Tesi Su Esplicitazione

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Table of Contents

Introduction.......................................................................................................................3

Thesis objectives...........................................................................................................3Thesis outline.................................................................................................................4Theoretical background....................................................................................................5

1 Translation universals................................................................................................51. 1 Explicitation.......................................................................................................7

1. 2 Implicitation.....................................................................................................10

2 Cohesion and coherence..........................................................................................112. 1 Cohesion and coherence in general..................................................................11

2. 2 Cohesion and coherence and translation.........................................................15

2. 2. 1 Blum-Kulkas theory ...............................................................................153 Hopkinsons typology of explicitation and implicitation.........................................17

3. 1 The concepts of staticity and dynamism.....................................................19

3. 2 A proposal for a revised classification of BCR theoretical background......21

3. 2. 1 Dynamic approach....................................................................................213. 2. 2 Non-classical categories...........................................................................25

3. 3 Subjective perception of static and dynamic relations.....................................28

3. 3. 1 A revised classification of BCRs..............................................................31Analysis...........................................................................................................................37

4 Corpus-based approach............................................................................................374.1 Types of corpora................................................................................................37

4.2 Material and method..........................................................................................41

5 Discussion of corpus findings.................................................................................455. 1 Parallel corpus..................................................................................................45

5. 1. 1 The ratio of explicitation to implicitation.................................................495. 2 Comparable corpus...........................................................................................53

5. 2. 1. Indicators of BCRs.................................................................................55

5. 2. 2 Frequency of indicators of BCRs: a comparison of the parallel andcomparable corpora.............................................................................................58Conclusion.......................................................................................................................65

Bibliography....................................................................................................................67

6. 1 Works cited and consulted...............................................................................67

6. 2 Primary sources................................................................................................70

6. 2. 1 Parallel corpus .........................................................................................706. 2. 2 Comparable corpus...................................................................................76

Appendix I Corpus findings


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II Texts included in the corpora (on the enclosed CD-ROM disk)

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Introduction

The thesis is a response to the article Explicitation and Implicitation of Binary

Coherence Relations in Translation by Christopher Hopkinson (2007) where he

introduced his hypothesis that there are not only quantitative but also qualitative

differences in distribution of explicitation and implicitation. These were studied on

binary coherence relations which Hopkinson divided into static and dynamic. He came

to the conclusion that dynamic relations attract a relatively higher degree of

explicitation.

His hypothesis was questioned by Kamenick (2008) who applied his theory on

the corpus of literary texts (contrary to Hopkinson who analyzed non-literary texts). The

hypothesis was not confirmed fully on Kamenicks corpus; the main reason being the

vague and questionable determination of the concepts of staticity and dynamism.

The topic of the thesis reflects the recent interest of many scholars in

investigation into the style of translation, more precisely translation universals

features inherent to translation, globally observable tendencies independent of the

language involved. This phenomenon goes hand in hand with the introduction of a new

approach to translation studies: the corpus-based investigation.

Thesis objectives

The main objective of the present thesis will be an attempt to redefine the static

(additive and adversative) and dynamic (causal and temporal) binary coherence

relations introduced by Hopkinson taking more into account the subjective perception of

these concepts.

The hypothesis is tested on both a parallel and a comparable corpus. The parallel

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corpus (including English originals) is used as a reference work for testing the validity

of Hopkinsons revised hypothesis. Similarly as in Hopkinsons original research, the

corpus consists of non-literary texts (yet not of essays but of newspaper articles), the

direction of translation is, however, opposite: from English to Czech.

The monolingual corpus of translated and original texts, the so called

comparable corpus, is used in order to study possible differences between translated and

non-translated texts in the same language (Czech in this case). Hopkinson (2007: 58)

also observes that as a result of dynamic relations attracting more explicitation the

target texts tend to be more explicitly dynamic. The second objective of this thesis is

thus to explore target and original texts in terms of their internal coherence based on

dynamic vs. static relations.

The thesis is a reaction to a hypothesis introduced by another scholar and as such

hopes to contribute to the present discussion on the nature of translation universals.

