Illocutionary Pragmatic Adaptation Challenge: Ukrainian Translations of English-language Soft Law Texts

Abstract

The article introduces the concept of illocutionary pragmatic adaptation (IPA) as a local translation adaptation aimed at replacing, de-intensifying or strengthening the modality in Ukrainian translations of the English-language soft law texts. The idea of IPA is based on the premises of illocutionary forces–modality correlation, their graded nature added by the concept of pragmatic translation adaptation, its types, criteria, and strategies. Basic IPA means include shall-associated transformations aimed at adaptation to a softer law and should-associated IPA to a harder law. The omission of shall in the Ukrainian translations results in transforming explicit directives into two-intentional assertives, effecting the replacement of obligative modality by an epistemic belief that the rule should be followed instead of the requirement for the rule observation. Replacing the modal verb of the recommendation should with the verb of obligation “повинні» (must) leads to the transformation of modality of recommendation into an obligative one based on strengthening the directive illocutionary force. The paper has identified three factors of IPA: (1) genre-related, which determines the target text adaptation either to the softer or harder genres of the source text; (2) a discursive space of soft law core values effecting IPA with a decrease in directive illocutionary force and obligative modality; (3) the factor of the local context.