scholarly journals Passive Voice and the Language of Translation: A Comparable Corpus-Based Study of Modern Greek Popular Science Articles

2014 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 411-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Malamatidou
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Indirect Evidence ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Modern Greek ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Language Corpus

Little research has been conducted so far into the translation-specific features that are dependent on both the source and the target language. This study aims at examining whether Modern Greek translated popular science articles differ from non-translated ones by being closer to the source language, which is English, in terms of the frequency and the word order of the passive voice constructions. This is one of the few Modern Greek studies that use a comparable corpus in order to better understand the nature of the translation practice. The corpus analysed consists of Modern Greek popular science articles and is divided into two subcorpora: the translated language corpus and the non-translated language corpus. The study indicates that there is substantial evidence that Modern Greek articles employ some translation-specific features which are dependent on the source language, at least in terms of some passive voice features. More importantly, it suggests that the non-translated texts tend to be similar to the translated ones, which are in turn closer to the English source texts. Even though it is early to conclude that translation encourages the different usage of particular linguistic features in non-translated texts, the data provide indirect evidence that translation is a potential field of language contact with important consequences.

scholarly journals Understanding translation as a site of language contact

Target ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Malamatidou
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Passive Voice ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
A Site ◽  
Important Site

Abstract This paper begins by acknowledging translation as an important site of language contact and its primary aim is to reinterpret a theoretical framework from the field of language contact, namely Johanson’s Code-Copying Framework (1993, 1999, 2002a), with translation in mind. The framework is then systematically applied to empirical data and a corpus-based study is conducted, using the translation of popular science articles from English into Greek as a case in point, and in particular examining any change in the frequency of passive voice reporting verbs. The discussion and corpus analysis suggest that the Code-Copying Framework offers a new vantage point for understanding translation as facilitating linguistic development in the target language, and that translation studies can benefit from adopting it as a descriptive mechanism when comparing instances of contact through translation across languages.

Language contact through translation

Target ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 420-455
Author(s):  
Shuangzi Pang ◽  
Kefei Wang
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Parallel Corpus ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Sample Points ◽  
Chinese Texts

Abstract This article investigates the role of translations from English in language change in Chinese. It employs a new corpus, the Chinese Diachronic Composite Corpus (CDCC), which incorporates a parallel corpus and comparable corpus in three sampling periods in the twentieth century, and a refe­rence corpus as a starting point in the timeframe. We examine whether explicitness in English–Chinese translations has exerted an impact on the target language, focusing on adversative conjunctions as a measure of explicitness. The results of the study demonstrate that: (1) translated Chinese texts have changed in step with original Chinese texts in the frequency of adversative conjunctions; (2) translated Chinese texts and original Chinese texts are interrelated throughout the three periods, but the correlation between them has changed perceptibly over the three sample points; and (3) source language interference found in translated Chinese texts increases over the three periods.

Corpus-based contrastive analysis and ­translation universals

Babel ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 303-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosa Rabadán ◽  
Belén Labrador ◽  
Noelia Ramón
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Translation Quality ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Translator Training ◽  
The University

Project) developed at the University of León (Spain) for identifying instances of low-quality rendering of grammatical features when translating from English into Spanish using translation universals. The analysis provides information about: i) the resources available (or absence thereof) in each of the languages to express a given meaning and their relative centrality; ii) the solutions favored by translators to bridge the cross-linguistic disparities and/or gaps; iii) the erroneous or non-existent uses and structures transferred from the source language into the target language. These results can be systematized in terms of simplification, interference, or unique grammatical features. Additional areas that can benefit from this type of research are translation practice, translator training and foreign language teaching (FLT). Assessing translation quality is generally seen as a difficult task because of the inadequacy of the tools available. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of a corpus-based contrastive methodology (ACTRES

scholarly journals Analysis of Humour in Tv Series Friends and Its Translation Into Lithuanian

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-178
Author(s):  
Julija Korostenskienė ◽  
Miglė Pakrosnytė
Keyword(s):  
Target Language ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Translation Practice

