Linguistics and translationlinguistic reasoning behind translation

1.1 LANGUAGE STRUCTURE AND THE

ORGANISATION OF INFORMATION

“The translator should first identify those items that stand as

autonomous units.” (Taylor 1998: 14)

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1. Ferdinand de Saussure

Syntagms: joining words or longer units horizontally to form grammatically acceptable

and meaningful clauses and sentences.

Syntagmatic sequence

•He leaves tomorrow

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1. Ferdinand de Saussure

System: choosing of competing linguistc options from the vertical nature of the system.

paradigmatic: competing linguistic options

•He leaves as soon as the weather improves

•He / go(es) / tomorrow

•she / leave(s) / as soon as the weather improves

•you /sail(s) /next week

syntagms: they are combined syntagmatically in a logical order to create meaning

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2. Structuralism. Leonard Bloomfield.

Immediate Constituents Analysis

How would you break the following sentence into autonomous units?

The meeting broke up at midnight and the delegates went home

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2. Structuralism. Leonard Bloomfield. (Taylor pp 12-14)

Immediate Constituents Analysis:

How would you break the following sentence into autonomous units?

• The meeting /broke up /at midnight

•La riunione /si è sciolta / a mezzanotte

Each single word could be split into meaninful contituents:

Quickly

The meeting broke up at midnight CLAUSE

AndCONJUNCTION

the delegates went home CLAUSE

-the meeting noun phrase

-broke up verb phrase

-at midnight temporal adverb phrase

-and conjunction

-the delegates noun phrase

Universal structure Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures

(1957)

Universal “deep” grammar: the core rules of human language

which do not change over time.

“Surface” grammar: the rules that are specific to individual

languages and are subject to change.

Eugene Nida (Towards a Science of Translation, 1964) used

Chomsky’s concept of deep structure to develop the notion of

“kernel sentences” (kernel = nocciolo, nucleo, fondo) based on

the core elements of all languages.

The Prague School

Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) and Communicative Dynamism (CD).

THEME (known information) and RHEME (new information).

• The English have no respect for their languages

THEME RHEME

Information that speaker New information for the interlocutor

and interlocutor share Communicative dynamism

The Prague School Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) and Communicative

Dynamism (CD).

THEME (known information) and RHEME (new information).

• Interests rates fell by 2%. This drop caused panic on the Stock Market as brokers rushed

to inform clients.

THEME RHEME

Information that speaker New information for the interlocutor

and interlocutor share Communicative dynamism

M.A.K. Halliday (1985), An Introduction to Functional Grammar

Halliday also equates grammatical subject with theme with known

information in unmarked declarative sentences. However, he notes that we

frequently move the communicative focus in marked sentences (interrogative

or imperative clause where the verb form, coming first is theme) in which the

theme is not the grammatical subject:

Example: All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

(unmarked

sentence)THEME RHEME

The syntactic flexibility of the Italian language and its different

thematic organization enables such constructions:

Example:

È arrivato il Re! È arrivato il Re!

In English:

*Has arrived the King

Is ungrammatical.

• The King is here ! The King is here!

The thematic organization of Italian may push the translator to

reject the congruent syntax of the following:

Example:

• The King is here! The King is here!

and opt for a presentative construction with subject shiftes to the

right:

• Here is the King! Here is the King!

COHESION

Coherence: the extralinguistic semantic links (context) that bind a

text together so that it makes sense as discourse.

Cohesion is achieved in various ways:

1) Conjunctions:

John arrived and sat down

2) Reference (pro-forms that refer back or ahead within the text)

a) Pronouns that refer back to a previously–mentioned entity

are said to constitute ‘anaphoric’ reference:

John came in, he did A, he did B, he did z…

COHESION

Where the reference is to an entity further ahead in the

discouse, it is termed cataforic:

3) cataphoric

This is not good news for you. You are all fired!

4) Substitution or Ellipsis

It might rain but I hope it doesn’t (verb phrase substituted

by auxiliaries)

I voted for the Greens . Why…?

Synonyms/antonyms

COHESION

4) Repetition of words

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

5) Synonyms or near synonims

Having lost one opportunity, he won’t get a second chance

6) Through the use of semantically-related items:

a) antonyms

That’s the top and bottom

b) Hyponyms

The tiger is an endangered animal (that is a superordinate

term animal is associated with a subordinate, hyponymous

term tiger)

Collocation

The binding properties of lexical items; how words go together.

