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Article published In: Translating Power Distance
Edited by Maria Sidiropoulou
[Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts 10:3] 2024
► pp. 318–337

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Teaching cross-cultural pragmatics through AVT

 | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Published online: 4 October 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ttmc.00142.pap
Abstract
There is fairly little research on using translation to advance pragmatic competence in learners of English and highlight how translation can advance cross-cultural pragmatic awareness in EFL. The study attempts to explore how audio-visual translation (AVT) can introduce cross-cultural pragmatics to Greek learners of English. The data derive from the animated film Inside Out (Pixar Docter, Pete, and Ronnie Del Carmen. 2015. Inside Out. United States: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The study takes dubbed dialogues to be a target-oriented data set, with the subtitles as an intermediate, constrained type of transfer where pragmatic shifts may be least visible or not at all. The research uses (a) the positive/negative politeness distinction as manifested through interpersonal proximity/distance (Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1978. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Sifianou, Maria. 1992. Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Horn, Laurence R., and Gregory Ward. 2006. The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and (b) the un/certainty avoidance communication style (Hofstede, Geert, Gert Jan Hofstede, and Michael Minkov. 2010. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the mind. New York: Mcgraw-Hill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The aim is to familiarize learners with the significance of cross-cultural pragmatic awareness and its use in EFL teaching and learning. Analysis of the data is followed by a questionnaire addressing bilingual participants who confirmed the findings of the study. Results show types of pragmatic variation across English and Greek: for instance, the subtitles showed less signs of positive politeness strategies and more uncertainty features, while dubbing manifested more positive politeness strategies and stronger uncertainty avoidance, i.e., in alignment with features of the target language. Findings allow learners to look beyond grammaticality, at the level of pragmatic preference.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Data analysis
    • 4.1The interpersonal dimension
    • 4.2Avoiding/tolerating vagueness
      • 4.2.1Higher certainty
      • 4.2.2Connectivity
      • 4.2.3Deixis/definiteness
  • 5.Questionnaire analysis
    • 5.1The interpersonal dimension
    • 5.2Greek avoiding vagueness
  • 6.Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
References (24)
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Film
Docter, Pete, and Ronnie Del Carmen. 2015. Inside Out. United States: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
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