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Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 34:4 (2024) ► pp.534–564

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Translating politeness on public notices with a directive function in Thessaloniki

A cross-cultural perspective

ORCiD logo with link | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 25 July 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.21053.lee
Abstract
This paper examines notices with a directive function that have been translated from Greek into English in the public spaces of Thessaloniki. In particular, it explores the ways in which Greek politeness is expressed and how this politeness is rendered in the English translation of the original Greek texts. The paper uses photographic data collected in 2020. Using Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar concept of face, the methodology used is a combination of the qualitative ethnographic approach employed in contemporary linguistic landscape research and Bourdieu’s habitus approach used in the sociology of translation. The analysis shows that the translations examined often retain aspects of Greek politeness strategies, affecting the message of the English target text to varying degrees.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Official notices
    • 4.2Ad hoc notices
    • 4.3Texts in businesses providing services
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (69)
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