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the source text, a step which comes prior to actual translating.
Current text-typologies, however, share one serious limitation. Though
they provide elaborate and sophisticated methods for text/discourse
analysis, they regrettably fall short of submitting descriptive methods
for translation or for translation quality assessment.
Discourse is not only a form of langauge use, but also a form of
social interaction. Therefore, discourse analysis has recourse to
psychology, sociology, anthropology, semiology and other adjacent
disciplines. Van Dijk (1985, p10) introduces three approaches to
discourse analysis which he labels hermeneutic, ideological, and
content analysis respectively. Hermeneutic analysis approach focuses
on "the expression of subjective, personal world views or values".
Ideological analysis approach emphasizes "the underlying ideology of
speakers or writers and hence class-dependent interests and their
socioeconomical basis". Content analysis approach "analyses content
mainly as an expression of social or institutional features of
production and communication in general". On the other hand, Gunther
Kress, in 'Ideological Structures in Discourse" an article included in
vol.4 of 'Handbook of Discourse Analysis' edited by Van Dijk, (1985),
pp27-29) distinguishes between text and discourse. He views discourse
as "a category that belongs to and derives from the social domain,
whereas a text belongs to and derives from the linguistic domain".
This distinction, to my mind, is both arbitrary and superficial. Both
discourse and text are langauge-bound and each is interpretable in
relation to its relevant socio-cultural context. He also views
discourse as a "a mode of talking". Discourse is talking, the mode of
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