STEPHAN: Is it possible to gauge the success of literary translation with the minimum amount of information processing the maximum number of contextual effects when relevant communication and authorial intent cannot be guaranteed?
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I'm not sure I understand your problem, but let me try to comment on what I think you may be trying to ask. If it is not what you have in mind, just forget about this message.
The idea behind RT is that relevance is not a fixed criterium to assess the real (?) meaning of a communicative act. It is a dynamic process by which the receiver decides at any given time what the relevance of an interpretation is for her. Suppose I read the adventures of Don Quijote to kids of 10 or 11 years of age. Their relevance seeking device will compute the inforation about the adventures of this character and the possible context they might create with what they are looking for by listening to me: to be amused or perhaps thrilled. But relevance for a literary-minded person or a researcher will result in a totally different set of hypotheses. That is, they will derive other contextual effects which will help them find, either hidden literary meanings, or new hunches that the author never dreamed of having. For instance, when I managed to have one of my juvenile plays represented publicly in a college and then, in the following discussion, tried to cope with the senses
other people had perceived in them, I was flabbergasted for I had never thought about those possible (hidden!) senses when I wrote the play. Nevertheless, they seemed to be relevant for some part of the audience.
I suppose this much should be obvious to anyone studying RT, so I may have written (or blown) ... in the wind, like Bob Dylan.
Cheers!
José Luis Guijarro
http://www.infonegocio.com/joseluisguijarro
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras
Universidad de Cádiz
11002 Cádiz, España (Spain)
tlf: (33) 956-011.613
fax: (33) 956-015.505
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