Predictable collocations: provide examples in English and in Italian

“You shall know a word by the company it keeps” (Firth 1968: 106)

CollocationSome collocations are more predictable than others and could be mirrored in

other languages:

Read a book: leggere un libro

blue sky: cielo azzurro

Expressions :

Time flies: il tempo vola

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth: A caval donato…

CollocationFixed idioms may have obscure origins

Campa cavallo

Topsy-torvey

Topsy and torvey collocate with no other words

Other items collocate with surprisingly combinations:

Ride collocates with horse, bicycle, elephant,

But also:

ride the storm (superare la tempesa)

Ride along (partecipare)

Collocation

Predictable collocations: equivalence

Italians mangiano spaghetti but also si mangiano le

unghie

English bite their nails.

Idioms, colloquial language is more complex

Example:

•Ci sono molti treni che fanno servizio tra Londra e

Brighton:

•There are frequent trains running between London and

Brighton.

Creativity in the source text. What should the translator

do?

The translator must try to understand the speaker’s or writer’s

illocutionary force or communicative intention. It is more important

to convey that intention than to produce a target text that is formally

similar to the source text.

Partington (1995):

1) Reformulation: The kooky that didn’t crumble ( That’s the way the

cookie crumble ) [sono cose che succedono]

2) Abbreviation: Once a Catholic (Once a Catholic , always a Catholic)

3) Expansion: Songs from the Age of Innocence (Songs of Innocence

+ The Age of Innocence)

Proper namesThe criteria for the translation of such names are those of historical

importance. Great names from the past in all field of human endeaviour find

their names translated .

The nearer we get to the present day the less this usage persists.

William the Conqueror Guglielmo il Conquistatore

fossilized names do not require translation:

Johnson John’s son

Different considerations come into play for names of fictitious character and

fictional names:

names of onomastic nature do not translate: David Copperfield

Names that carry any kind of meaning:

Bluebeard/barbablù

Little red riding hood/Cappuccetto Rosso

The March Hare/la Lepre Marzolina

Proper names

Some cities are translated:

Paris/Parigi, London/Londra, Wien/Vienna but Washington,

Copenhagen, Helsinki.

.

If the source text involves puns on names that also have

semantic value (e.g. Frank, Hazel, Sandy), it may be impossible

to reproduce the double meaning in the target text.

For example:

Source Text: Maxwell House (a well –known brand coffee)

Target text: Teo Lipton

TerminologyThe study of and the field of activity concerned with the

collection , description, processing and presentation of terms, i.e. lexical items belonging to specialised areas of usage of one or more languages.

Terminology the ideal “one-concept-one –term” is not always applicable:

approved debts/ debito approvato

Sometimes not:

advising bank/ banca corrispondente di avviso del credito

Terminology term formation: new modes on existing term Latin and Greek

Parallel patters operate: rapidly expanding + filed of computers: software , hardware,

a) Compounding:

Pressure screw [two noun cluster] = vite a pressione [noun + prep.+ noun]

This example is instructive for 2 reasons:

1) Terms do not consist of just one lexical word

Closed-circuit television [adj+noun+noun] televisione a circuito chiuso [noun+ prep.+ noun+ adj]

Terminology

term formation: new modes on existing term Latin and Greek

b) Affixation: [prefix] interaction, contradict, monotone;

[suffix] hydrophobia, etc.

c) Abbreviation: CCTV, AMU (atomic mass unit).

Parallel patters operate: rapidly expanding + filed of computers: software , hardware,

Terminology

Lexical density : proportion between lexical words (nouns, verbs, agj, adv., etc)and function words (prep., Conj., Copular verbs, etc.).

Written language is more dense than spoken language

Technical texts have a higher lexical density; higher ratio of techical terms;

The translator should attempt to create the same effect in the TL and to confim the translator’s adhererance to the TL.

4. TRANSLATION STRATEGIES

Malone’s list of nine strategies for translating at a structural or lexicogrammatical

level:

Equation Substitution

Divergence Convergence

Amplification Reduction

Diffusion Condensation

Reordering

Malone, J.L. (1988), The Science of Linguistics in the Art of Translation. Albany:

State University of New York Press.

4. TRANSLATION STRATEGIES

The first eight are presented as pairs as they are images of one

another:

Examples:

1) Amplification requires the addition of some elements,

Reduction the opposite.

2) Equation suggests some form of authomatic equivalence,

substitution when authomatism is not present.

