Starting from a set of examples of translations in which translators use paratextual or code-switching devices to voice reservations about the works they are translating, I explore the similarities between this type of translation and what Dorrit Cohn calls discordant narration. I go on to argue in favour of viewing translation as a form of reported discourse, more particularly what Relevance theory calls echoic (and in some cases ironic) speech, a species of interpretive discourse in which the speaker’s attitude towards the words being reported is relevant. Viewing translation as reported discourse implies that the translated words are embedded in the translator’s reporting discourse. I conclude by suggesting that it is up to the reader to make a translator’s attitude relevant, and that deictic shifts from the framing to the framed discourse enable the reader to discern or construe the translator’s positioning.
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