Summary The present study examines humour in the tenth season of the TV sitcom Friends and its translation from English into Lithuanian. With humour often believed to be culture-specific, humour translation presents a notorious issue in translation practice, as jocular content in the target language is often criticised for being poor and vague. Grounded in Raskin’s (1985) theory of verbal humour and adopting Schjoldager’s (2008) inventory of translation microstrategies, the article examines the components and mechanisms of humour in the source language and analyses the strategies applied to humour translation, focusing on whether the intended humorous effect is preserved in the target language. The article also seeks to establish to what extent humour as used in Friends is culturedependent. The study was conducted at two levels. First, we briefly presented the essence of Raskin’s model of humour, which centres around the notions of script and incongruity, and later applied it to the selected series to identify and analyse the data in the source language. We then supplemented the findings with the identification of jokes in the target language and assessment of translation microstrategies employed in rendering humorous instances in Lithuanian. The findings of the study are believed to further the theoretical and practical domains of translation from English into Lithuanian in particular and, more broadly, contribute to the discussion on the culture-specific worldview.

scholarly journals Fachkommunikation, Popularisierung, Übersetzung: Empirische Vergleiche am Beispiel der Nominalphrase im Englischen und Deutschen

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Hansen-Schirra ◽  
Sandra Hansen ◽  
Sascha Wolfer ◽  
Lars Konieczny
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Structure Information ◽  
Comparable Corpora ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Part Of Speech ◽  
The One ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Empirical Insight

This article examines the contrasts and commonalities between languages for specific purposes (LSP) and their popularizations on the one hand and the frequency patterns of LSP register features in English and German on the other. For this purpose corpora of expert-expert and expert-lay communication are annotated for part-of-speech and phrase structure information. On this basis, the frequencies of pre- and post-modifications in complex noun phrases are statistically investigated and compared for English and German. Moreover, using parallel and comparable corpora it is tested whether English-German translations obey the register norms of the target language or whether the LSP frequency patterns of the source language Ñshine throughì. The results provide an empirical insight into language contact phenomena involving specialized communication.

scholarly journals THE VARIATION OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING BREADTH OF BILINGUAL TEXT “SERIBU KUNANG-KUNANG DI MANHATTAN BY UMAR KHAYAM”

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 180
Author(s):  
Eka Yunita Liambo
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
First Variation ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Bilingual Text

<p class="Abstract">ABSTRACT</p><p class="IsiAbstrakabstractcontent"><em>The process of meaning realization to the target language may involve the change of meaning. This change leads to the variation of meaning depth, breadth, and height. This is caused by the differences of linguistic features between the target language and source language. Therefore, the difficulties of finding equivalent words in target language may force translators to use other words which do not have the exactly similar meaning. However, this becomes a phenomenon in translation studies. This research aims to know the variation of interpersonal meaning breadth of a bilingual text. The primary data of this research is the sentences of first bilingual text taken from Seribu Kunang-Kunang di Manhattan translated into A Thousand Fireflies in Manhattan. There were 281 sentences are analysed. The result shows that those sentences found to have different variations. The most frequently variations found in this short story are the first variations in which element functions in the source text and target text have one difference. First variation has 28,82% then followed by zero variation  with 23,48%. Whereas other sentences is classified as the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth variation of interpersonal meaning breadth with percentage of 18,14%, 4,62%, 3,20%, 14,23% and 7,47%. These variations occurring in the first bilingual text Seribu Kunang-Kunang di Manhattan translated into A Thousand Fireflies in Manhattan seems to be done to maintain the correspondence in the target language.</em></p><strong>Keywords: </strong>bilingual, breadth meaning, interpersonal, translation, variation of meaning,

scholarly journals THE VERBAL POLITENESS OF INTERPERSONAL UTTERANCES RESULTED FROM BACK-TRANSLATING INDONESIAN TEXTS INTO ENGLISH

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 288
Author(s):  
Yan Mujiyanto
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Background ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Positive Correlation ◽  
Source Language ◽  
The Subject

