Translations of Perveen Shakir’s Selected Poems: A Pragmatic Analysis

Abstract

Language is a powerful tool and a medium to convey meaningful information. In addition to its communicative functions, it could imply underlying meanings that are not directly stated. The pragmatic analysis considers the multiple layers of unstated meanings that are at play in literature, especially in poetry. Hence, this study aims to conduct quality evaluation of the translated work through pragmatic analysis of five poems by Perveen Shakir, which have been translated into English by Rashid (2019) in her book Defiance of the Rose. Preliminary Pragmatic Model (PPM) (Pallavi & Mojibur, 2011) is used to examine the comparison between source and target text. PPM is a pragmatically functional model that compares, contrasts and tests whether the target or translated text is pragmatically equivalent to the source text since equivalences play a vital role in translated works. Thus, to appreciate the aesthetics of poetry and translation, the current study does not simply highlight the pragmatic features but also leads to a sensible conclusion that unveils whether or not there is a naturally dynamic equivalence between the source text and the target text. The model facilitates to understand the translation as dynamic and to evaluate whether the original text has been transposed dynamically into the source language. The study's outcome advocates that only one of the selected poems out of four is pragmatically and dynamically equivalent.