Thesis outline

The thesis consist of two main parts: the theoretical background (Chapters 13)

and the analysis (Chapter 4). The theoretical part deals with some theoretical

approaches that are relevant to the present topic; they include the definition of

explicitation and implicitation in Chapter 1 or general notes on coherence and on

coherence in translation (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 is devoted to the introduction of

Hopkinsons typology followed by various approaches that contribute to the intended

revision of it. Finally a revised classification of binary coherence relations is proposed.

The practical part describes the material and method (Chapter 4) and

subsequently presents the results of the research based on an analysis of a parallel and

comparable corpus (Chapter 5).

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Theoretical background

Two theoretical focuses are relevant for the present thesis: firstly, semantics, and

secondly, corpus-based approach to the study of translation universals. Important

centres of the latter are in Manchester: CTIS (Centre for Translation and Intercultural

Studies) represented by scholars such as Mona Baker or Maeve Olohan, in

Scandinavian (Kirsten Malmkjr, Sonja Tirkkonen-Condit) or in Israel (Gideon Toury,

Shosana Blum-Kulka). Essays by some of these authors and other scholars who are

interested in translation universals (Kinga Klaudy, Sara Laviosa-Braithwaite, Linn

vers, a. o.) were used especially in the first theoretical part.

1 Translation universals

The starting point of the discussion is the fact that translations differ from native

texts. Some scholars search for common shared characteristics of translated texts, others

examine what makes a particular translation unique and individual. Yet the main

question is to be formulated in other words: what is the nature or the essence of the

difference? Is it something that appears regularly and globally in translations, ergo

universally?

Translation universals presuppose the existence of regularities in translation

behaviour but more importantly as Toury (2004: 17) emphasizes, the regularities are

there because it is translation. The study of translation universals than goes through the

descriptive route looking for similarities, regularities, patterns (Chesterman 2004:

33) of all translated texts regardless of the languages involved. The theoretical approach

chosen here the descriptive route represents a move from theoretically towards

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empirically oriented studies. The focus of descriptive translation studies (DTS) is also

target-oriented rather than source-oriented. As vers summarizes the idea (originally

expressed by Gideon Toury), DTS investigates what translations are rather than what

they fail to be, and presents a methodology for that purpose (vers 1998: 558).

Lynn vers, a Finnish scholar who pioneered corpora applications to

translation studies, knew indeed that the concept of translation as a type of sub-language

was not new. Nevertheless it had been associated with negative evaluation before

(consider notions such as translationese or interference). What was new about the

concept was in verss (1998:559) view the non-evaluative aspect. The origins of this

concept go back to Frawley and his notion of the third code (a language which was

identical with neither source language (SL) nor target language (TL)); other proposals

were Blum-Kulkas explicitation hypothesis or Tourys translation laws. Toury (2004)

also introduced a probabilistic1 explanation of the appearance of some phenomena in

translations in translation studies.

The problem has always been that of conceptualization and terminology

(Chesterman 2004: 43). Various names, titles, headlines, and terms appeared dealing

basically with the same. It was among other the distinction between norms

vs. universals, expressed by a Finnish scholar Sari Eskola (2004). Norms are binding

constraints, social expectationsfixed in a local socio-cultural context; they change in

time, and are prescriptive, whereas universals are globally observable tendencies,

irrespective of the languages involved; they are descriptive or predictive (2004: 84). The

concept of law is treated as a superior concept. Laws are features inherent in

translation (Eskola 2004: 85). Norms are then local translation laws and universals

1 As Toury (2004) pointed out, a distinction must be made between regularities of performance frequencies and regularities in the system probabilities: what is the likelihood of the appearance of

a specific phenomenon in translation (2004: 19). He than puts the question as follows: If indeed allregularities in translation are conditioned, and only more or less probable, does it follow that it is the

probabilistic propositions themselves that represent the coveted universals? (Toury 2004: 29).

