No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Translation and Original: Similarities and Dissimilarities, I
Abstract
This article presents a method for the establishment and description of shifts in integral translations of narrative texts. The method is based on the premise that both micro- and macrostructural shifts in translation can furnish indications of the translational norms adopted by the translator, his interpretation of the original text and the strategy applied during the process of translation. Further it is based on the assumption that research on the nature and frequency of microstructural shifts must precede research on macrostructural ones, in order to guarantee that findings are verifiable and the study repeatable. Thus, the method developed consists of two components: A comparative and a descriptive model. The comparative model is designed for the classification of microstructural shifts, i.e. semantic, stylistic and pragmatic shifts within sentences, clauses and phrases. The descriptive model focuses on the effects of microstructural shifts on the macrostructural level. With the aid of this model shifts with respect to characters, events, time, place and other meaningful components of the text can be determined and described.
... In this context, comparison of MT output to human translation (HT) is usually performed only quantitatively and with the sole purpose of measuring the degree of similarity between MT and HT output. Exceptions include the work of Ahrenberg [1], who performs a close qualitative comparison of MT and HT on a single newspaper article translated from English into Swedish, focusing on information structure, word order, post-editing required for the MT output, and examples of Translation Procedures [16]. The simple quantitative analysis found that the MT output more closely preserved the number of sentences and tokens of the English original than the human translator, who would often split longer sentences into multiple shorter ones. ...
... For English, we used word counts extracted from the UMBC-Webbase 14 corpus [9]. Syllables of each word were counted by lemmatizing them using stanza (see Section 3) and retrieving the number of syllables for each word from the CMU pronunciation dictionary 15 provided by the Python library pronouncing 16 . Since the dictionary's coverage is limited, but the full vocabulary of the corpus contains 6.7 million word types, we only lemmatized words with at least 100 occurrences in the UMBC corpus (175 000 types) and then proceeded to further lter out those lemmas that are not present in the CMU dictionary. ...
... Kitty Van Leuven-Zwart (1989, 1990 attempts to analyse shifts in translation more scrupulously. She proposes two models for the analysis of shifts: a comparative model through which two texts could be compared in terms of substantial -microstructural shifts‖ including differences at semantic, stylistic and pragmatic levels, and a descriptive model to display how -macrostructural shifts‖ regarding -the characters, events, time, place and other meaningful components of the text‖ are influenced by microstructural ones (1989, p. 155). ...
... In her Style and Ideology in Translation, Jeremy Munday (2008b) primarily focuses on the effect of ideology on linguistic style. He takes a similar view to Malmkjaer (2004) and Van Leuven-Zwart (1989, 1990 by arguing that the reconstruction of the author's style can merely be analyzed through an investigation of the linguistic choices in the target text, which he identifies as the most -immediately visible‖ element of narrative fiction. Yet the text should be analyzed comparatively with the ST. ...
... En la traducción se ha omitido hoy y todo el pasaje está en pasado. Esto genera la impresión de que la segmentación es cronológica y no psicológica, lo que deja un efecto en las funciones interpersonales que operan en ambos niveles (Leuven-Zwart 1989, 1990. ...
Resumen
Laoshe, una de las principales figuras de la literatura china moderna y contemporánea, es conocido sobre todo por sus dos obras clásicas, El Camello Xiangzi y La casa de té . Sin embargo, el número de obras de Laoshe traducidas al español y difundidas al mundo hispanohablante es todavía relativamente limitado, entre estas, El Camello Xiangzi es la única que cuenta con dos versiones: El Camello Xiangzi , traducida por Blas Piñero Martínez y La verdadera historia del Camello Xiangzi traducida por Manuel Lacruz y Tan Hui. Este artículo presenta un estudio comparativo de la traducción de la voz y el punto de vista narrativos en estas dos versiones de El Camello Xiangzi , utilizando como marco teórico la narratología y los desplazamientos traductivos en textos narrativos. Para ello, se toman los conceptos de la voz y la focalización narrativas del académico francés Gérard Genette, la tipología y teoría del punto de vista narrativo de la autora china Shen Dan y el modelo descriptivo de desplazamientos traductivos de la estudiosa holandesa Kitty van Leuven-Zwart.
... Therefore, it is essential to recognize cohesive elements for what they are and manage them appropriately during translation. Regarding narrative texts, van Leuven-Zwart (1990) maintains that adjustments to formal connections in translation can impact the narrative function of the text. ...
This preliminary qualitative research aims to examine the changes in the level of explicitness of cohesive elements during the translation process. It does so by comparing an excerpt from Jane Austen's English novel "Pride and Prejudice" (1993) with its two Vietnamese translations by Diep Minh Tam (2002) and Lam Quynh Anh and Thien Nga (2017). The study focuses on how these translations handle cohesive elements based on Halliday and Hassan's cohesion taxonomy (1976). It also considers the tendency for explicitation, as suggested by Blum-Kulka's hypothesis (1986) and Gumul's framework (2017). The analysis involves identifying these cohesive devices in the source text and comparing them with their counterparts in the target texts to detect translational shifts towards greater explicitness. Additionally, the study examines how the two Vietnamese translations differ from each other in handling these elements. The findings of this descriptive study reveal that both Vietnamese translations employ explicitation techniques, including reiteration, the transformation of pro-forms into lexical cohesion, and the restoration of substitution and clausal ellipses used in the original text. The analysis also reflects different translation decisions in transferring the same source language content into the target language between the two translators, which manifests in the usage of explicitation shifts in the target language texts under study.
