ANALYSING THE SOURCE TEXT

A MODEL FOR ANALYSIS (Wales)

Text type: Brochure = introduction to Wales with promotional aimsFunction(s):

Referential (giving info abt sthg, describing sthg)Conative (to persuade addressee to …) Poetic (minor)

Register: Field... Tenor... Mode...

Main semantic field(s):...Lexical relations: …Main type(s) of meaning conveyed by most words

(propositional, expressive, evoked): ...False friends, collocational restrictions, loanwords, culture-

specific terms or concepts (if any): …

Discourse organization: Cohesion (realized through...) Thematic patterning (marked themes... IF RELEVANT)

CoherenceAny noticeable features, esp. if likely to create

problems in translation

The text is meant as a preface, introducing the topic (the attractions of Wales in winter) and the articles/testimonials that will follow, with the aim to promote the country for tourist purposes. Therefore, following Jakobson's model of communication, two main functions can be identified: the referential and the conative. The former – meant to give information or describe something – is found in the hints at a variety of Welsh traits of the past and the present. The latter – meant to persuade the addressee to adopt a certain behaviour – is by far the more important here and can be seen in the direct address to the reader through the pronoun “you” and in the suggestions given. Even if to a minor extent, the poetic function plays a role too: there are phrases and clauses that exploit the poetic potential of the language through frequent alliteration (e.g. “shut up shop”, “woolly walkers”, and all the pairs that make up the Welsh offer: “art and adventure, culture and countryside, heritage and history”, etc.), and rhyme, i.e. “read out why you really don't need to fly”.

Register, i.e. the variety of language that the participants consider appropriate to a certain situational context, is the product of field, tenor and mode. Field refers to what is going on, which in this case is a presentation of Wales in winter and how, despite its changes, the country still has attractions for many people; tenor, determined by the relationship between the people involved in the communicative act, is informal, as shown by contracted forms (can't, we're, etc.), the use of “lot” to mean a group of people, colloquial expressions like “the most unlikely of places”, “something of a...”, and the slightly amused tone which often implies some shared background (“being British, we have...”, “the French, conservative to the end...”); mode is prepared and written (carefully, although made to sound almost casual).

Most words convey propositional meaning, i.e. what a word refers to in the world (e.g. fireplace, hotels, magazine, etc.); expressive meaning, however, can be seen in “roaring”, which transcends its propositional meaning to convey an idea of something blatantly successful, and in “lemmings” which, besides being rodents known for periodic mass migration, have come to refer to any large group following an unthinking course towards mass destruction. Some collocations are present, such as “roaring trade”, “summer holiday”, “opposite directions”, as well as a couple of idioms: “shut up shop” (i.e. stop doing business temporarily or permanently) and “play a part” (i.e. participate, be involved).

As far as discourse organisation is concerned, cohesion – i.e. the network of lexical, grammatical and other surface relations that link various parts of a text – is largely provided through reference, subdivided into repetition (e.g. Wales – Wales; autumn – autumn); pronominal reference (our visitors – they; the French – their); synonymy (huge numbers – mass; hospitable – friendly); superordinate– hyponym (holiday – short stay/long weekend/summer exodus). Other cohesive devices are the use of ellipsis in “Not any longer”, and conjunction (nowadays, so, but, and) which here is not used to link paragraphs, but sentences.

However, the most widely used device is lexical cohesion. At the level of reiteration, the main lexical chains revolve around time (autumn, winter, summer, weekend, Sunday); landscape (hills, mountains, seaside, countryside); tourism, to be further subdivided into the co-hyponymic categories of accommodation and activities (hotels, restaurants, shops, shopping, spa, mushroom hunt), and types of tourist stays (holiday, short break, long weekend). The main lexical relation is hyponymy, but synonymy can also be found in such pairs as “shut up” - “close”, “alive” - “buzzing”, “huge numbers” - “mass”; near-synonymy is in the group “busy”, “buzzing”, “roaring”, and in “town” and “cities”; antonymy is, strictly speaking, only found in the pair “short – long”, but most of the text is built around a sort of “conceptual antonymy” opposing the past and the present, the idea of a quiet, slumbering country and images of things going on, the British and the French, as well as the alliterative couples “culture and countryside”, “leisure and learning”, which seem to evoke the two opposing ends along a continuum of entertainment. The second aspect of lexical cohesion, collocation, follows the patterns of same series (autumn/winter), opposition (summer/winter; hibernate/alive); part/whole (Britain/Wales).

