Automated translation and pragmatic force

Abstract

This article discusses the challenges that the rendering of the pragmatic implications of texts into a target language posed for human translators and, by extension, for automated translation. It starts by discussing the importance of pragmatics, focusing on two concepts that have received much attention on the part of pragmaticians as well as translation scholars, namely implicatures and politeness. It moves to on to present some of the most notable publications on the interface between pragmatics and machine translation. These illustrate that the interest in the pragmatic value of language has not succeeded in advancing the integration of pragmatics into automated translation. Drawing on Kesckes and House, the last section discusses two concepts to be considered regarding the role of pragmatics in intercultural mediation.