"Stand back and admire - then eat." : Translating explicit and implicit instructions in recipes

Abstract: This study examines explicitness and implicitness in the instructions of eight English baking recipes and their translations into Swedish. The aim is to investigate whether the degree of explicitness changes in the translation. Additionally, the translation of reader address is examined to determine if it leads to an increase or decrease of the recipe explicitness. Illocution and speech act theory provide a theoretical framework for the analysis. In the examination of translated instructions, the study presents five analyzed verb constructions: the imperative, the passive, the modal auxiliary, the finite verb and the adverbial -ing-clause. In the examination of reader address, the study analyzes the translation of the English subject pronoun you. The results show that the translation keeps close to the ST structure and often renders the instructions with the same verb construction. However, there are instances for each analyzed feature where the translation provides more explicit instructions than the ST. Further, the results indicate that the translation of reader address is closely linked to the translation of the instructions; if the ST verb construction is altered in the TT, the ST reader address may either be translated or omitted in the TT. Additionally, the translator needs to interpret whether the address is aimed at a specific reader or a group of readers, as Swedish can translate the English pronoun you into either du, man, ni or det. The translation of the recipes was performed by the author of this paper, a beginner translator, which may have affected the results.