Thematic patterning is mainly unmarked: all paragraphs begin with a subject, and so do most declarative sentences, while the only question begins with a standard wh-word, and the imperative with a verb, i.e. all of them provide a point of departure and orientation by following the standard rules to signal the mood of the clause. Exceptions are “Nowadays” in the first paragraph, an example of a fronted theme of the most common kind (a time adverbial), while “along with the rest of Britain” provides a slightly more marked beginning focussing on similarity and place.

Aspects of coherence were implicitly included among the general observations regarding the purpose of the text and its being based on conceptual oppositions, which means that some degree of pragmatic meaning has already been negotiated. In a way, we can also say that in terms of speech acts, the illocutionary force and the perlocutionary effect of the text have been revealed in the act of informing the reader about things that were and are happening in Wales in winter, as well as in the less visible but desired effect of getting the reader to read on first and then visit Wales. The last sentence “Read on to find out why you really don't need to fly” implies that the reader is from mainland Britain and could go to Wales by land; Britishness is also implied as a shared trait in the first paragraph (“Along with the rest of Britain) and in the third, with its underlying nationalistic pride and mockery of the French. That the text is addressed to readers from the English-speaking world is also visible in the frequent culture-specific references that assume a shared background: “The hills are alive with the sound of...” borrows the initial lyrics of the key song from the highly successful film The Sound of Music (1965); GMTV was the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor from 1993 to 2010; Swansea is labelled “the city by the sea” probably to point out its regenerated identity as a marine resort with a well-known waterfront after the damages provoked by the iron and steel industry, while “the wet Welsh Sunday in Aberystwyth” might refer to a reputedly rainy area mentioned here to evoke a traditional image of a slumbering day.

Most of the text is written in the present tense which, besides being functional to the contrast with the past, produces an impression of atemporality or time standing still. This is a widely used device in tourism discourse since it allows to represent places as free from the hurried constraints of everyday life and provides visitors with an experience that combines the truthfulness of tradition with the ease of quality time. Another feature typical of tourist texts is the use of “we”, “us” and “our”: to counterbalance the lack of sender identification (Dann 1996), the writer aims to generate a sense of trust in the potential visitor who is reassured by the fact that, although unknown, the writer belongs to the place and is to be trusted because of his/her first-hand experience. Reliability is further strengthened by the mention of presumably well-known people whose choice of Wales acts as testimonials. On the whole, the text follows the marketing principle of AIDA: attract attention through the contrast between what one might expect to find in Wales in autumn and winter and what can actually be found nowadays; get interest by explaining what the change is about; awaken desire by giving some examples of pleasant things to do there, and get action through the invitation to read on and opt for a close destination.

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (1818).

The text is the initial page of Northanger Abbey, a novel Jane Austen wrote to make fun of the most trivial aspects of gothic fiction, which was very popular at the time.

Following Jakobson's model of communication, the main functions are the referential and the expressive. The former concerns the information provided about Catherine Morland, her family and herself. The latter, typical of literary texts, is the expression of the mind of the writer manifested through both what s/he says and how s/he says it; in this case, however, the expressive function interacts with the hidden conative function, as the writer is aiming at irony and wants the receiver to be amused. Thus, throughout the page, the narrator keeps contradicting the assumptions of a reader whom the title might have tricked into expecting a gothic novel.

As for register, field is the presentation of a young girl and her family by an external narrator; mode is written and prepared; tenor – because of the abundance of repetitions, the clauses added as if in afterthought or as asides, the paradoxes and the personal comments – is fairly informal and, considering the times, slightly impertinent.

Most words convey propositional meaning (e.g. father, family, health, infancy, etc.), but there are some instances of expressive meaning (addicted, heroic, propensities, abilities, extraordinary) which are functional to the effect of irony. There are few collocations, and mainly common ones, such as “plain sense”, “good temper”, “strong features”, and one idiom, i.e. “to bring someone into the world”.

The text consists of one long paragraph which in the novel goes on to double its length before a new line is introduced. It has a high degree of cohesion thanks to the presence of many cohesive devices. The most recurrent is reference, which takes the forms of repetition (father – father; mother – mother; children – children, etc.); pronominal reference (Catherine – she – her; flowers – those; father – he); synonymy (figure – person; considerable – remarkable); superodinate-hyponym (family – father, mother, children; figure – heads, arms, legs, hair, skin, features); general word (man – father). Other cohesive devices are ellipsis (“they were in general very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, [was] as plain as any”) and substitution (“at least so it was conjectured...” = that she had no taste for a garden and if she went there it was only for the pleasure of mischief).

