Lo dado y lo nuevo: acerca del equilibrio adecuado entre la información suponible y la no suponible en la traducción

Abstract

The article addresses the problem of dealing with presuppositions from a functional perspective. After some brief remarks regarding a model of communicative functions in texts, the author proposes a classification of presuppositions consisting of linguistic, encyclopaedic and pragmatic presuppositions. Linguistic presuppositions refer to the knowledge of languages (i.e. general linguistic presuppositions), or a particular language (i.e. metalinguistic presuppositions) that the target audience is presumed to have. Encyclopaedic presuppositions refer to the so-called world knowledge of general facts or, more specifically, to the knowledge of behaviour conventions and facts of a particular culture. Pragmatic presuppositions refer to the conditions of time, place, medium etc. in which a communicative interaction is (or was) set and the deictic elements in a text pointing to these conditions. As is illustrated in a number of examples from different text types, it depends on the type and form of translation required by the commissioner how these problems can be solved adequately in the translation process.