A corpus-based study of loan words in original and translated texts Ana Frankenberg-Garcia ISLA -...
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Transcript of A corpus-based study of loan words in original and translated texts Ana Frankenberg-Garcia ISLA -...
A corpus-based study of loan words
in original and translated texts
Ana Frankenberg-Garcia
ISLA - Lisbon a n a . f r a n k e n b e r g @ s a p o . p t
Loan words in monolingual settings
1. When people fail to retrieve equivalent words in the language they are speaking
2. To evoke meanings that go beyond the propositional meaning of the words used
language loss
language enrichment
Loan words in translation
1. Culturally-bound concepts difficult to translate
2. Conveying source-text culture
last resort for want of a better solution
intentional translation strategy
Loan words in translation• Vinay & Darbelnet (1958): emprunts To fill in semantic gaps or add local colourEasy way out
• Newmark (1988): transference To use with moderation Translator’s job is to translate, to explain
• Venuti (1995)Option to domesticate or foreignize Translators should keep foreign texts foreign
• Toury (1995)Relative status of source-text language and cultureAffects the extent to which it interferes in the translation
Motivation
• The use of loans is not a prerogative of translations
• When looking at loan words in translation, it makes sense to look at how loans are used in texts that are not translations
Loan words in original and translated texts
• Are there more loans in translations than in source texts?
• Is the superimpostion of languages in source texts effaced by translation?
• Does the relative status of the ST language and culture affect the use of loans in translation?
Questions such as these are much easier to tackle with the help of corpora
Method
Original Portuguese
TranslatedEnglish
Original English
TranslatedPortuguese
COMPARA 6.0www.linguateca.pt/COMPARA
[Dec 2004 – Mar 2005]
Bidirectional parallel corpus of English and Portuguese(published fiction)
Focus on frequency and language distribution of loans
Method sub-corpus
COMPARA contains over 2 million words, with texts published between 1837 and 2000
Sub-corpus of texts published in the last 30 years:
• 15 original Portuguese fiction extracts (277,243 words)
• 13 original English fiction extracts (191,913 words)
• 15 extracts of Portuguese fiction in English translation (312,322 words)
• 15 extracts of English fiction in Portuguese translation (415,690 words)
1,197,168 words
Method sub-corpus: note 1
• Not all stories set exclusively in English or Portuguese speaking worlds
• Not all stories take place in the last thirty years
May affect how loans are used, but typical of fiction!
• What matters is:– Stories written by modern English and Portuguese-speaking
writers
– Stories read by English and Portuguese-speaking readers of today
Method sub-corpus: note 2English (28 texts)
5 authorsDavid Lodge, Joanna Trollope, Julian Barnes, Nadine Gordimer, Richard Zimler
10 translatorsAlan Clarke, Cliff Landers, David Brookshaw, Ellen Watson, Giovanni Pontiero,
Gregory Rabassa, John Byrne, John Parker, Mary Fitton, Richard Zenith
Portuguese (30 texts) 12 authorsAutran Dourado, Cardoso Pires, Chico Buarque, Jorge de Sena, José E.
Agualusa, José Saramago, Marcos Rey, Mário de Carvalho, Mia Couto, Patrícia Melo, Paulo Coelho, Rubem Fonseca
10 translators Ana M. Amador, Carlos G. Babo, Geraldo G. Ferraz, Helena Cardoso, J. Teixeira
Aguilar, José Lima, Lídia C-Luther, M. Carlota Pracana, M. Carmo Figueira, Paula Reis
more individual author differences in Portuguese
Method sub-corpus: note 3
Different varieties of English and Portuguese not taken into account
English Portuguese
Method
What was considered a loan
How loans were counted
How loans were sorted by language
Defining loans
Disagreement among individuals and within language communities
Loans:words in a language other than the main language of the text that authors and translators (or publishers) chose to set off by highlighting
- criterion used in COMPARA to mark foreign words- can be retrieved automatically
Note 1readers (and corpus makers & users) may have different perceptions
Note 2 same word can be a loan in some texts but not in others
Defining loanssame word classified differently in different languages
EBDL5 (262):`What d'you take me for, a robot?´
EBDL5 (262): -- O que é que você pensa que eu sou? Algum robot?
Defining loanssame word classified differently in same language
PBRF1 (318): Usava jeans apertados, suas pernas eram grossas e os braços finos.
PBPC2 (934): A única coisa que mantinha o sentido de reali-dade eram nossos trajes, jeans e camisetas com vieiras costuradas.
EBDL3T1(1279): Boon tinha realmente chegado, provocante-mente vestido com camiseta e jeans e acompanhado duma bela e altiva Pantera Negra, que ia entrar no programa dessa noite.
EBJT1 (1962): Era um rapaz, um rapaz magro de jeans e com um blusão de cabedal.
Instead of external parameters, definition reflects opinions of authors and translators (and editorial policies)
Defining loanstitles and named entities marked foreign not included
EBJB1(64): Besides, I remember the end of L'Education Sentimentale.
PBRF1(560): Até que o Fleming escolheu um bom título, Diamonds are Forever, pensei, mas o filme de Guy Hamilton era medíocre.
PBAA2(603): It looks like a ship is arriving, and it's the Cruzeiro.´
EBDL3T2 (1153): Teve uma lua-de-mel de curta duração com a Radio One, que se transformou numa espécie de casamento sadomasoquista.
