Naturalness and Translation

Abstract

In this paper I would like to address some of the issues which impinge on our understanding of 'naturalness'. While on the one hand it has been associated negatively with cultural assimilation from a literary perspective, on the other hand, it has been linked positively with the 'localisation' of informative texts and the products to which they relate from a commercial perspective. After a brief presentation of some views on naturalness in translation, the following issues will be addressed: authority, ideology, text type, genre and prototypes or parallel texts. Finally, two case studies are presented, considering also some pedagogical issues.