... Ezt példázza Szakály Szilvia kutatása. Salinger The Catcher in the Rye című regényének két magyar nyelvű fordítását vetette össze Leuven-Zwart (1989, 1990) komplex szövegelemző modellje alapján. Az elemzés rávilágít a fordítók egyedi stílusának jellemzőire is (Szakály 2021). ...
The question if regular patterns detected and theoretical approaches used in the context of translation studies apply to all types of translation or only to technical translation often raises. Is it possible to analyse the translation of technical texts and literary texts in the same theoretical framework? The answer is yes. The process, product and context of literary translation can be studied in the paradigm of linguistic translation studies. Present article reveals how the aspects, approaches and methodologies of linguistic translation studies can be applied in analysing literary translation. Clearly defining the aim of the research and the research question, as well as the theoretical background and the research database is of utmost importance, together with the detailed description of the applied methods and the self-reflection of the researcher.
... The analysis of translation shifts is not a particularly novel area of translation studies. Scholars such as Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet (1958), John C. Catford (1965), Kitty van Leuven-Zwart (1989), etc. have revolutionised this field of study by establishing many of the currently implemented approaches to translation, as well as encouraging future generations to analyse how the process of translation functions, and what effect shifts have on various aspects of translated literary works. ...
This paper analyses and compares the three currently available Lithuanian translations of George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm (1945) by Arvydas Sabonis (1991), Edita Mažonienė (2021) and Jovita Liutkutė (2022) with special attention given to the frequently overlooked translation of speech tags. It aims to reveal the peculiarities as well as assess the quality of the translations of the collected speech tags. This is achieved by applying quantitative and qualitative analysis methods, i.e. by systematising the relevant elements of the text and analysing them according to the chosen classification of translation shifts as well as comparing the collected data of each individual translation. One of the most notable aspects of the translations, as observed during the analysis, is a significant variety in the translations of pronouns and verbs, occurring due to the application of the translation shifts of specification and implicitation, which function on a semantic level. These aspects reflect the linguistic preferences of translators when translating into synthetic languages and highlight the richness of the Lithuanian language. Key words: translation shifts, speech tags, Animal Farm
... Another important aspect of translation studies is the analysis of translational shifts. The current study adopts van Leuven-Zwart (1989, 1990 shift analysis model. Drawing on categories proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1958,1995) and Levy (1969), and applying them to the descriptive analysis of translation, van Leuven-Zwart's model is distinctive and more thorough than previous ones. ...
This paper aims to examine the representation of Asiri people in Asir before World War I (Cornwallis 1976), a historical British travel writing book, and its respective Arabic translation. Following Toury’s (1995) descriptive approach and van Leuven-Zwart’s (1989) model of shift analysis, I investigate the impact of particular sociocultural factors on the image construction process in terms of Asiris’ personal and physical characteristics, ethnic heritage, and traditional values and practices. Then, I explore the impact of these shifts on the macro level of meaning and overall representation of people and traditions of Asir. The study finds the representation of the local people in the book is pragmatic and strictly goes in line with the colonial agenda and perspectives. Furthermore, the translation shows frequent patterns of modification, mutation shifts and omissions related to the representation and depiction of the local people (individuals and groups) reported in the original text.
... From this tertium, we can then gauge variation in the degree of explicitness/specificity or implicitness/schematicity with which this meaning is construed in ST and TT. As such, the present approach is not unlike van Leuven-Zwart's (1989) well-known model of translation comparison. However, van Leuven-Zwart's notion of architranseme as a common denominator between ST and TT (see Hermans 1999:59) shows strong parallels to the structural linguistic notion of archiseme, implying that the locus of the tertium comparationis is somehow in the texts themselves (see the discussion of the language-internal approach to linguistic meaning in 4.1), requiring no human conceptualizing efforts. ...
This thesis aims to explore the interface between scientific and technical translation (STT) and cognitive linguistics (CL), placing particular emphasis on the translationally relevant phenomena of explicitation and implicitation. The two concepts are regarded as potential indicators of translational text-context interaction, which may be of specific importance in the knowledge-intense field of STT and which can be modelled within the CL framework. Parallel to the microscopic attempt to give a coherent account of explicitation and implicitation in STT from a CL perspective, the thesis follows a macroscopic approach that aims to highlight the wider potential which cognitive linguistics holds for the field of scientific and technical translation. Translationally relevant elements of the CL framework include a coherent and cognitively plausible epistemological basis that explains the stability of scientific knowledge, the concept of common ground, which can be used to model the shared knowledge of specialized discourse communities, the field of cognitive semantics, which has developed tools for modelling the organization and representation of specialized knowledge, and the concept of linguistic construal, which allows the description of various linguistic aspects of STT (explicitation and implicitation among them) from a cognitively plausible perspective.
The first part of the thesis takes a macroscopic perspective, being concerned with scientific and technical translation, cognitive linguistics, the philosophical grounding of the two fields and their interface. The perspective is then narrowed down to the two specific phenomena of explicitation and implicitation, which are reconceptualized in cognitive linguistic terms so as to fit into the overall framework of the thesis. The interface between STT and CL is then illustrated in a qualitative corpus-based investigation of explicitation and implicitation as indicators of text-context interaction in translation. The qualitative discussion of the results of the corpus analysis then brings together the theoretical strands of the thesis.
