression
as well as interpretation. It sees language as a system and focuses on the rules governing that
system. As sociolinguistic variation is to be regarded as correlated with contextual elements
rather than merely fortuitous, there are social and cultural dimensions to the language choices
to be considered. Hence, the dynamics of discourse can be analysed to expose cultural
conventions and individual strategies, relationships of power and solidarity, status and stigma
or conflict and consensus. In this article, Sociolinguistics will be taken in the broader sense as
encompassing both fields.
Sociolinguistics is thus a vast field, operating as an umbrella for studies focusing on multiple
variables with an impact on language use. Contrary to popular belief, it is by no means limited
toregional and social dialectology and the study of language variation according to geographic
areas and social groups a line of inquiry that has in fact been criticised for being one-
dimensional and unable to account for variables such as register that cut across dialect and
social variation. Indeed, the concept of register and the study of language variation according to
situation is another important area of study that has become very influential in other disciplines.
Within register analysis, the model proposed by Halliday & Hasan (1991) has been particularly
well received by TS scholars. This model studies language as communication, assuming meaning
in the speaker/writer's choices, which, in turn, are systematically contextualised and interpreted
within a broader sociocultural framework.
Other areas of study within Sociolinguistics are language change, multilingualism, language
interaction, language contact and language planning/policy. Regarding language change,
sociolinguists focus on variation in time, on how a given change spreads internally within a
language and possible correlations between that change and concepts such as prestige. But
change can also happen through language contact with other languages and, in this respect,
Sociolinguistics focuses on the outcomes for speakers and their languages when new languages
are introduced into a speech community. This area of study develops concepts such as power,
prestige and status, and considers different forms of interaction from colonisation to
immigration. This is very much related to another area of study, multilingualism, concerned with
variation and language use in communities with two or more languages and looking at how
multilingual speakers choose which language to use on a given occasion. Another aspect of
interest to sociolinguists is language interaction and how forms of language are used to
communicative effect in particular cultural contexts. This directly challenges the one-directional

assumption that context impacts on language in the sense that it is now accepted that in
speaking in a particular way, speakers may help to construct contexts as well.
Finally, another area that has attracted attention within Sociolinguistics since the 1960s
islanguage planning, concerned with all conscious efforts aiming at changing the linguistic
behaviour of a given community, such as the role of minority languages in education, the
selection process of an official language, etc. Along with language planning we can find the
concept of language policy, concerned with more general linguistic, political and social purposes
behind the actual language planning process.
The development of these concepts has only been possible because Sociolinguistics has been
open to insights from other disciplines such as Pragmatics, Sociology and Ethnography. In this
respect, it is important to mention the development of what Mesthrie et al. (2009) have
calledCritical Sociolinguistics, an umbrella term for what came to be known as Critical Linguistics
and, more recently, Critical Discourse Analysis. With authors such as Fowler and Fairclough as
their key proponents, this area of study is concerned with exploring how language creates,
sustains and replicates fundamental inequalities and identity structures in society.

2. Sociolinguistics and translation
The attention given to Sociolinguistics by translation scholars needs to be considered within the
broader context of what came to be called the Cultural Turn by Bassnett & Lefvere in the
famous introduction to Translation, History and Culture (1990) (see The turns of Translation
Studies). With the move towards translation as a social practice conditioned by social
configurations, there was a clear break with formal linguistics (and formalist linguistic
approaches to translation), bringing TS closer to a branch of linguistics that had pioneered a
similar move within Linguistics. For authors such as Nida, the bond between these two
disciplines is indeed a very natural one, since sociolinguists deal primarily with language as it is
used by society in communicating and that the different ways in which societies employ
language in interpersonal relations are crucial for anyone concerned with translating (1992:
25).
Since Nida, many translation scholars have built on sociolinguistic concepts to examine
translation and the contextual elements conditioning it. The points of contact between the two
disciplines have in fact multiplied with the growth of TS as a discipline and the diversification of
its areas of study.
Let us now look more closely at the points where the paths of these two disciplines cross.

2.1. Translation and dialectology
The days are now gone when most articles focusing on the translation of any form of linguistic
variation would start by proclaiming the impossibility of translating culture-specific elements.

Studies into regional and social dialectology have been of clear use in this matter. They have
allowed both scholars and translators to better identify which varieties were being used and
their communicative meaning in the source text. This, in turn, has helped translators make
informed decisions about how to better recreate linguistic varieties in the target text, while
scholars have been helped to better interpret the translational options. Building on
sociolinguistic studies regarding the status recognised to dialects and sociolects, and their
relationship with the concepts of prestige, power, solidarity and stereotype, authors such
as Leppihalme (2000) and Nevalainen (2004), have been working towards a model capable of
accessing the varieties communicative meaning in the text.
Similar power relations have been recognised at a more macro level, and concepts such as
standardisation (i.e. the use of the standard variety in the target text when regional or social
varieties are used in the source text) have entered the discussion along with the contextual
aspects leading to them. Factors promoting standardisation include censorship, institutional
pressure, translation status and notions of language correctness (Ramos Pinto 2009). This has,
in fact, been such a recurrent phenomenon in translated texts that it has already been proposed
as one of the translation universals. However, the opposite movement of using regional or social
varieties in the target text when the standard variety was being used in the source text has also
been identified along with the promotion of contextual elements (Brisset 1996).