Verbal politeness can be considered from the perspectives of linguistic features, participants’ socio-cultural background and their membership within a speech community. It can also be viewed from the ways to which it applies in interpersonal utterances, be they source or target ones. It may also be taken into account from its users’ perception as well their maintenance in real communication. This paper aimed to explore (1) the degree of the verbal politeness contained in English interpersonal utterances, (2) the correlation of politeness degrees between the English utterances as the source texts and their back-translations, (3) the speakers’ perception of the politeness degrees contained in the two sets of utterances, and (4) the ways of maintaining them. The object of this study was verbal (im)-politeness contained in English interpersonal utterances which were back-rendered from translated texts in Indonesian. In order to elicit the type of utterances from the subject of this study, the Indonesian utterances were exposed to them to be translated back to English. Comparing the source texts with results of their back-rendering, this study was capable of fulfilling the outlined objectives. The results of this study show that (1) the politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances in the source language were generally equivalent to their counterparts in the target language; (2) there was a positive correlation between the English utterances and their back-translations; (3) the politeness degrees of the utterances in both the source texts and their back-translations were perceived to be relatively polite; (4) the politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances in the target language have been maintained by using grammatical features and rhetoric which were more formal than those available in the source texts.

scholarly journals Cognitive Basis of Conceptual Borrowing

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 01120
Author(s):  
Larisa Gatsalova ◽  
Tatyana Novikova ◽  
Larisa Parsieva
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Cognitive Model ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Specific Task ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Gap Filling ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Cultural Gaps

The conceptual discrepancy of various linguistic and cultural systems sets the problem of transferring concepts when translating. A translator should borrow concepts of the source language to fill conceptual and cultural gaps of the target language. Abstract concepts based on metaphor represent the specific task of conceptual and cultural gap filling. Conceptual borrowing is one of the most complicated processes of translation practice and complex theoretical problems. The problem of conceptual borrowing could be solved with the help of cognitive models. The cognitive model of conceptual metaphor is the most productive one. Conceptual metaphor presents an image providing conceptual borrowing and cultural gap filling in order to achieve an adequate translation.

scholarly journals Strategies in Solving Equivalent-related Problems in Translation: Implications to Cross-cultural Understanding

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Rusdi Noor Rosa
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Cultural Understanding ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
The Right ◽  
Right Equivalence ◽  
Equivalence Problems ◽  
Bahasa Indonesia

Any translation practice is intended to produce a text which is equivalent in meaning with its source text. However, to arrive at such equivalence is not an easy task due to a number of differences between the source language and the target language. Therefore, finding the right equivalence is a problem often encountered by translators, especially student translators. Suggested by such problem, a study on equivalence problems and possible strategies to solve the problems is obviously necessary. This article aims at finding out the problems of equivalence encountered and the strategies to solve such problems applied by student translators in translating a historical recount text. This is a descriptive study taking 10 student translators as the participants who were asked to translate a historical recount text from English into bahasa Indonesia. The data were collected using Translog that recorded all the translation process done by the student translators. The results of the study were: (i) the student translators encountered five equivalence problems while translating a historical recount text from English into bahasa Indonesia; and (ii) to solve such problems, they applied six strategies (naturalization, borrowing, description, deletion, addition and generalization). The findings imply that the problems were motivated by the student translators’ lack of cultural understanding of the source language.

Contrasting pronominal subjects

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-251
Author(s):  
Agnes Pisanski Peterlin ◽  
Tamara Mikolič Južnič
Keyword(s):  
Popular Science ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Science Texts ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Source Language ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Potential Challenge

Abstract Pronominal subject use constitutes a potential challenge in translation because of cross-linguistic differences: while the subject must be expressed in non-null subject languages, this is not necessary in null subject languages. The aim of the paper is twofold: first, to show that the type of source language influences the frequency of personal pronouns in translation, and second, to establish whether translations into a null subject language differ from comparable target language originals in terms of pronominal subject use. The study is based on the analysis of a 625,000-word corpus comprising original and translated popular science texts in Slovene and the corresponding source texts in English and Italian. The results confirm that pronominal subjects are more frequent in translations from English, a non-null subject language; furthermore, they are more frequent in translations than in comparable originals. Untypical cohesive patterns are identified in translations and possible reasons for their presence are explored.

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