Conjunction also plays a relevant role here by linking sentences and providing interpretative clues for the reader: although additive conjunctions “and” and “besides” prevail, adversative conjunctions “but”, “though” and “instead of” appear frequently and, combined with the numerous negative sentences and adverbs (“not in the least”, “no less”, “never”, etc.) inform the passage, which appears to be built around the idea of lack or absence of certain qualifications. Neither continuative nor temporal conjunctions appear, so that the text shows no chronological development. Also lexical cohesion is visible: there are various instances of reiteration, with the main lexical chains revolving around family, physical features and games or children's pastimes. The prevailing lexical relations are hyponymy (situation in life – neglected, poor, respectable), synonymy (see above), near-synonymy (character – disposition; health – constitution) and antonymy (never/always). The second aspect of lexical cohesion, collocation, follows the patterns of opposition (handsome/plain; sons/daughters; dying/lived; learn/teach); part/whole (flower/garden); part/part (arm/legs/heads).

Thematic patterning is mainly unmarked, with the exception of “not less unpropitious for heroism seemed her mind”; here the subject comes after the verb and receives end focus so that, besides being parallel with the previous clause (“so much for her person”), this marked choice ushers in the description of Catherine's unimpressive intellectual gifts. On a more general level, an important feature of text organisation needs to be noticed: the opening line announces that Catherine's person and life circumstances were not those of a heroine, and yet the reader knows that in the end she will be. By saying “No one […] would have supposed [...]”, Austen is actually creating the conditions for a big adversative “but”, which is the main principle in this chapter. The second sentence mentions the reasons why she could not be thought of as a heroine, and in so doing highlights the topics that will be developed. Indeed “Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition” are then expanded on precisely in the same order in the following lines, as if from Catherine departed a series of threads running throughout the page.

Coherence is slightly problematic: the writer relies on the reader's background knowledge of the conventions of gothic novels, which are continuously hinted at and refuted within each sentence or soon after. For example, the passage referring to Catherine's father (“Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected or poor […] and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters.”) dismantles the traits of exceptionality considered suitable for a heroine, so that the father is not poor, neither handsome, nor tyrannical, i.e. he gives the reader no element through which the tragic fate of the protagonist can be envisaged. Similarly, Catherine's mother did not die, but lived on to have more children, which again deletes a possible dramatic element in the life of the protagonist. Such irony still works today even for readers unfamiliar with gothic fiction who, through novels and films, have seen details like death during childbirth or the pastimes considered suitable for girls (dolls, flowers, pets) and can therefore perceive Austen's play with stereotypes. Instead, what proves incoherent is the clause “though his name was Richard”. The reference seems to flaunt Grice's maxim of relevance and remains obscure; it might have triggered some conversational implicature at the time the novel was written (some editors suggest it may have been a kind of family joke), or it may be part of Austen's mockery of narrative conventions which gave characters names that would remind of their moral qualities.

All the aspects mentioned so far will inform the translation. The passage is not likely to create difficulties on the level of surface meaning, but great attention should be paid to the choice of vocabulary, partly because of the distance in time and partly because of the subtlety of certain ironical choices in the source text. There is only one false friend, “disposition”, easily solved given the surrounding context, but the translator will have to be careful with the repetitions (which may make the Italian text heavy) and rework the many “he” and “she” pronouns: as is known, translated literally as egli and ella, they would make the text stilted and old-fashioned, while strictly speaking the currently used object forms lui and lei should be confined to spoken Italian or dialogues. Care is also needed to reproduce the “bone structure” of the text as hinted at when analysing thematic patterning. To this purpose, two existing translations are compared: 1) L. Gaia (Theoria 1995) and 2) A. Banti (Giunti 1994).

Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected, or poor, and a very respectable man, although his name was Richard - and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence, besides two good livings - and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution.

1) La condizione sociale, il carattere del padre e della madre, il suo stesso aspetto e il temperamento: tutto era contro di lei. Il padre era un ecclesiastico [...]. La madre era una donna pratica [...]