... Os estudos voltados para a investigação do estilo do tradutor e da tradução, e que têm como objeto de estudo traduções de textos literários, têm em comum a pressuposição de que serão feitas escolhas no texto traduzido que o tornarão, de alguma forma, único no sentido de que esse texto terá características próprias e identificáveis por meio da investigação de padrões de escolhas linguísticas, no nível microestrutural com efeitos no nível macroestrutural, moldando assim o texto final. Dessa forma, ao assumirem essa premissa, de que o texto traduzido possui características próprias que o definem, muitos estudos avançaram com o propósito de investigar as escolhas feitas nos TTs por meio de mudanças de tradução e consequentes diferenças, além de investigar similaridades (TOURY, 1995;CHESTERMAN, 1997CHESTERMAN, , 2007LEUVEN-ZWART, 1989, 1990PEKKANEN, 2010). Esses estudos compararam segmentos do texto-fonte (TF) com os mesmos segmentos do texto traduzido, observando e anotando as diferenças e as similaridades. ...
A coletânea segue em essência o escopo da PERcursos, visto
que apresenta trabalhos diversos com diferentes abordagens,
teorias e práticas. Apesar da proposital diversidade, o leitor terá a
oportunidade de encontrar em cada contribuição a persistência na
realização de um trabalho sério que reafirma a importância da
linguística no mundo contemporâneo, bem como as inúmeras
possibilidades de se encarar os desafios em se perseguir problemas
relacionados à linguagem.
... Os estudos voltados para a investigação do estilo do tradutor e da tradução, e que têm como objeto de estudo traduções de textos literários, têm em comum a pressuposição de que serão feitas escolhas no texto traduzido (TT) que o tornarão, de alguma forma, único no sentido de que esse texto terá características próprias e identificáveis por meio da investigação de padrões de escolhas linguísticas, no nível microestrutural com efeitos no nível macroestrutural, moldando, assim, o texto final. Dessa forma, ao assumirem essa premissa, muitos estudos avançaram com o propósito de investigar as escolhas feitas nos textos traduzidos (TTs) por meio de mudanças de tradução e consequentes diferenças, além de investigar similaridades (TOURY, 1995;CHESTERMAN, 1997CHESTERMAN, , 2007LEUVEN-ZWART, 1989, 1990PEKKANEN, 2010). Esses estudos compararam segmentos do texto-fonte com os mesmos segmentos do texto traduzido, observando e anotando as diferenças e as similaridades. ...
Esta obra é resultado dos esforços da Comissão de Tradução da Associação Brasileira de Linguística (ABRALIN), buscando marcar o seu lugar de pesquisa em tradução e interpretação de línguas orais e sinalizadas na instituição. Com a crescente demanda de traduções de textos e interpretação simultânea, principalmente, no âmbito das redes sociais e em contato com novas tecnologias, há necessidade de ampliarmos os nossos olhares sobre as práticas e formações, para, assim, atuarmos em diversos contextos de trabalho. Por isso, esta obra vem ao encontro da necessidade de expandirmos as nossas conexões em pesquisas aplicadas na Abralin e com as demandas de trabalho de tradução e interpretação na contemporaneidade.
... The empirical evidence regarding similarities and dissimilarities between the ST and TTs considering the discussions about semantic shifts (e.g., van Leuven-Zwart, 1989;Zare, 2015; has prompted the third research question as follows: ...
The research goal is to clarify how and to what degree the modernist style and features of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse are rendered in the eleven retranslations into Italian of this novel and whether these can be characterised as modernist novels themselves. A suitable methodology has been developed, which is drawn on the existing corpus methods for descriptive translation studies. Empirical evidence of the differences between target texts have been found, which in many cases have been interpreted as due to the translators’ voice or thumb-prints. The present research uses a systematic literary comparison of the retranslations by adopting a mixed-method and bottom-up (inductive) approach by developing an empirical corpus approach. This corpus is specifically tailored to identify and study both linguistic and non-linguistic modernist features throughout the texts such as stream of consciousness-indirect interior monologue and free indirect speech. All occurrences will be analysed in this thesis in the computations of inferential and comparative statistics such as lexical variety and lexical frequency. The target texts were digitised, and the resulting text files were then analysed by using a bespoke, novel computer program, which is capable of the mentioned functions not provided by commercially available software such as WordSmith Tools and WMatrix. Not only did this methodology enable performing in-depth explorations of micro- and macro-textual features, but it also allowed a mixed-method approach combining close-reading qualitative analysis with systematic quantitative comparisons. The obtained empirical results identify a progressive source-text orientation of the retranslations of Woolf’s style in a few aspects of a few target texts. The translators’ presence affected all the eleven target texts in register and style under the influence of the Italian translation norms usually attributed to the translation of literary classics.
... • compensation Aixela 1996) • compensation in place (Hervey --Higgins 1992) • compensation in kind (Hervey --Higgins 1992) 4 Deletion • omission (Ivir 1987) • compensatory Reduction (Malone 1988) deletion (e.g. Leuven-Zwart 1989;Aixela 1996) 4 Addition ...
Linguistic untranslatability is triggered by a lack of equivalent lexical and syntactic
substitutes in the target language (TL). To maintain adequate equivalence between SL
and TL texts, a translator should understand the ‘how’ behind the translation practice, and
aim at as little loss of meaning as possible. With meaning being viewed as a network of
intricate relationships, emphasis should be placed on those varieties of meaning which
pose problems. These are mainly the various categories of ‘ambiguity’ and ‘obscurity’ in
the SL text, the translation of which requires the rendering of “total” meaning and not
merely by adhering to “partial” denotative semantic equivalence. The success or failure of
a translator in handling these categories is primarily determined by psycholinguistic factors,
namely the degree of mastering L1 and L2, and the type of bilingualism resulting from
the acquisition process.