Counting loanssingle words and multi-word expressions counted as one loan
EBJB2 (500): …he was going to get the best quid pro quo out of God in the forthcoming negotiations. = 1 loan
EBJT2 (241): `I shall bring tapas also,´ José said, moving towards the door.= 1 loan
Counting loansquotations counted as one loan
EURZ1 (1275): …a weedy boy with pale-green eyes yells at her in a prideful voice, « Vai-te foder, vaca! , fuck off, cow!»= 1 loan
EBJB1(188): …he found himself constantly irritated by a parrot which screamed, `As-tu déjeuné, Jako? ´ and `Cocu, mon petit coco.´= 2 loans
Counting loans lists and repetitions counted as separate loans
PBPM1 (99): Urutus, jararacas, cascavéis, jararacuçus, surucutingas, cotiaras -- I saw these and many other serpents in the slides that Melissa projected during her talk. = 6 loans
EBJT2 (368):`The little eggs of the codoniz , what is the codoniz ?´ = 2 loans
Sorting loansco-text used to resolve ambiguity
EBDL5(1802): `Can I take this thing off?´ he said, plucking at his lei .
lei = Hawaiian, not Italian
EBJT2(95): `You must look after yourself, querida .´
querida = Spanish, not Portuguese
Sorting loansloans classified according to their origins
EBDL5(262): -- O que é que você pensa que eu sou? Algum robot ?
robot = Czech
EBDL1T2(889): a plastic container of frozen moussaka could be concealed without much difficulty.
moussaka = Greek
Results distribution of loans
Original Portuguese
Original English
9 (out of 15) texts had no loans at all
Just 1 (out of 13) texts did not have any loans
1.5 loans/ 10 K words
16.9 loans/ 10 K words
Original English fiction more permeable to loans than original Portuguese fiction
Results distribution of loans
Translated Portuguese
Translated English
All texts contained loans
One third of the texts contained no loans at all
24.3 loans/ 10 K words
4.1 loans/ 10 K words
When reading translated fiction, Portuguese readers more exposed to loans than English readers
Results distribution of loans
Original Portuguese
Translated Portuguese
More than half the texts contained no loans at all
All texts contained loans
1.5 loans/ 10 K words
24.3 loans/ 10 K words
Portuguese readers must notice a big difference….
Results distribution of loans
Original English
Translated English
All but one text contained loans
One third of the texts contained no loans at all
16.9 loans/ 10 K words
4.1 loans/ 10 K words
The number of loans in present in text shouldn’t add a particularly foreign ring to English translations….
Results (so far)
• Loan words seem to enter the Portuguese language more through fiction translated from English than through original fiction
• The opposite seems to occur in English
Do Portuguese translators tend to foreignize texts?
Do English translators tend to domesticate texts?
What happens to loans in the process of translation
Resultsnet difference in overall number of loans
ST(English)
TT(Portuguese)
ST(Portuguese)
TT(English)
3 X
Both Portuguese and English translations tripled the total number of loans present in source texts
English translators not really sheltering readers from loans
Few loans in Portuguese source texts makes loans in translated English seem scant by comparison
ResultsLoans in common, loans added and loans removed
ST(English)
TT(Portuguese)
ST(Portuguese)
TT(English)
Both PT and EN translators tend to:Preserve loans originally present in source textsAdd more loans of their ownRemove very few loans (except…)
Resultslanguage distribution of loans
Original Portuguese
Translated Portuguese
Loans from just 4 languages:
English(22 loans in 2 texts)Latin(15 loans in 2 texts)French (4 loans in 4 texts)German(1 loan in 1 text)
None prevails
Loans from 14 identified languages
English prevails (475 loans in 13 texts)
French noticeable(238 loans in 13 texts)
Resultslanguage distribution of loans
Original English
Translated English
Loans from 12 identified languages
French prevails(117 loans in 10 texts)
Portuguese is rare(14 loans but all in 1 text)
Loans from just 8 identified languages
French prevails(43 loans in 6 texts)
Portuguese is noticeable(35 loans in 7 texts)
Resultslanguage distribution of loans
ST (English)
TT (Portuguese)
More French: 117 → 238 (+121)More Latin: 21 → 34 (+15)More Italian: 11 → 20 (+9)
More loan languages: + 2
Lots of loans from source text language: + 475
Less Spanish: 25 → 22 (-3)
Portuguese effaced: -14 (no compensation)
Resultslanguage distribution of loans
ST (Portuguese)
TT (English)
More French: 4 → 43 (+39)More Latin: 15 → 19 (+4)
More loan languages: + 4
Few loans from source text language: + 35
Spanish introduced: 0 → 4 (+4)Italian introduced: 0 → 7 (+7)
English effaced: -22 (2 loans compensated by French)
Overall Results
Original PT Translated EN
Original EN Translated PT
More loans and more loan languages in original English fiction
Both PT and EN translation tripled the number of loans Increased the number of loan languagesDid not remove superimpostion of languages in ST (except when loans were from translation language)
Huge difference between Portuguese originals and translations Difference between number of loans in English originals and translations not as conspicuous, but…
Loans from ST abound in translated Portuguese, but used very sparingly in translated English
PT
EN
Toury (1995)Tolerance of interference is likely to be greater when translation
is carried out from ‘major’ to ‘minor’ language/culture
Conclusion
• Commentaries on use of loans often controversial and based on anectodal evidence
• This study examined some hard data on use of loans in original and translated texts
• Only possible thanks to a corpus and corpus techniques
• Future: more research using more texts, different genres & other language pairs
Obrigada!