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universal translation norms.2

Leaving apart the terminological aspect, it is the definition of translation

universals formulated by Mona Baker that was taken over for the purpose of this paper:

Universals of translation are linguistic features which typically occur in translatedrather than original texts and are thought to be independent of the influence of thespecific language pairs involved in the process of translation.(Malmkjaer/Baker 1998: 243)

Universals include several subtypes, including simplification, avoidance of repetition

present in the source text, explicitation, normalization, discourse transfer and distinctive

distribution of lexical items. Explicitation and its counterpart implicitation will be in the

centre of our interest. This paper concentrates on explicitation as one of the potential

S-universals in Chestermans (2004) division3, and at the same time the other view the

comparison of translated and original comparable texts is explored. The motivation for

the latter investigation is to find out whether there will be any significant difference

between translated and non-translated texts with respect to the explicitness of the text

based on BCRs.

1. 1 Explicitation

A very rough and simplified background for explanation of explicitness as a

phenomenon could be based on two premises: first, the task of translation is to

communicate something, and second, the common tendency is rather to communicate

more than to omit something. The essence of translation universals is the notion of shift;

Toury (2004: 22) regards the idea of shift as the defining feature of translation in

2 Eskola also looks at interference in a new way; interference does not necessarilly bring about negativeconnotations; it is rather interpreted as an existence of some stimulus in SL which is observable in TL.

3 Chesterman (2004: 39) distinguishes so calle T-universals and S-universals. T-universals are about therelation of translation vs. comparable non-translated texts; S-universals, on the other hand, consideruniversal differences between the source text (ST) and its translation.

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general. Similarly explicitation represents a particular shift in meaning; Blum-Kulka

(1986: 20) narrowed her definition to cohesive explicitation only because it can be

easily found and analysed in text.

According to the most widespread definition, expliciting means makingexplicit

in the target text information that is implicit in the source text (Klaudy 1998: 80). Such

information may be derived from the context in the ST. Explicitation is formally

expressed as a shift in types of cohesion markers, the use of interjections, addition of

extra information, grater transparency, and it is often connected with the difference in

length (ibid.: 289).

The meaning of explicitation has been discussed by various scholars and has

been associated with other more or less similar concepts. Blum-Kulka (1986)

distinguishes two types of meaning that are contained in explicitation: addition and/or

specification. Klaudy and Kroly (2005) subsume generalization under implicitation

and specification under explicitaiton. Yet Kamenick (2007: 48) states contradictory

occurrences where more general meaning results in explicitation, e.g. the substitution of

Heathrow in the ST by letit v Londn in the TT. Another pair of concepts often

mentioned with respect to explicitation and implcitation is addition an omission; yet

they do not correspond fully.

The study of explicitation brings about several issues to be discussed. vers

(1998: 10) draws attention to the problem of distinguishing between the shifts that

merely explicitate and those that change meaning. Blum-Kulka (1986: 23) asks the

question to what extent is explicitation translation universal, a norm that cuts through

languages, and to what extent is it just a language pair specific phenomenon.

The type of explicitation that we are interested in while studying translation

universals is such that doesnt follow from the differences in linguistic systems of the

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languages involved. It is rather the result of the process of translation itself. It is called

translation-inherent explicitation, sometimes referred to as the explicitation proper.

Other types stated in Klaudys (1998: 8182) typology of explicitation include:

obligatory explicitation (caused by linguistic/systematic differences), optional (stylistic

preferences) and pragmatic (conveying cultural information). Hopkinson (2007),

similarly as Kamenick (2007 a), proposes an alternative typology based on Hallidayian

meta-functions of language: ideational, interpersonal and textual. Hopkinsons typology

is functional, taking into consideration the semantics of explicitation.