The paper discusses the two aspects of ambiguity: lexical and grammatical. Lexical ambiguity
has been evoked through the translation of homonyms, metonyms, collocations, idioms
and slang. Likewise, cases of grammatical ambiguity- showing how the relationships between
word groups or clauses in the target unit are not clear - have been elicited. In addition,
problems of non-equivalence which render linguistically untranslatable texts have been
identified, together with the most viable translation strategies to deal with the emerging
problems within a psycholinguistic frame of reference.
1.
... This adjustment gives translated texts clear marking breaks and higher readability compared to source texts which are "fragmented, incomplete, vague and ambiguous" (Scott 1998). In a similar vein, as a result of the translators' tendency to make safe choices, unusual or ungrammatical syntactic structures and expressions in source texts, which may have the effect of tension and suspense, tend to be replaced with plainer, more familiar, and grammatically correct equivalences (Vanderauwera 1985;Leuven-Zwart 1989, 1990Shlesinger 1991;May 1997). The use of stronger punctuation in translations is used as evidences for two different hypotheses. ...
... 15 Vegeu la «llista cronològica de traduccions i adaptacions franceses de Shakespeare» de Dubeux (1928, 49-54); per a un panorama sintètic de la recepció francesa, Pujol (2007, 21-26 (I, 1; 1953, 27) [attraperait] mon oeil, votre regard; (1859,98) [pendría] mon ull, vostra mirada; (1908b, 23) 23 Palomo Berjaga parteix de propostes anteriors (Leuven-Zwart 1989i 1990, Ribas 1994 però en reorienta el propòsit, que en aquests autors sí que era la classificació sistemàtica de les divergències estilístiques de la traducció respecte a l'original. ANUARI TRILCAT 10 (2020-2021 is not for our pomp. ...
L’any 1907 Josep Carner va traduir la comèdia de Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream partint de la versió francesa que n’havia fet François-Victor Hugo, publicada el 1859. El somni d’una nit d’estiu es va donar a conèixer el 1908, en una col·lecció d’obres dramàtiques de Shakespeare anomenada Biblioteca Popular dels Grans Mestres (1907–1910); el 1909 en va aparèixer una segona edició amb canvis mínims. La primera part d’aquest article examina les raons que van portar Carner a la pràctica de la traducció indirecta; la segona part demostra que la seva traducció depèn del text d’Hugo. Reconegut per Carner mateix com el producte d’un traductor «fantàstic» més que no pas «científic», l’experiment literari es va beneficiar de la fidelitat del traductor francès al sentit literal de Shakespeare.
... Adopting a bottom-up shift analysis, the study will first describe how the shifts operate at the microstructural level and then progress to their potential effects at the macro (discoursal) level (cf. Leuven-Zwart 1990;see Pym 2014: 65-66). Quantitative analysis will be used to identify regularities both in the shifts and the translational behaviors/strategies that underlie the shifts. ...
This paper provides an empirical investigation of shifts in hedges in an Arabic translation of A Farewell to Arms (1929). The results reveal a tendency to add rather than omit hedges. This is associated with several discourse effects, such as a move toward an increased level of awareness of information quality and relevance, greater attenuation/mitigation, more politeness, improved interpersonal relations, increased reinforcement, greater speaker responsibility/commitment, higher cognitive and emotional involvement, and stronger textual relations in the translated narrative. These effects reflect a more cooperation/dynamic role on the (literary) translator's part during his second verbal materialization and re-narration of the original story. The addition of relevance hedges points to an explicitation pattern that improves the text's readability and reflects the translator's mediating voice in the translated narrative. The increased attenuation and reinforcement are indicative of a movement toward standardizing (appropriating) a war novel that has a less emotive style to an emotionally remote (Arabic) reader, pushing for more universalized interpretations and more normalized literary translations. Such movements, which cannot be linked at least in this study to any sociopolitical factors (e.g., language status, power relations), are better regarded as visible traces pointing to the translators' (conscious or subconscious) orientation toward a greater literary uniformity and more cross-cultural/universal understanding.
... The interplay of translational divergences (van Leuven-Zwart, 1989;Dorr, 1995) and frame dis-/agreements has begun to be examined (Padó and Lapata, 2009), and measures such as Frame Match (FM), for cases where same SFs are evoked in different languages, have been defined. ...
Meaning has been established pervasively as a central concept throughout disciplines that were involved in cognitive revolution. Its metaphoric usage comes to be, first and foremost, through the interpreter's constraint: representational relationships and contents are considered to be in the “eye” or mind of the observer and shared properties among observers themselves are knowable through interlinguistic phenomena, such as translation. Despite the instability of meaning in relation to its underdetermination by reference, it can be a tertium comparationis or “third comparator” for extended human cognition if gauged through invariants that exist in transfer processes such as translation, as all languages and cultures are rooted in pan-human experience and, thus, share and express species-specific ontology. Meaning, seen as a cognitive competence, does not stop outside of the body but extends, depends, and partners with other agents and the environment. A novel approach for exploring the transfer properties of some constituent items of the original natural semantic metalanguage in English, that is, semantic primitives, is presented: FrameNet's semantic frames, evoked by the primes SEE and FEEL, were extracted from EuroParl, a parallel corpus that allows for the automatic word alignment of items with their synonyms. Large Ontology Multilingual Extraction was used. Afterward, following the Semantic Mirrors Method, a procedure that consists back-translating into source language, a translatological examination of translated and original versions of items was performed. A fully automated pipeline was designed and tested, with the purpose of exploring associated frame shifts and, thus, beginning a research agenda on their alleged universality as linguistic features of translation, which will be complemented with and contrasted against further massive feedback through a citizen science approach, as well as cognitive and neurophysiological examinations. Additionally, an embodied account of frame semantics is proposed.