2.2. Register analysis and translation
Like dialectology, register analysis has not only facilitated an understanding of context in fiction
(enabling a more accurate characterisation of the situation in which characters speech occurs)
but has also encouraged consideration of context at macro level (i.e. the situation surrounding
the translation itself as communicative act). This raises questions of discourse variation in
accordance with factors such as genre (the discursive characteristics of an instruction manual
are very different from those of a science textbook, with each genre having its own established
discourse community, even though this may differ from culture to culture), tenor and target
audience (e.g. differences between translation for children or adults; see Children's literature
and translation) or mode (discursive differences between speech and writing). This last aspect is
particularly relevant insubtitling (where the spoken source text appears simultaneously with
the written target text) and theatre translation (where both the source and target texts are
written to be spoken; see Drama translation).
Halliday's model has become one of the most popular among Translation Studies scholars, and
multiple articles could be cited in this respect. However, two pioneering publications by Basil
Hatim and Ian Mason Discourse and the Translator (1990) and The Translator as
Communicator (1997) deserve special mention. Halliday's textual function has attracted the
attention of scholars such asHouse (1997), but Hatim and Mason focus their analysis on the

ideational and interpersonal functions, adding a semiotic level of discourse. These authors claim
that a multiple-layered analysis is capable of accounting for the way tradition and power
relations are negotiated, challenged or perpetrated in translation. More recently, register has
deserved attention by scholars such as Marco (2001), working with literary analysis, Pettit
(2005) working on audiovisual translation orMarmkjaer (2005) on a broader perspective on
translation.

2.3. Language change and translation
Another area of Sociolinguistics that has influenced Translation Studies is the area of language
change. This is a growing area of research not only because translation can be a promoting agent
for language change (Kranich et al. 2011), but also because the natural changes in a language can
promote translation activity. In this context, it is important to consider the phenomenon
ofretranslation, the production of new translations of works that have previously been
translated into a particular language. This is an important fact to consider within Translation
Studies as the need to update or modernize a given translation's discourse has often been given
as a reason for the existence of more than one translation of the same text. This issue has
received particular attention by scholars working on the translation of religious texts. However,
scholars in other areas drama translation (Aaltonen 2003), audiovisual translation
(Ramos Pinto 2009) or translation theory (Brownlie 2006) have also looked into the
phenomenon of retranslation, focusing on the aesthetic, linguistic, ideological, and commercial
factors that motivate the production of those new translations.

2.4. Language contact, multilingualism and translation
Taking a more synchronic view of language change through translation, some TS scholars have
turned their attention to aspects of language contact, as confirmed by the special issue
of Targetdevoted to Heterolingualism in/and Translation 18:1 (2006, ed. Reine Meylaerts). As
Meylaerts explains in her introduction, [] the issues of linguistic diversity and multilingualism
are inherently tied to translation. The question of which language(s) can/cannot/must be used
necessarily implies: which one(s) can/cannot/must be translated from or into, by whom, in
what way, in which geo-temporal, institutional framework, etc. This is why translation seems
heavily institutionalised in multilingual societies (2006: 2)
Multilingualism has traditionally been considered one of the insurmountable translation
problems. However, recently, freed from the tag of the untranslatable, it has been perceived in
a new light and found to shake the foundations of the traditional dichotomy of source text vs
target text, as well as many other structural notions such as fidelity and equivalence (Suchet
2008: 151) (see Multilingualism and translation).

2.5. Language planning/policy and translation

Language planning and language policy has been a growing area of study since the 1960s, and
since these tend to include translation policies, more attention is being given to translation in
this context. Multiple studies have been promoted into community interpreting in order to
explore the links between interpreting policies and interpreting services. However, despite this,
the field is still lacking a systematic account of translation policies and the link between these
and translation services.

3. Final remarks
The rapprochement between TS and Sociolinguistics, mostly promoted by the former, was
motivated by the need to include the contextual elements surrounding the production,
circulation and reception of translated texts in TS analysis. Context can either be considered at
the micro level of the text or at the macro level of the context of translation, and the theoretical
models and concepts developed in Sociolinguistics have proved to be relevant at both levels. At
micro level, it has allowed a better understanding of communicative acts and specific situational
contexts, while at macro level, it has stimulated a new approach to translation as the product of
a communicative act itself, promoter of change or a safe keeper of specific speech communities.
Context can, nevertheless, be a daunting concept for translators and scholars alike as there are
many factors to be taken into consideration. In a world paradoxically becoming more global as
well as local, context is simultaneously becoming larger and more diversified as well as smaller
and more specific. Drawing its analytical tools both from social sciences and Linguistics,
Sociolinguistics seems to be a natural and fruitful friend to TS, whose insights can have an
important impact both on methodological and theoretical terms.


References
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