In 1986 an Israeli scholar Soshana Blum-Kulka published a study called Shiftsof

cohesion and coherence in translation where she explored the discourse level

explicitation connected with shifts of cohesion and coherence4. This study has been

considered to be the first systematic study of explicitation and the theory introduced

there has become known as the explicitation hypothesis:

The process of interpretation performed by the translator on the source text mightlead to a TL text which is more redundant than the SL text. This redundancy can beexpressed by a rise in the level of cohesive explicitness in the TL text. Thisargument may be stated as the explicite hypothesis, which postulates anobserved cohesive explicitness from SL to TL texts regardless of the increasetraceable to differences between the two linguistic and textual systems involved. Itfollows that explicitation is viewed here as inherent in the process of translation.(Blum-Kulka 1986: 19)

This definition of explicitation was closely connected with cohesion5

, she explicitly

speaks about cohesive explicitness the result of the interpretative work of translator

is a more cohesive text. It has been confirmed by studies on different language pairs

so its universal character has been proved.

4 The paper will be discussed in detail later in the section devoted to cohesion and coherence (p. 14).5

Similarly Laviosa (1996) mentions that explicitation is sometimes taken as over-representation of textcohesion.

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1. 2 Implicitation

Implicitation is in the Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies defined as

... the process of allowing the target language situation or context to define certaindetails which were explicit in the source language. (Laviosa-Braithwaite 1998:243)

Implicitation occurs for instance when a unit of more specific meaning in ST is replaced

by a unit of more general meaning in TT (Pym 2005).

Implicitation is the counterpart of explicitation, yet their mutual relationship is

asymmetric, which means that explicitation in one direction is not always

counterbalanced by implicitation in the opposite direction. Moreover explicitation can

be found in translation more often than implicitation (Pym 2005).

Nevertheless, the two phenomena are not to be separated. Moreover, looking

back at the paper by Hopkinson (2007) discussed here, it must be pointed out that it is

not the absolute amount of translation inherent explicitation which is the crucial figure

in his research, but rather the ratio of explicitation and implicitation6.

6 Discussed later, see p. 17.

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2 Cohesion and coherence

2. 1 Cohesion and coherence in general

The earliest studies concerning cohesion and coherence included those of Quirk,

Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik. Yet the most widely known book is probably

Hallidays Cohesion in English (1976). His conception of cohesion in English will be

briefly summarized at this place.

Cohesion is a part of the language system (the position of cohesion in language

system will be discussed later) and refers to non-structural text-forming 7 relations of

meaning (1976: 7). Halliday uses the term texture meaning the organization of text

which is made up by cohesiveties. A tie is a complex relational notion because it

includes not only the cohesive element itself but also that which is presupposed by it

(ibid.: 329). There are five types of cohesive ties which include reference, substitution,

ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion.

The concept of cohesion is a semantic one, yet it can be expressed partly through

the grammar, partly through the vocabulary (we speak about realizations of semantic

relations). The five classes are a mixture of criteria, thus we can distinguish

grammatical cohesion where the relation is expressed through grammatical means; this

group includes reference, substitution, and ellipsis. Lexical cohesion represents

logically the lexical type of cohesion; conjunction stands on the borderline. The most

important cohesive tie is, according to Hoey (1991), the lexical cohesion, so the study

of cohesion in text is to a considerable degree the study of patterns of lexis in text

(Hoey 1991: 10).

7Cohesion is a relation between elements in text (it is not concerned with sentence boundaries).

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The basic forms of cohesive relation are equals, identity of reference and

conjoining. Exploring the meaning of these, the five ties can be divided into another

three groupings which represent, in Hallidays (1976: 322323) words, the meaning of

cohesion in English texts: a) the continuity of lexical-grammatical meaning (represented

by lexical cohesion, substitution, and ellipsis), b) the continuity of referential meaning

(including reference), and c) the semantic connection with the preceding text

(represented by conjunction). The last one is contrary to the previous two meanings

non-phoric and can be further categorized into four subtypes: additive, adversative,

causal, and temporal meaning8.

Texture is made up by cohesive ties, yet it involves more then the presence of

semantic relations of the kind we refer to as cohesive; it also involves some degree of

coherence whereas coherence is made up by all semantic resources of the language (not

only the content of words but also various interpersonal components (Halliday and

Hasan 1976: 23).

The authors work with the terms cohesion and register as with two semantic

configurations of different kind (situational-semantic configuration): cohesion is about

how the text is constructed, register, on the other hand, implies what the text means. The

two aspects together define a text.