... My theoretical approach has three main features. First, it is based on the notion that a descriptive and comparative analysis at a microstructural level may generate important information about a hypothetical macrostructural impact on the translated text (Van Leuven-Zwart, 1989. Second, a methodology of the kind that I propose should provide insight into the narrative qualities of the texts analysed in order to turn an intuition (i.e., that the source text has a narratively bound ironic component) into a proven statement and to achieve a better understanding of the role that irony plays in the narrative universe of both source text and translation. ...
Considering literary irony as an attitude rather than a figure of speech may have some methodological advantages for the analysis of its translation. It allows us to approach the narrative universe of certain prose fiction texts as ironically determined; to select only those translated ironic passages that are narratively relevant – and thus representative; and to reach conclusions on a possible macrostructural impact. The ultimate objective of this paper is twofold: Its first aim is to present a methodology for analysing the translation of any prose fiction text, in which irony plays an essential narrative role, taking as a prime example the German novel Im Krebsgang by Günter Grass and its translations into English, Danish, Catalan and Spanish. Its second aim is to propose a provisional taxonomy of strategies used to express irony in original texts (source texts) and in translated texts (target texts).
... First, the source-oriented ones use measuring instruments (including House, 1997, Schaffner, 1998c which define the required equivalence and then try to classify different kinds of deviations from this equivalence. The second category (including Toury, 1995, Leuven-Zwart, 1990) is oriented toward the target language in the sense that here the main focus is to assess the translation's degree of naturalness. The third approach focuses on examining translation effects on the audience. ...
Translation quality is a central issue in the translation profession as well as translation education and training and is one of the utmost controversial topics in translation studies today. The terms and concepts used in discussing the process of judging translation quality in its various practices and contexts are rather confused by scholars and practitioners in the field. Perhaps, the prime example of such confusion is the interchangeable use of the terms, "evaluation" and "assessment." Acknowledging the complexity and importance of defining these notions, a shared emphasis is found in the literature on defining and assessing quality in the context of specific situations. In fact, the lack of a universal, unified specialized terminology for judging translations is urging the need to standardize assessment terminology in order to reach a common understanding of quality standards demanded in both academic and professional settings. In order to differentiate among various practices, translation terminology is gradually being evolved. To date, efforts have been made to clarify this terminology and to identify and define different types of translation quality assessment procedures. Through a systematic review of the literature at hand, the present paper is an attempt to map out the terminology for judging quality in various translation practices as a key disciplinary desideratum.
... A distinction is often made between obligatory and optional shifts (Robberecht, 1982;Toury, 1980;Van Den Broeck & Lefevere, 1979;Van Leuven -Zwart, 1989). Obligatory shifts are dictated by differences between linguistic systems, for example a lack of correspondence between related lexical items in the source and target languages (Kade, 1968). ...
... A distinction is often made between obligatory and optional shifts (Robberecht, 1982;Toury, 1980;Van Den Broeck & Lefevere, 1979;Van Leuven -Zwart, 1989). Obligatory shifts are dictated by differences between linguistic systems, for example a lack of correspondence between related lexical items in the source and target languages (Kade, 1968). ...
This research is aimed to assess class shifts in Persian translation based on Catford's (1965) model. The corpus of the study is Saleh Hosseini's (2003) Persian translation of George Orwell's 1984 based on Catford's (1965) shifts model. Therefore, 50 random sentences (including 54 cases of class shifts) were selected from the source text, contrasted with the Persian translation, and analyzed. Regarding the extent to which the translator has applied class shifts in his translation of Orwell's 1984, the results indicate that the translator has mostly used 'no class shift' , 'pronoun to noun' , and 'adjective to noun' , respectively. Then, the 'adverb-to-adjective' class shift is the next. However, six other class shifts are just seen once in the selected sample sentences. It is also concluded that the translator's Persian translation of George Orwell's 1984 has benefitted from different class shifts based on Catford's (1965) shifts model of translation.
This study aims to investigate the changes that occurred between Lewis Carroll’s canonical novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its adapted video game version, Alice: Madness Returns by treating adaptation as a form of intersemiotic and functional translation (Gottlieb,2005). In order to conduct the analysis, the interdisciplinary model of adaptation shifts proposed by Perdikaki(2017a) is used. This model is chosen because it is the first one to offer a systematic analysis of changes that occur in adaptations. Although the model was developed for film adaptations, Perdikaki(2017a) proposes the application of this model to different genres and adaptation types. In line with her suggestion, this study applies the model of adaptation shifts to the above-mentioned video game, by treating it as an audiovisual product and a multimedium text. The analysis is conducted with a special emphasis on the descriptive component of this model where shifts can be observed since this category investigates the factors that are independent of the text type. As a result, it is concluded that adaptation shifts are observable on the descriptive level such as the plot structure, narrative techniques, characterization, and setting and that these shifts are observable through modifications and modulations; molding the adapted videogame version of the original work. This study also sets out to be one of the initial studies that show the applicability of this model to a different genre and adapted text type.
This study investigates the translation of swear words in The Last of Us TV series into Slovak, comparing subtitled and dubbed versions. By focusing on aspects such as authenticity, expressivity, and character characterization, the research analyses a total of 317 excerpts containing swear words. The analytical framework is grounded in Popovič's typology of shifts of expression, which are indicative of the translator's personality traits and choices. The study unveils that the dubbed version emerges as much more expressive, characterized by a significantly higher frequency of swear words and profanities compared to its subtitled counterpart. Results not only highlight the distinctive differences in translating profanities between the two versions but also emphasize how the decisions of the translator and/or dub director can drastically influence the translation. Such findings underscore the pivotal role of the translator in translation processes. The research, therefore, serves as a significant contribution to the domain of translation studies and paves the way for further research in this area.