2) La sua situazione sociale, il carattere dei suoi genitori, le sue stesse personali attitudini vi si opponevano. Suo padre era un ecclesiastico [...]. Sua moglie era una donna di molto buonsenso [...]

Promotion of European cinema (p. 105)

One of the channels for promotion and investment in the popularisation of European cinema in Europe are film festivals. Member States and European institutions are encouraged to promote, support and distribute the most valuable films by organising special events and festivals.

An excellent example of promoting multiculturalism and multilingualism is the European Parliament initiatives of the LUX Film Prize and the forthcoming LUX Film Festival. The added value of this cultural initiative is that it generates debates on topics which need discussing and which are important to the citizens of the Member States. The films screened deal with important European values, whose strength comes from expressing themselves in diversity.

As stated in Zygmunt Bauman's book, culture is perceived as the space where the ”Other” is always one’s neighbour. Given this definition, there is no doubt that Europe has a particularly important role to play in revitalising our understanding of culture precisely because Europe, with its great diversity of peoples, languages and histories, is the space where the ”Other” is always one’s neighbour and where everyone is constantly called upon to learn from everyone else.

Overall, "European cinema in the digital era” aims at supporting and sustaining the European cinema in its richness as well as granting the widest possible access to citizens in the name of unity and freedom of thought.

Promozione del cinema europeo

Uno dei canali per promuovere e investire sulla diffusione del cinema europeo in Europa sono i festival cinematografici. Gli Stati membri e le istituzioni europee sono incoraggiati a promuovere, sostenere e distribuire i film di maggior valore organizzando eventi speciali e festival.

Un eccellente esempio di promozione del multiculturalismo e del multilinguismo è rappresentato dalle iniziative del Parlamento europeo riguardanti il premio LUX e il prossimo festival cinematografico LUX. Il valore aggiunto di tale iniziativa culturale è dato dal fatto di generare dibattiti su tematiche che devono essere discusse e che sono importanti per i cittadini degli Stati membri. I film proiettati trattano di valori europei fondamentali, la cui forza deriva dal fatto di esprimersi nella diversità.

Come afferma Zygmunt Bauman in un suo libro, la cultura è percepita come lo spazio in cui "l’altro" è sempre il nostro vicino. Partendo da tale definizione, non vi è dubbio che l’Europa abbia un ruolo particolarmente importante da svolgere quando si tratta di rivitalizzare la nostra comprensione della cultura, proprio per il fatto che l’Europa, con la sua grande diversità di persone, lingue e storie è lo spazio dove "l’altro" è sempre il nostro vicino e dove ognuno è costantemente sollecitato ad apprendere dall’altro.

Nel complesso, "Il cinema europeo nell’era digitale" si prefigge di sostenere il cinema europeo nella sua ricchezza e di offrire un accesso quanto più ampio possibile ai cittadini in nome dell’unità e della libertà di pensiero.

The Man Who Would be KingBrother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy.

The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King, and was promised the reversion of a kingdom – army, law-courts, revenue, and policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead and if I want a crown I must go hunt it for myself.

The beginning of everything was in a railway train upon the road to Mhow from Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated travelling, not Second-class, which is half as dear as First-class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or Native, which for a long night journey is nasty, or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not buy from refreshment rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside water. That is why in the hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon.

BertiFratello ad un Principe e compagno d'un mendicante se lo trovava

degno.La Legge, come si suol dire, ci prescrive una buona condotta di vita ed

una condotta non tanto facile a seguire. Sono stato compagno d'un mendicante in molte e svariate occasioni tali che impedivano all'uno o all'altro di giudicare se ne era degno. Ancora non mi sono trovato ad essere fratello di un Principe, sebbene una volta fui vicino ad imparentarmi con uno che avrebbe potuto essere un vero Re, e che aveva promesso la riversione d'un regno: esercito, tribunali, finanze e politica al completo.

Siniscalco:

Fratello di principe e compagno di mendico che si mostri degno.

La Legge ci prescrive testualmente di condurre una vita retta, ma non è facile attenersi sino in fondo a tale prescrizione. Mi è capitato più volte di aver avuto un mendicante come compagno di strada, e in circostanze che hanno impedito ad entrambi di accertare se l'altro fosse degno della stima e della fiducia accordata. Devo ancora stringere rapporti fraterni con un principe, sebbene mi accadde in un'occasione di diventare quasi intimo con una persona che avrebbe potuto farsi veramente re, e che mi aveva promesso l'incarico di riformare un regno, esercito, tribunali, finanze, in una sola parola tutto il suo ordinamento economico e politico.

