Probing for Relevance: Information Theories and Translation

Recent studies claim that the more translators know about the structure and the dynamics of discourse, the more readily and accurately they can translate both the content and the spirit of a text. Similarly, international research projects highlight directions of research which aim at helping translators make reasonable and consistent decisions as to the relevance and reliability of source text features in the target text. Other recent studies stress the importance of developing information structure theories for translation. In line with such current research desiderata, the aim of this article is to test the relevance of information theories for translation. In the first part, information theories are presented from different linguistic perspectives. In the second part, their relevance for translation is tested on a series of texts by examining how they have been or can be applied to translation. The last part presents the conclusions of the analysis