A text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in these two regards: it iscoherent with respect to the context of situation, and therefore consistent inregister; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive. (1976: 23)

Cohesive ties provide continuity and create the semantic unity of the text. The

place of cohesion in the linguistic system is therefore within the textual component

(next to the two remaining functional-semantic components of the linguistic system in

Hallidayian conception: ideational and interpersonal). The textual component is a text-

8 Notice that these are the same categories that Hopkinson (2007) implies in his categorization of typesof BCRs (see later).

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forming component and includes structural (concerning the information structure and

the theme-rheme determination) and non-structural components, where cohesion

belongs. Non-structural, because in structural systems every element has its place or

function in the total configuration, which is not the case of cohesion, as Halliday (1976)

explains:

Cohesion, on the other hand, is the potential for relating one element in the text toanother, wherever they are and without any implication that everything in the texthas some part in it. The information unit is a structural unit, although it cuts acrossthe hierarchy of structural units or constituents in the grammar ...; but there are nostructural units defined by the cohesive relation. (Halliday 1976: 27)

Cohesion is thus to be defined as a non-structural relation on a textual level. It must be

added, however, that cohesion is a relational concept; ...its not the presence of a

particular class of item that is cohesive, but the relation between one item and another.

(Halliday 1976: 12). Halliday introduced the term cohesive harmony for this

combination of ties. Hasan (1984) then places this concept in relation with coherence.

Coherence has evidently something to do with the extra-linguistic world. It is,

however, not a picture of reality; it is a representation of reality like other semantic

phenomena in language (Hasan 1984: 10). Hasan notes several starting points

concerning coherence: it is an essential property of texts, whereas it is a relative, not an

absolute property; normal speakers are sensitive to variations in coherence, and

coherence doesnt necessarily correlate with structure (ibid.: 184). Cohesive devices

(lexical-grammatical categories) are realizations of semantic bonds (coherence

relations). Her initial hypothesis was based on the assumption that the degree of

coherence depends on the cohesive harmony understood as the density of the

occurrences of cohesive ties; yet she finally came to the conclusion that it is rather the

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degree of interaction between cohesive chains9 that has the significant impact on the

level of coherence (Hasan 1984: 216).

In Schuberts conception (2008: 65) coherence is seen as a configuration of

concepts (configuration of knowledge activated from the mind) and relations (links

between the concepts which appear in the text).

Similarly as cohesion, coherence is also understood as a relational concept.

Sanders/Nordman (2000) define it explicitaly as relations that connect two segments

(2000: 38). These relations are conceptual, such as cause consequence, list, problem

solution, claim argument and may be made explicit by cohesive markers.

Coherence is very much about the interpretation of a text. A text is not coherent as

such but it is rather understood as coherent. Cohesion on the other hand is given in the

text (through grammatical and lexical items) and as such independent of individual

perceivers. Coherence is thus a relative property, only measurable in terms of readers

assessment (Hoey 1991: 11). Thus there are no absolute criteria. As indicated earlier,

this paper is about a redefinition of a certain classification of BCRs using more

subjective criteria. Thus it seems reasonable to pay significant attention to the subjective

view of the reader while working on the revised hypothesis.

Consider now the difference between cohesion and coherence as summarised by

Hoey (1991: 12): cohesion is an objective property of the text, whereas coherence is a

part of readers evaluation and therefore it is subjective. The linguistic markers

(cohesive ties) faciliate the encoding of coherence relations. Their mutual relationship is

than aptly expressed by Schubert (2008: 6364): cohesion is helpful for the reader while

establishing the coherence, nevertheless it is not necessary or obligatory. And at the

same time, cohesion doesnt automatically lead to coherence.

9 Cohesive harmony consists in the formation of the identity and the similarity cohesive chains, but notonly in it; another most important source of unity is the interaction between the chains (Hasan1984: 216).