In Jane Austen’s novels conversation provides internal evidence of the nature of characters, both moral and social (Morini, 2009). Among the interplay of speech presentation forms (Bray, 2018; Page, 1972), Narrative Report of Speech Acts (Leech and Short, 2007) is still underresearched (Busse, 2020) as a characterisation resource. Research on speech reports in inquit formulae has focused on illocutionary features (Austin, 1962; Searle and Vanderveken, 1985). However, speech reports also introduce the intersubjective stances adopted by characters and by the narrator, i.e. their receptiveness to disagreeing positions. As engagement resources (Martin and White, 2005), they construct interpersonal styles and offer cues into the narrator’s own stance toward the characters. Such meaning complexes are a challenge for literary translators. For this study, 55 instances of NRSA were sampled from three chapters of Mansfield Park and their correspondences in two Spanish and two German translations. The original text and the translations display remarkable lexical richness, with 36 instances overtly expressing illocutionary force. Characterisation cues appear at the character level of discourse, through the illocutionary features and engagement types attributed to characters (e.g. monoglossic, heteroglossic), and also on the narrator level of discourse, through linguistic co-textual choices weakening the endorsement of the character. All four translations contain shifts affecting the characterisation potential such as changes in a character’s stance, the early disclosure of a character’s attitude, and the insertion of explicit narratorial evaluation of a character. These findings are applicable in stylistics as well as in translation assessment and pedagogy.
El objetivo principal de este trabajo es el análisis de los problemas de traducción vinculados al mundo ficticio del videojuego BioShock Infinite (2013). En su apartado teórico, se indagan las estructuras narrativas denominadas «mundos ficticios» y sus características en el caso de los videojuegos y, concretamente, en el universo de BioShock Infinite. Posteriormente, se estudia la práctica de la traducción de videojuegos a través del concepto de «problema de traducción» y su relación con los mundos ficticios siguiendo un enfoque cualitativo inductivo-deductivo. En la sección de análisis se expone la metodología seguida, basada predominantemente en el trabajo de teóricos como Reiss & Vermeer (1984), Munday (2016) y Nord (2018), entre otros, para observar contrastivamente los problemas de traducción detectados durante la transferencia de esta obra entre el inglés y el español. Finalmente, se extraen conclusiones acerca de la funcionalidad de las opciones utilizadas para materializar este entorno narrativo interactivo.
El artículo se dedica al desarrollo del enfoque interdisciplinario de la Poética Cognitiva y la Traductología. En los dos primeros apartados se analiza la relación de las dos ciencias y se caracteriza el aparato conceptual, los objetivos y las posibilidades del análisis cognitivo en la traducción. En el tercer apartado se realiza un estudio de caso de la categoría cognitiva y estilística de la ambigüedad y su traducción en la obra de J. L. Borges.
Abstract
Binomials, as a sub-type of collocation, are made of two connected words (e.g.,
heaven and earth), and they are considered challenging to translate because some are idiomatic, ambiguous, culture-specific, or alliterative, whereas others adhere to one common word order. More importantly, they are found more commonly in religious texts such as the Holy Qurʾān. Thus, preserving collocability for translated binomials is essential to produce a quality translation. Based on this, the present study examined the translations of Qurʾānic binomials by seven translators in terms of form and meaning. In other words, the researcher explored to what extent translators have maintained collocability in their translations and whether they normalized binomials or explicated them. In addition, the researcher analyzed binomials in relation to semantic categories and word class. Further,
translations were investigated in terms of semantic shifts of generalization, specification, mutation, and omission.
The current study is descriptive and corpus-based employing qualitative and
quantitative procedures in a mixed-methods approach. Besides using the Quranic Arabic Corpus that includes seven translations (i.e., Sahih International and translations by Pickthall, Yusuf Ali, Shakir, Muhammad Sarwar, Muhammad Al-Hilali and Muhammad Khan, and Arberry) of the Holy Qurʾān, the researcher utilized two reference corpora (i.e., the Bible Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English [COCA]) to decide on the collocability of binomial translations. She also developed a framework based on previous studies to explore normalizing (i.e., domesticating, using common terms, etc.) and explicating (i.e., explicative paraphrasing, of-constructions, rank shifts, etc.) shifts.
Results showed that there are 120 binomials in the Qurʾān occurring twice or more.
They consist mainly of complementary nouns denoting culture-specific items. However, others are made of proper nouns, whereas many are peculiar to the Holy Qurʾān. Further, results revealed that only 7% of the translations are with maintained collocability and are basically of universal, antonymous concepts. Collocability was mainly maintained by Pickthall, Yusuf Ali, Sarwar, and Hilali-Khan. However, less than a quarter of the translations, which are chiefly of complementary binomials, were normalized mostly by Arberry and Sarwar. On the other hand, less than half of the translations were prone to explicitation shifts more commonly by Hilali-Khan, Yusuf Ali, and Sarwar.
Regarding semantic shifts, they mark more than a quarter of binomial translations and affected basically one conjunct and are primarily associated with Sarwar's translation. In general, half of the semantic shifts are examples of generalization and basically characterize translations of antonymous binomials. However, shifts of omission were used scarcely and mainly by Sarwar. Results also indicated that shifts of generalization and mutation were used chiefly by Sarwar and Pickthall. However, the majority of specification shifts were utilized by Yusuf Ali. More importantly, specification shifts primarily mark antonymous binomials, whereas those of mutation characterize complementary ones. In general, Hilali-Khan and Arberry used the minimum of semantic shifts.