Monti: Fratello a un principe, compagno a un mendicante, se considerava la persona degna.

Così enunciato, il principio propone una buona regola di vita, tutt'altro che facile da seguire. Più d'una volta sono stato compagno di mendico in circostanze che non permettevano di definire chi dei due fosse degno. Fratello di principe devo ancora diventarlo, sebbene una volta mi sia trovato molto vicino ad un autentico Re e mi sia stata promessa la successione ad un reame con tutti gli annessi e connessi: esercito, tribunali, erario, politica.

Fatica: Fratello di un principe e compagno di un mendicante, se lo trovasse degno.

La Legge posta a epigrafe prescrive un'esistenza nel segno dell'equità e non è facile attenervisi. Compagno di un mendicante lo sono stato in più di un'occasione, ma le circostanze non permettevano a nessuno dei due di appurare se l'altro ne era degno. Fratello di un principe ancora devo esserlo; c'è mancato poco invece che lo diventassi di un vero re, nelle intenzioni almeno, e con tanto di regno promesso in retaggio: esercito, tribunali, finanze e ordinamento politico al gran completo.

1. L'inizio di tutto ebbe luogo in treno, sulla strada che va da A. a M. C'era stato un deficit nel mio bilancio, che mi rendeva necessario non solo di non prendere la seconda classe, che costa metà della prima, ma mi aveva costretto a prender posto in un vagone intermedio, che era la cosa più terribile. Nella classe intermedia non ci son cuscini e i viaggiatori sono anch'essi intermedi e cioè eurasiatici, o indigeni, il che per una lunga notte di viaggio è nauseante, o fannulloni, che, sebbene ubriachi, sono divertenti. I viaggiatori della classe intermedia non frequentano i vagoni ristoranti. Si portano il cibo in pacchi e in recipienti, comprano dolci dai venditori indigeni e bevono alle fontane che s'incontrano lungo la linea. Ecco perché durante il caldo dai vagoni dell'intermedia vengono estratti dei morti e nelle altre stagioni sono guardati con disprezzo.

2. Tutto ebbe inizio in un vagone ferroviario, sul tratto che va da M. ad A. Il bilancio era in rosso, il che impose l'uso non della seconda classe, che è meno bella della prima solo per metà, ma della classe intermedia, che è davvero pessima. Nella classe intermedia i sedili non sono imbottiti; la gente che vi viaggia o è intermedia - il che vuol dire euroasiatica - o indigena, il che significa pericolosa in un lungo viaggio notturno; oppure è composta di fannulloni, spassosi anche se ubriachi. I viaggiatori di questa classe non comprano di che rifocillarsi nelle sale di ristoro. Portano da mangiare in fagotti e pignatte, comprano roba dolce dai venditori di dolciumi e bevono acqua stagnante. Ciò spiega perché con il clima torrido, gli intermedi vengono tirati fuori dai vagoni bell'e morti, e spiega anche perché con qualsiasi clima sono oggetto di disprezzo.

3. Tutto incominciò su un treno, nel tratto compreso tra M. e A. Il bilancio presentava un deficit, e ciò mi aveva costretto a viaggiare non in seconda classe, perché il risparmio sarebbe stato solo della metà rispetto alla prima, ma nella cosiddetta classe intermedia, che è veramente terribile. Non ci sono sedili imbottiti, e i viaggiatori sono per l'appunto gente intermedia, ovvero euroasiani, o indigeni, e in un viaggio lungo la loro compagnia può essere veramente spiacevole, oppure vagabondi bianchi, che sono divertenti, benché sempre in preda ai fumi dell'alcool. Chi viaggia nella intermedia non frequenta i posti di ristoro delle stazioni. Si porta dietro le cibarie, in fagotti e recipienti vari, e compra dolciumi dai venditori indigeni e beve l'acqua che scorre nei fossi accanto alle strade. Per tale motivo nella stagione calda i passeggeri della classe intermedia sono tirati fuori sfiniti dai vagoni, e sono molto opportunamente tenuti in scarsa considerazione, qualunque sia il clima o la stagione.