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2. 2 Cohesion and coherence and translation

Understanding the concepts of cohesion and coherence are crucial for a

successful process of translation. Cohesive ties help to identify semantic relations in the

text and thus contribute to their interpretation. As Mona Baker notes, the main value of

cohesive markers seems to be that they can be used to facilitate and possibly control the

interpretation of underlying semantic relations (1992: 218). vers (1998) regards the

level of cohesion as essential in distinguishing various characteristics of translation:

It is the level of cohesion, combined with other aspects found to be typical in

translation, that may serve as a guide in the search for the distinguishingcharacteristics of translation. The third code apparently consists of a series offeatures present in individual translations to a greater or lesser extent. (vers1998: 18)

Coherence, Baker (1992) argues, is derived from the interaction of the information

contained in the text and readers knowledge and experience. The translator has to bear

in mind that the target reader does not have the same background knowledge as the

source reader. Coherence thus depends on the ability of the reader to make sense of it.

The question that Baker (1992) asks herself is this: is meaning property of text

(supporters of this opinion are e.g. Blum-Kulka or Sinclair) or of communicative

situation (Firth or Malmkjaer)? Baker (1992) inclines towards the latter opinion:

It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that, regardless of whether meaning is aproperty of text or situation, coherence is not a feature of text as such but of the

judgement made by the reader on the text. (Baker 1992: 222)

2. 2. 1 Blum-Kulkas theory

Blum-Kulka dealt with this issue in her paperShifts of Cohesion and Coherence

in Translation published in 1986. Her main statements will be now looked at more

thoroughly. Cohesion is in Blum-Kulkas words an overt relationship holding between

parts of the text, expressed by language specific markers (1986: 17); as it is expressed

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by linguistic means, it is objectively detectable. Coherence, on the other hand, is a

phenomenon of potentiality; Blum-Kulka defines it as a covert potential meaning

relationship among parts of a text, made overt by the reader or listener through

processes of interpretation (1986: 17) or as the realization of the texts meaning

potential (ibid.: 23). Theoretically it would be necessary to postulate an ideal reader or

to proceed empirically by compiling a questionnaire exploring how readers react to a

particular text.

As was stated above, the process of translating brings about shifts of various

types. Blum-Kulka examines the type of shift on the level of cohesion and coherence

proceeding in two directions: a) shifts in level of explicitness, b) shifts in text meaning.

She again emphasises that she is not interested in stylistic preferences or changes caused

by the differences in linguistic systems, bur rather in important changes inherent to the

process of translation (explicitation hypothesis). It is only the optional changes that are

relevant in studying shifts in translation, not obligatory changes given by the language

system. Put in other words, Blum-Kulka explores the potential of texts to change or lose

their meaning (potential) through translation.

Speaking about shifts of coherence, Blum-Kulka distinguishes two types of

focus: text-focusedorreader-focusedshifts of coherence (1986: 24). Text-focusedshifts

concentrate on the process of translation itself as a result of particular choices made by

a specific translator. This type of shifts is often linked to different linguistic systems.

Reader-focused shifts reflect the change of audience, cultural background or

knowledge; such shifts are conveying the message to new audience which is connected

with the issue of the so called shared reference. Pyms (2005) terms explicitation and

amplification cover approximately the same area.

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3 Hopkinsons typology of explicitation and implicitation

Hopkinson introduced what can be called a static/dynamic explicitation

hypothesis which is a functional, meaning-based typology of explicitness shifts

(Hopkinson 2007: 53). His motivation was to examine more subtle tendencies regarding

explicitness shifts and also to look at the explicitation hypothesis from another

perspective, taking into consideration especially the relation of explicitation and the

opposite process implicitation.

He draws on Hallidays three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and

textual.10 The ideational function covers a wide range of meaning types, referred to by

Hopkinson (2007: 53) as ideational meanings; he states as an example the influence

of explicitness shifts on the roles of participants. The effect of explicitation on the

textual function is expressed by strengthening of cohesive ties in text; the

interpersonal function shows the presence of the author within the text which may beintensified (explicitated) by intensifiers or various boosting devices (Hopkinson

2007: 54).