With or without shifts in form, semantic shifts are inevitable. This is due to a
number of reasons such as the need to produce either a source- or target-oriented
translation, translators' awareness of a specific group of readers, and lack of translators' knowledge of equivalent binomials. Furthermore, some binomials are culture-specific, idiomatic, polysemous, ambiguous, or peculiar to the Holy Qur'ān. Others consist of complementary conjuncts or suggest certain connotative meanings. More importantly, Qur'ānic binomials are contextualized. Thus, it is recommended that translators evaluate risks associated with translating religious texts and choose the appropriate method that ensures the minimum of semantic shifts.
The following research work seeks to discover the conceptual and linguistic intricacies of the formation of the universe exposed in the Game of Thrones TV series, as well as the different ways that exist to transmit its elementary traits between its context of origin and target locales by means of translation. This chapter can be included in the academic sphere of Translation Studies and, more specifically, in the field of audiovisual translation, since it deals with the construction of a fictional world in a composition located in the creative genre of television productions. In it, fundamental parts of the cosmos shown in Game of Thrones will be studied from a contrastive perspective: these pieces of data will be subject to a rendering observation process to identify their characteristics, their meaning and their influence on the overall fictional world and how they have been transferred between the original language (i.e. English) and the target language, Spanish in this particular case. Afterwards, conclusions concerning the functionality of the proposed translation options and, by extension, of the complete fictional world by the Spanish-speaking audience will be drawn to assess in which degree this imaginary universe can be evoked in the new linguistic environment.
The translation of metaphor has always been a challenge to the translators of literary works. Two seemingly opposing concepts were introduced by Venuti to describe the choices translators of literature make: Domestication which is often equated with reader-orientedness and Foreignization which means staying close to the source text. In their translation Sahar Khalifa’s Assabbar, however, Trevor LeGassick and Elizabeth Fernea have aptly chosen different Domestication and Foreignization strategies: Exact Translation, Substitution, Deletion and Explication while retaining the Original Metaphor. Thus, they could render a natural translation while preserving the culture of the original text. 31 out of 74 metaphors of fighting in Assabbar are rendered an Exact Translation which proves that this metaphor has similar mapping conditions in both the English and Arabic cultures. It also proves that the translators have opted for Strong Domestication to evoke in the TL reader the same feelings the SL reader receives from the original text; namely, the persistence of Palestinian Resistance despite the martyrdom of its icons.
Existing literature on adaptation studies focuses primarily on analysing film adaptations from an intralingual and monomodal rather than an interlingual and multimodal perspective. To fill this gap, this study addresses the relatively under-researched issue of applying existing literary translation to the subtitles of film adaptations by the film subtitle producers. Concentrating on the Chinese subtitling of neologisms in the Harry Potter films (2001–2011) and by drawing on the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-informed multimodal framework, the aim is to investigate how subtitles and other multimodal resources interact to make meanings and their potential effects on the subtitled films when the film subtitle producers apply literary translation to subtitles of film adaptations. The results show that the application of literary translation to subtitled films by the film subtitlers may run the risk of downplaying some crucial elements of the original, such as the relationship between the fictional world and the audience. This study highlights the importance of considering more than just the literary elements when analysing film adaptations and points out broader possible areas, such as multimodality and audiovisual translation, which have only been partly recognized in adaptation studies.
As the source of air and space intelligence for the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) produces air, space and specialized intelligence to enable military operations and to enforce modernization and policymaking. In 2005, it published a report that ‘discusses current uses of space and potential threats to U.S. space assets, but makes few specific claims about the capabilities of various countries’ (Kulacki and Wright 2005). A quote highlighted in a box in the report is worth noting: ‘China will monitor closely foreign developments in advanced satellite technology, paying close attention to progress made in military use of space while actively developing ASAT systems’ (Kulacki 2006). After referring to the Chinese source of the quote, an article by Zhang et al. (2004) that was published in Winged Missiles Journal, Kulacki (2006) found that the American translation ‘significantly alter[ed] its [the statement’s] meaning’. A comparative reading of the parallel texts reveals their differences, as indicated by the underlined expressions in the excerpts below:
This article reports on a corpus-based study of the English translation of Wang Anyi’s award-winning novel, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow [长恨歌, Chang Hen Ge] from the perspective of style. Using the keyword and concordance functions of corpus software packages AntConc and ParaConc, this research focuses on how the translator’s style reveals itself in the target text (TT) as well as how the style of the source text (ST) is represented in the TT. Findings show that the translators have a preference for contracted negative verb forms and expressions such as “bit” over “little,” making the text more colloquial. In general, the rendering of the ST style tends not to be entirely faithful. A distinction between reader-centered and text-centered keywords is made. While the reader-centered ST keywords are, as expected, largely altered, the translation of text-centered ST keywords is also rewritten, contrary to expectations. Presumably, the translators tended to reduce the ambiguity of the ST, resulting in a more explicit TT. The article argues that the translators chose to rewrite the translation to make it more understandable for the target audience since it concerned a work from a source culture very different from the target culture.
Felons’ voting rights have featured prominently in debates over voter suppression in the United States , particularly in Florida, where a 2018 state constitutional amendment reinstated voting rights to the state’s 1.4 million former felons ( Robles 2018 ). Florida also has a high concentration of Spanish-speaking voters with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), making Spanish-language voting information crucial. Inadequate translations of voter information may misrepresent voter eligibility for LEP Spanish-speaking former felons in Florida. Using a parallel corpus, this article’s central research question investigates how semantic shifts occur in Spanish translations of “felony” and “felon” in online voter information for seven Florida counties. The results reveal a number of misrepresentative semantic shifts in both human- and machine-translated Spanish voter information. Such shifts may impinge on individuals’ constitutional rights.
