Cognitive pragmatics and translation studies

This chapter reviews translation studies research based on cognitive pragmatics, which can be broadly defined as encompassing the study of the cognitive principles and processes involved in the construal of meaning-in-context. Even though other cognitive pragmatic theories have been developed in the last three decades, Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1995) can be considered as the main theoretical framework in the area of cognitive pragmatics as well as the only cognitive-pragmatic approach within translation studies. Section 1 provides an overview of the cognitive approach to communication taken by relevance theorists, drawing attention to two aspects, i.e., the distinction between explicit and implicit content (1.2) and the relationship between thoughts and utterances (1.3). Sections 2 and 3 show how the application of Relevance Theory has shed light on key issues in translation and interpreting studies.