4. Tutto iniziò su un treno, nella tratta che va da A. a M. Un certo disavanzo nel bilancio mi aveva costretto a viaggiare non dirò in seconda, che costa solo la metà della prima, ma nella cosiddetta classe intermedia, una cosa abominevole. Non ci sono sedili imbottiti in classe intermedia, e a popolarla è gente intermedia appunto, eurasiatici o indigeni, e una lunga notte di viaggio con loro è una cosa che mette a dura prova; oppure bighelloni, e allora la cosa si fa divertente, alcol permettendo. Quelli dell'intermedia non frequentano buffet: si portano dietro fagotti e recipienti con il cibo, comprano dolciumi dai rivenditori indigeni e bevono l'acqua che trovano lungo la strada. Ecco perché nella stagione calda vengono tirati fuori morti dai vagoni: ogni stagione è buona, invece, per coprirli di un sacrosanto disprezzo.

COHERENCE AND

PRAGMATIC ASPECTS

Pragmatics studies meaning as communicated by a speaker (or writer) and interpreted by a listener (or reader) = language in use

It analyses what people mean by their utterance (rather than what the words or phrases in those utterances might mean by themselves)

CONTEXT + SENDER + RECEIVER =meaning negotiated through participants' logical ability to see

relatedness to context even of incomplete or apparently disconnected utterances

How do we make sense of a text?

Knowledge presented in the text

Reader’s ownknowledge and experience of theworld

coherence

Depending on age, sex, nationality,race, education, occupation, political and religious affiliations.

Relations that are valid for a societymay not be valid for another

REMEMBER:

• The mere presence of cohesive links does not create a coherent text:

I bought a Ford. The car in which President Wilson rode down the Champs Elysees was black. Black English has been widely discussed. The discussion between the presidents ended last week. A week has seven days. Every day I feed my cat…

AUSTIN'S SPEECH ACT THEORYMeaning = product of composite interaction:

words and sentences + speaker's intentions + situation

Language and meaning strong performative value (while speaking an action is carried out)

e.g.: asking a question = producing an utterance + manifesting intention to receive an answer (Where's the nearest bus stop?) or + inducing addressee to do as requested (Would you please sign here?)

SPEECH ACT: the action performed by a speaker through an utterance.

Would you mind closing the door? Not interested in receiver's emotional reaction, but politely getting him/her to obey a request.

Do you know what time it is? Not investigating addressee's knowledge, but asking to be informed about the time or, under certain circumstances, expressing a reprimand.

UTTERANCE: sense (reference to specific events, people or objects),

force (an extra-layer of meaning which adds to the literal)

effect (a consequence of what has been said, either conventionally accepted as the result of the utterance and its force, or atypical and therefore inferrable only from the specific circumstances).

Utterance = an act  of  saying something (LOCUTION)

what one does  in  saying it (ILLOCUTIONARY FORCE)

what one does  by  saying it (PERLOCUTIONARY EFFECT)

Example: A and B are in a room. A: “It has just started to snow.”

1. locutionary act: announcing a change in the weather conditions;

2. illocutionary force: informing B of the change, thereby including implicit information about the cold, the danger of driving or, under given circumstances, the magic of a white Christmas;

3. perlocutionary effect: A may be indirectly trying to affect B's behaviour and cause him/her to stay in and avoid slippery roads, or s/he may express worry for the buds in the garden, or....

Performative dimension of utterances:

. embedded in a linguistic co-text + physical/virtual context

. participants rely on presuppositions (what they expect the other party (not) to know)

. participants have interiorised a set of politeness rules belonging to their culture (defining levels of directness, power and attitude)

COMMUNICATION succeeds thanks to Cooperative principle + human brain tendency to make sense of any utterance

TheCOOPERATIVE

PRINCIPLE(Grice, 1975)

QUANTITY:- make your contribution as informative as is required-do not make it more informative than required

QUALITY:- do not say what you believe to befalse- do not say that for which you lack evidence

RELEVANCE:make your contribu-tion relevant to thecurrent exchange

MANNER:- avoid obscurity- avoid ambiguity- be brief- be orderly

These are MAXIMS; we may deliberately violate

them to evade a topic ora question (politicians)

IMPLICATURES: aspects of meaning not directly conveyed through the literal meaning of an utterance, but inferrable because participants assume the cooperative principle is governing the exchange (what sender really means, not what s/he says)Warning: Grice studied speech, especially question/answersequences, BUT his theory has important applications in translation

A speaker can signal IMPLIED MEANING

CONVENTIONALLYusing textual resources whichconventionally signal certainrelations:CONJUNCTIONS: therefore, because...GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE: e.g.It’s money that they want.