Equation Substitution

Divergence Convergence

Amplification Reduction

Diffusion Condensation

Reordering

Equation and Substitution

Equation 1

The most obvious form of Equation is the loan word

1) Loan words: baseball, relax (riposo);

Neologism also appers a as loan: sofware, screening;

Terms coined for particupar subcultures: video games, rap; corner,

At a phonetic level undergo radical changes

The second form of Equation is provided by the TL adaptation :

2) Calques: click/cliccare, stop/stoppare, dribble/dribblare, cross/crossare,

good afternoon/buon pomeriggio

Equation and Substitution

Equation 1

The second form of Equation is provided by the TL adapts :

2) Calques: click/cliccare, stop/stoppare, dribble/dribblare,

cross/crossare, good afternoon/buon pomeriggio, ho realizzato/I

realized [mi sono reso conto]

Equation

One of the most well known traps associated with equation is:

false cognates: actual/attuale; simpatico/sympathetic; città/city,

Andare in città/going to town

false friends

Equation

Direttore/director

Rivolgersi al direttore

(In a company) Ask the Director (Manager, Managing Director)

(Newspaper office) Ask the Editor

(School) Ask the Headmaster

(orchestra) Ask the Conductor

Equation

Taylor gives excellent examples of how reality are often not appropriate

translations of realtà (pp 50,51).

Realtà, it has in English a huge array of options:

•L’arte come imitazione della realtà/art as imitation on nature

•La realtà è dura/life is hard (it’s a hard life)

•La sua malattia è una realtà/her illness is genuine

• progetti che diventano realtà/plan which are realised

•Ha il senso della realtà /he’s realistic

•La realtà economica/the economic situation

•Bisogna tenere in considerazione la realtà locale/ we must keep local needs in

mind

The antithesis of Equation is:

Substitution: which may bear little or no morphosyntactic and

semantic relation to the ST:

At a morphosyntactic level:

Saxon genitive in English – prepositional phrase in Italian

• Gulliver’s travel/i viaggi di Gulliver

Infinitive in English – subjunctive in Italian

• I’ll try to get her to / Farò in modo che si interessi

Zero lexico-syntactic equivalence in proverbs

The antithesis of Equation is:

Substitution: which may bear little or no morphosyntactic and

semantic relation to the ST:

At a semantic level:

Zero lexico-syntactic equivalence in proverbs

•La goccia che fa traboccare il vaso: the straw that broke the

camel’s back.

Divergence and Convergence

Divergence

“The strategy of divergence is that of choosing a suitable term from a

potential range of alternatives”) Malone

Examples of lexical items:

•Cream = panna/crema

Or a bewildering selection:

•Girare= to turn/to go around/ to tour/ to travel /to spin/to circle, etc.

Divergence and Convergence

Divergence

Examples of pronoun cum interjections cum adverbs cum adjectives

cum noun niente:

• Non ho niente da dire/ I have nothing to say

•Venti-tre, venti-quattro- Niente!- ricominciamo/twenty-three, twenty-four-

No! Let’s start again.

•Niente male!/ Not bad

•Ho fatto tutto questo lavoro per niente/ I’ve done all this work for nothing

•Non per niente accettano solo ragazze/not for nothing do they accept only

girls.

• Niente scherzi!/No messing about

• non hanno un bel niente/they have got nothing at all.

Divergence and Convergence

Divergence

The translator is often called upon to select from grammatical paradigms

, where more than one construction may be accepted:

• se dovesse succedere/should it happen/were it to happen/If it were to

happen.

• You had better go early/ Faresti meglio ad andare presto/ Sarebbe meglio

se andassi presto

•Non serve lamentarsi/ There is no point in complaining/ It’s no use in

complaining / complaining will get nowhere

Divergence and Convergence

Convergence

It is the opposite of Divergence.Pronouns like:

• tu /Lei/voi/Loro all converge into you

The three Italian terms , commercialista/ragioniere/contabile

Converge all in accountant.

Amplification and Reduction

AmplificationA single lexeme in one language needs a collocational partner in the other.

It may be in the case of a simple collocation gap, that is, where a single lexical items in one language

needs a collocational partner in the other:

• hanno interesse a tenere il prezzo basso/they have a vested interest (interesse costituito, interessi in

gioco) in keeping the price low.

• County lost four none.

Amplification also required when when the source text “takes for granted” certain components. Here

the ST is taking for granted certain componenets: cultural, semantic, linguistic. For the Italian reader

amplification is required; an addition indicating the football connection is required , for instance :

County refers to Notts [County Footbal Club]

Amplification and Reduction

Amplification

County calcio/ i ragazzi del County/il Nottingam County ….

It requires that the tranlator adds some element to the target text for reasons of greater

comprehensibility. [Endnote, footnote, bracketed addition].