This study deals with how archaic language in İhsan Oktay Anar’s Kitab’ül Hiyel is handled in English translation. Archaic expressions refer to words or phrases which are no longer in everyday use. In Kitab’ül Hiyel, archaism standing out as the outcome of the author’s stylistic choices prevails as a stylistic component. Translating style is one of the most challenging tasks that a translator faces due to the linguistic differences between languages. In this paper, a descriptive translational analysis is pursued to evaluate whether the translator keeps the local color by making a stylistically-aware translation or the ruling archaism becomes neutralized in the target text. This is important in its aim to demonstrate the attitude of translators towards stylistic elements. Archaic expressions were chosen as samples because they have rarely been the subject of research in translation studies. They can also be associated with history to a great extent. Taking into account Turkish culture, archaic expressions used in literature are generally traced back to the Ottoman Empire, for they are regarded as a significant part of old Turkish or Ottoman Turkish. When their historical quality is considered, their translation requires certain knowledge about the source culture and history. Throughout the comparative analysis, archaic expressions in parallel texts were examined in the light of these translation strategies: softening, transcription or borrowing, and stylistic compensation. The result of the analysis will contribute to the stylistic and cultural discussions about literary translation.
James Stratton Holmes (Iowa, 1924 – Amsterdam, 1986) is known as both a major translator/editor of poetry from Dutch ( Brems and McMartin 2020 , 2021 ) and as a teacher and researcher of translation, whose professional career was centred in the Netherlands at the University of Amsterdam. He has had a long-lasting influence on the development of the field of translation as an academic subject with his landmark essay “The Name and Nature of Translation Studies”. First presented at a 1972 conference in Copenhagen, it is “generally regarded as the founding statement of the discipline” ( Gentzler 2001 , 93). Yet, fifty years on, how valid is that essay in today’s context? We present a review and reappraisal of the essay in the context of Holmes’ academic work as a whole and we raise a few questions about the future and history of the discipline.
The continuing globalization of communication and commerce means that multinational companies are constantly seeking for ways in which to promote their products in new and opening markets. Advertising has a key role to play in the international marketing strategies of such multinationals as it enables them to promote a standardized product or range of products to local consumers from very different cultural backgrounds.
The translation of these advertisements is a key factor in their efficacy. Up until the end of the twentieth century, the prevailing translation strategy of Western advertising material in the Middle East was one of direct translation, in which many of the foreign text elements are retained in the Arabic translation. Research into consumer behaviour showed that such a strategy reduced the effectiveness and appeal of the original advertisement for local consumers.
The reduced effectiveness of international advertising campaigns in local markets, particularly Arab markets, has led to recent research into translation’s role in effective advertising. The Middle East is a particularly problematic area for international advertisers as, despite their common language, different countries in the region have very different cultural and religious behaviours. Through linguistic and semiotic analysis of a selected corpus of audiovisual and print advertisements, this study will examine the role of translation in presenting some international advertisement to different Arab countries, taking into account the cultural sensitivities of individual markets.
The findings of the study show that, despite an increased interest in localization among translation scholars, the translations of international advertisements are still too closely bound to their English originals. Some efforts are being made, however, to accommodate the particular cultural and religious differences between different Arab countries. This study has only considered advertisements translated from English into Arabic, but the principles and theories outlined in its approach could usefully be applied to the translation of French advertisements in those Arab countries in which French is the second language.
Many studies have been conducted investigating narration in the field of translation, but most of these mainly focus on the agent and the way of narrating. In a different vein, the present paper will explore the other side, i.e., the narrated aspect, or what is to be narrated. It will center on the issue of motif reconstruction in the three full English translations of a Chinese classical novel Shuihu Zhuan—All Men Are Brothers (1933) by Pearl S. Buck, Outlaws of the Marsh (1980) by Sidney Shapiro, and The Marshes of Mount Liang (1994–2002) by John and Alex Dent-Young. A description of how the motif of cannibalism is presented in each translation will be given based on a parallel corpus of 189 clauses. The discussion of motif belongs to the range of the “narrated,” which is believed to be not only more transposable, but also more translatable than discourse. Despite this translatability, however, the findings reported in the present study reflect that certain motifs of Shuihu Zhuan may be changed or even lost in the translating process. The study of motif reconstruction in translation may very well help to call translation scholars’ attention to the macrostructural level of the text by focusing on “unusualness factors” that are activated and deactivated through mediation of translators.KeywordsMotif reconstruction
Shuihu Zhuan
Translation strategyCannibalism
This study shows how the language in translated picturebooks is enriched by the use of rare words. We document how the translation of picturebooks from English to Portuguese results in the use of rare words in Portuguese. Evidence indicates that children learn new vocabulary through readings of picturebooks (Noble et al., 2019) and that translators make choices that contribute to the use of rare words (Ketola, 2018). The sample of 86 picturebooks was selected from a list recommended by the Portuguese national reading plan for 3-5-year-olds. The identification of rare words was done using a frequency analysis in both Portuguese, using ESCOLEX, and English, using the ChildFreq tool. Findings indicate that translated picturebooks use rich and varied lexicon and include an average of 6.6 rare words. Twenty-two percent of these words originate from literal and non-literal translations and are not rare in the original texts. This indicates that the process of translation contributes to increasing children's exposure to rare words.
Linguistics and the Figures of Rhetoric
- G N Leech