NON-CONVENTIONALLYhere THEORY of IMPLICATUREbecomes relevant: HOW DO WESIGNAL/INTERPRET MEANING THAT IS NOT CONVENTIONALLY CODED?Assumption is that DISCOURSE1) is CONNECTED, 2) it has a PURPOSE, 3) it is a COOPERATIVE EFFORT

COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE

CONVENTIONAL VS. CONVERSATIONAL MPLICATURE

A: Are you going to Mark's party tomorrow?

B: Yeah, and pigs may fly. conventional implicature

(knowing idiom will permit comprehension)

A: Are you going to Mark's party tomorrow?

B: My girlfriend is arriving from America. conversational implicature

(effective communication depends on receiver's correct interpretation of sender's implied meaning in that specific context)

Woman: “That’s the telephone” Man: “I’m in the bath”Woman: “Ok”

speech acts:She makes a request of him to perform an actionHe states the reason why he can’t comply with the requestShe undertakes to perform action

TOOLSHuge help from the web, online resources, CAT software,

digital translation software.

Machine translation:

Rule-based m.t. statistical machine translation

Large sets of rules data-driven (probability algorithms + huge lexicons extracting matching chunks from

mono- + bilingual corpora

Lower fluency, more more fluent, minimal post-editing, intensive post-editing not predictable, not consistent ___________________________________________________

Disambiguation? La porta, ha detto.1. “The door, he (has) said.”(He told you to close the door, not the window)2. “He's taking her, he (has) said.”(Don't worry, she will not be left there)

CAT (esp. technical translators + terminologists). spell- and grammar-checkers (usually available in any word-processing

programme);

. electronic dictionaries and terminology databases;

. tools that allow customized research + creation of personal reference material:

terminology managers: create database of terms + information (field; definition, related terms and synonyms; examples of use; translation into one or more Ls; observations on usage; institutions/companies/publications using it, etc.)

indexers and concordancers: 1. user can scan translated texts, comparable texts or others + create list of search items to speed up further queries; 2. used to search body of texts for patterns of use of a term + visualize contexts where it appears;

bitext aligners: ST + TT aligned. Matched texts make editing faster and more accurate + show manipulation in terms of reordering, deleting or adding items, paraphrasing, etc.

translation memories (TM): databases containing segments of texts previously translated from SL into one or more TL(s). During translation, TM looks up each new SL segment. If present in the database, TM shows the translation used before > increasingly standardized texts

CORPORA

Corpus linguistics: form and test hypotheses on language by creating and analyzing large collections of texts, written or oral, through computerized tools.

Corpus: a collection of pieces of language text in electronic form, selected according to external criteria to represent, as far as possible, a language or language variety as a source of data for linguistic research (Sinclair 2005: 16).

Corpora should be representative of a L or a certain part/aspect of the L (e.g. British National Corpus = 100-million-word collection of samples of written and spoken language from different sources meant to represent current BE; the Bible Corpus = multilingual translations of the Bible; the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken AmE = recordings of spoken interaction between speakers of different origin, gender, age and ethnicity from all over the USA,; CORIS/CODIS = present-day written Italian, from the press, fiction, academic prose, legal and administrative prose and others).

Robust c. = large collections by university research groups or language industry

Virtual c. = smaller collections for specific purposes

Monolingual c. = mainly used in descriptive studies

Bilingual/multilingual parallel c. (or translation c.) = texts in one L + their translations into one or more L(s)

Bilingual comparable c. = two collections, in two Ls, of untranslated texts selected by genre, topic, time span, function.

Monolingual comparable c.= double collection of unrelated texts selected by similarity of content, function, text type, length (texts originally written in the language object of study + texts that were translated into that language)

USEFULNESS OF CORPORA IN TS. insight into language-pair specific characteristics

. study translated texts to highlight potential recurrent traits,

. reveal patterns that cannot be identified through manual analysis

. effective application in translator training and bilingual lexicography.

(less fruitful in investigating what happens in the translator's mind)

For translators:

.accuracy of terminology in LSP;

.source text analysis;

.visualizing solutions adopted by others;

.assess the quality of a TT;

.bridging the gap between TS and practice by carrying out research on their own work, thus becoming more visible (Venuti)