UTF-8__0415396417Translation

3TRANSLATING TEXT IN CONTEXTBASIL HATIM3.0 INTRODUCTIONTextuality is a multifaceted phenomenon, and textual practices are as variedas the contexts they serve, subsuming a wide range of structures beyond thesingle sentence. In translation studies, the challenge for years has been toidentify these macro-structures and to define their precise role in the processof translation and interpreting. This has specifically meant that we first need todifferentiate between such contextual templates as the ‘register’ membershipof texts (in terms of field, tenor, mode), on the one hand, and, on the other,• the variety of rhetorical purposes served by ‘texts’;• the range of conventional ‘genres’ systematically utilized; and• the various attitudes conveyed in and through ‘discourse’.Text and the notion of rhetorical purpose, and genre as a conventionallyrecognized ‘communicative event’, are ultimately seen as facilitators‘enabling’ discoursal ‘attitudes’ to be realized and appreciated. Discursiveactivity is defined in terms of the perspectives taken on such issues of languagein socio-cultural life as globalization, the environment, racism, gender, thecommoditization of education and so on.In this chapter, these various communicative resources are examined specificallyfrom the vantage point of the translator 1 and in terms of how the effectivenessof activities such as reading and writing (which are crucial to any actof translating) can only be enhanced by a context-sensitive approach to texts.3.1 OVERVIEWFor decades, applied linguists have devoted a great deal of time and effortto examining such aspects of the communicative process as the registermembership of texts (Ghadessy 1988), the text as a unit of communication(Halliday and Hasan 1989), discourse as an aspect of language use (Coulthard1985) and genre as a conventionalized ‘communicative event’ (Swales 1990).However, overuse and the varied applications of these concepts seem tohave contributed to a state of unsettling confusion regarding how the variouscategories might best be understood and used. This chapter is an attempt36