Reduction

Omitting elements in the target text that would be redundant or even misleading and

confusing:

• Carta geografica/ map; (cassapanca/chest; scolapasta/colander; railway/ferrovia)

•Three-toed sloth/bradipo

•Ferro da stiro/iron

•Esporre in modo visibile/display

Diffusion and Condensation

Diffusion

If Amplification and Reduction entail adding or subtracting

linguistic elements, Diffusion and Condensation involve providing

more or less elaboration. The Italian expression requires diffusion

into a locution of the type:

If only I could!

Magari! Would that it were!

I wish that were the case!

Diffusion and Condensation

Diffusion

The Italian subjunctive and conditional usage, often requiring a wide range of

meanings, requiring diffusion in English translation:

• La banda avrebbe rapinato altre tre banche.

Requires in English the use of passive voice:

The gang is said to have robbed three other banks.

The gang is reported to have robbed three other banks.

The gang is alleged to have robbed three other banks.

Diffusion and Condensation

Diffusion

Similarly the use of imperfect form of the Italian verb dovere

epistemic modality:

In clauses doveva arrivare alle tre needs diffusion:

•doveva arrivare alle tre /He was supposed to arrive at three

o’clock

Some particular common verbs in Italian do not require a direct

object, where their most suitable equivalents do:

• A permette di fare B/ A enables us to do B

Diffusion and Condensation

Diffusion

Italian plural lexemes: informazioni, consigli, mobili, are

expressed as uncountable nouns in English:

•Some information, some advice, some furniture

Or may even take the form: items of information/ pieces of

advice/articles of furniture.

Condensation

“In the case of Condensation, the target text expression is more linguistically economic.”

English is said to be more succint than Italian, certain adjectives and verbal expressions are

condensed:

• a buon prezzo/ a buon mercato =cheap

•Far vedere = show

the other way round, prepositional verbs and phrasal verbs are typical of this phenomenon:

• to look at /guardare

•to make up /inventare

•to make up for/ compensare

Condensation

Another linguistic phenomenon indicative towards concision: string of adjectives and nouns or

strings of just nouns form lexically–dense noun phrases. Asindeton on nouns in potentially infinitive

sequence are constrained by the Italian syntax into containing verbs, adjectivals and complex

adverbials and prepositional phrases.

Premodification of nouns in English; postmodification in Italian:

•Environmental Department Air Pollution Report Findings Scandal.

Lo scandalo suscitato dai risultati del rapporto del Ministero dell’Ambiente

sull’inquinamento dell’aria.

Condensation

Newspeper headlines and technical writing provides endless examples of multivariate or

unvariate strings:

In multivariate strings, each element before the head noun has a different function.

• those [Dem. deitic] two [Numeral] beautiful [Adj epithet] film N classifier stars N

In univariate strings, each element before the head noun has the same function, i.e. that

of modifying the noun that follows it.

1) Overseas (AdJ) immigrants entry limit controversy (4 Nouns)

2) Opera donation scandal

3) Hospital doctors strike row

In unvariate strings Noun jusxtaposed modifying one another in succession. There is a

recurrence of the same linguistic function.

Condensation

Lexically dense condensing information into a more nominal style.

Taking some currently widely-used technical terms from the field of

atmospheric pollution, the an unvariate string can be seen to operate:

Simple two–word compounds (Noun + Adjective in Italian)

•Acid rain /pioggia acida

Three item strings (Prepositional phrase constructions in Italian)

• Air quality criteria/criteri di qualità dell’aria

•True gas treatment/trattamento dei gas di combustione

Condensation

Italian occasionally provides example of two-item noun string unvariate

string

• greenhouse effect/effetto serra

Psychiatry provides further examples of Noun strings in English:

• adjustment disorder/disturbo dell’adattamento

• attention deficit disorder/disturbo da deficit dell’attenzione

Coming now to the strategy of

Reordering we enter in the field of comparative syntax:

the translator is required to operate basic inversion procedures:

Adj-noun sequences (white horse/cavallo bianco)

Verb-object positioning ([io] ti amo/I love you) emphasis “ma io amo

te”

It is important for the translator to know when not to activate this

mechanism:

• pressione alta [medical] /high blood preassure

• high preassure [meteorological] alta pressione

Reordering

Set collocations of two or more items (NP) exist in both languages. At a morpho-syntactic

level:

aglio, olio e peperoncino/garlic, olive oil and chilly

1) Vita e morte/life and death Match perfectly;

2) Sano e salvo/ fit and well Match partly but belong very definetely in the same

semantic field;

3) Bianco e nero/black and white Match perfectly but in inverted form;

4) Il diavolo e l’acqua santa/(between) the devil and the deep blue sea Maintaining

half the pairing;

5) A pochi ma buoni Have no equivalent binomial form at all. (a good

few)

5) B spick and span Have no equivalent binomial form at all (tirato a

lucido).