Chapter 6. Politeness in notices translated from Greek into English in Thessaloniki’s public spaces from a cross-cultural perspective and translator/student translator evaluations

Abstract

This chapter examines notices that have been translated from Greek into English and are visible in the public spaces of Thessaloniki. It uses photographic data collected during ethnographic fieldwork in the city in 2020, a time that coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic and an increased number of signs. By drawing on Brown and Levinson’s concept of face and more recent discursive approaches to politeness, the chapter explores the ways in which Greek politeness is expressed and rendered into English and how a group of translation students and translation professionals perceive the degree to which the Greek source texts have been successfully rendered into English.