Language Functions, Text-categories and Text-types

THE EXPRESSIVE FUNCTION

I think the characteristic 'expressive' text-types are:

(1) Serious imaginative literature. Of the four principal types -lyrical poetry, short stories, novels, plays -
lyrical poetry is the most intimate expression, while plays are more evidently addressed to a large
audience, which, in the translation, is entitled to some assistance with cultural expressions.

(2) Authoritative statements. These are texts of any nature which derive their authority from the high
status or the reliability and linguistic competence of their authors. Such texts have the personal 'stamp'
of their authors, although they are denotative, not connotative. Typical authoritative statements are
political speeches, documents etc., by ministers or party leaders; statutes and legal documents;
scientific, philosophical and 'academic' works written by acknowledged authorities.

(3) Autobiography, essays, personal correspondence. These are expressive when they are personal
effusions, when the readers are a remote background.

THE INFORMATIVE FUNCTION

The core of the informative function of language is external situation, the facts of a topic, reality outside
language, including reported ideas or theories.

but texts about literary subjects, as they often express value-judgments, are apt to lean towards
'expressiveness'. The format of an informative text is often standard: a textbook, a technical report, an
article in a newspaper or a periodical, a scientific paper, a thesis, minutes or agenda of a meeting

THE VOCATIVE FUNCTION

The core of the vocative function of language is the readership, the addressee. I use the term Vocative1
in the sense of 'calling upon' the readership to act, think or feel, in fact to 'react' in the way intended by
the text (the vocative is the case used for addressing your reader in some inflected languages).

Note that nowadays vocative texts are more often addressed to a readership than a reader. For the
purposes of translation, I take notices, instructions, publicity, propaganda, persuasive writing (requests,
cases, theses) and possibly popular fiction, whose purpose is to sell the book/entertain the reader, as
the typical Vocative' text.

Few texts are purely expressive, informative or vocative: most include alt three functions, with an
emphasis on one of the three. Most informative texts will either have a vocative thread running through
them. An expressive text will usually carry information.

Consider now Jakobson's three other functions of language: the aesthetic (called by Jakobson the
'poetic'), the phatic and the metalingual.

THE AESTHETIC FUNCTION

This is language designed to please the senses, firstly through its actual or imagined sound, and secondly
through its metaphors. The rhythm, balance and contrasts of sentences, clauses and words also play
their part. The sound-effects consist of onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyme, metre,
intonation, stress - some of these play a part in most types of texts: in poetry, nonsense and children's
verse and some types of publicity (jingles, TV commercials) they are essential. In many cases it is not
possible to 'translate1 sound-effects unless one transfers the relevant language units: compensation of
some kind is usually possible. In translating expressive texts - in particular, poetry - there is often a
conflict between the expressive and the aesthetic function ('truth' and 'beauty1) - the poles of ugly
literal translation and beautiful free translation.

In nonsense poetry, the sound-effect is more important than the sense

THE PHATIC FUNCTION

The phatic function of language is used for maintaining friendly contact with the addressee rather than
for imparting foreign information. Apart from tone of voice, it usually occurs in the form of standard
phrases, or 'phaticisms1, e.g. in spoken language, therefore, in dialogue, *How are you?', 'You know',
LAre you well?', 'Have a good week-end*, 'See you tomorrow', 'Lovely to see you1, "Did you have a good
Christmas?'

Some phaticisms are 'universal', others (e,g. references to the weather) cultural, and they should be
rendered by standard equivalents, which are not literal translations.

THE METALINGUAL FUNCTION

Lastly, the metalingual function of language indicates a language's ability to explain, name, and criticise
its own features. When these are more or less universal (e.g, 'sentence', 'grammar', 'verb', etc.) - though
they may not yet exist in languages which are only spoken or have had little contact with others - there
is no translation problem. However, if these items are language-specific, e.g, 'supine',