According to Hopkinsons findings the relative predominance of explicitation

over implicitation varies depending on the metafunction involved. The hypothesis was

formulated as follows:

10 Hallidays (1973, 1976) model of functions of language consists of three functional-semanticcomponents: ideational, interpersonal and textual. The ideational component is per s an expression ofcontent, the attribute of language that it is ABOUT something. It is further devided into experiential(context of culture) and logical(abstract logical relations) subcomponents. The speaker is here seen asan observer. The interpersonal component comprises the social, expressive and conative functions oflanguage. It is the expression of speakers angle; the speaker is regarded as an intruder. Finally, thetextual component is a text-forming component including two aspects: information structure(analyzing the text form the point of view of the so called given and new information) and cohesion.They are both related, however. When analysing the text from the point of view of informationstructure, then everything in the text has some status of the given-new framework. Cohesion,conversely, represents the potential of relating elements to each other without any implication that thateverything in the text has some part in it (Halliday and Hasan 1976: 27). This clearly defines the

position of cohesion in linguistic system: it is a textual non-structural component:It is the means whereby elements that are structurally unrelated to one another are linked together,through the dependence of one on the other for its interpretation. (ibid.: 27)

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Within the ideational and textual functions, it is hypothesized that there are notonly quantitative, but also qualitative differences between explicitation andimplicitation. ... explicitation does not merely outbalance implicitation by sheerweight of numbers. Instead, particular types of meaning attract relatively moreexplicitation more than others. (Hopkinson 2007: 5455)

On the basis of his data Hopkinson came to the conclusion that explicitation does not

always predominate over implicitation. The relative predominance of explicitation over

implicitation may be influenced by some semantic factors (ibid.: 58). He observed a

tendency of explicitation shifts to occur with higher frequency by dynamic relations that

leads to a greater coherence by dynamic relations and similar or lower coherence by

static relations.

Yet it has to be emphasized at this point that the indicator of an explicitation

shift was not the amount of explicitating in the text but rather the ratio between

explicitation and implicitation; the more dynamic the relationship, the greater the gap

between explicitation and implicitation. Kamenick (2007 b) introduced the term

plicitation quotiant for this ratio:

Dividing the number of occurrences of implicitation by the number of explicitationin a given segment of translation compared with the source text, we obtain a ratiowhose value is smaller than 1 for translations where occurrences of explicitationoutnumbered occurrences of implicitation and bigger than 1 for translations whereimplicitations outnumbered explicitations. (Kamenick 2007 b: 123)

The plicitation quotiant was applied in her research where she compared two translators

(Pidal a Nenadl) the quotiant remained approximately the same in all samples by

one translator but differed considerably in translations of two different translators

(Kamenick 2008). Hopkinson (2007), on the other hand, basically explores how the

plicitation quotiant differs with respect to the various types of explicitation (influenced

by various semantic factors).11

11 The plicitation quotiant is only applicable to a research done on a parallel corpus.

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In the centre of Hopkinsons attention were binary coherence relations (BCR).

The term binary seems to be rather redundant at first sight because in keeping with

what was said earlier cohesion and coherence are per se relational concepts; cohesive

or coherent links cannot be associated with elements occurring in isolation. Moreover,

in a general sense, the presence of two elements (at least) is contained already in the

word relation. Nevertheless, Hopkinsons specification of the word binary is probably

focusing more on the semantic part rather than on the formal, binary in his conception

associates with the assumption that many common coherence relations concern a link

between two elements: cause-consequence, problem-solution, contrast, comparison

(Hopkinson 2007: 55). Nevertheless the borderline between the coherence relations that

should be treated as binary, on one side, and those that shouldnt be treated as binary, on

the other side, remains very vague.

3. 1 The concepts of staticity and dynamism

Hopkinsons distinction of static and dynamic relations represents the most

questionable part of his hypothesis, probably because its basis is rather intuitive (being

derived naturally from the corpus data).

Hopkinson distinguishes two sub-types of both static and dynamic relations.

Static coherence relations are additive (expressing similarity) oradversative (expressing

contrast) relations, and their staticity is given by the objective arrangement of the two

elements involved next to each other in time; put in Hopkinsons words theyrepresent

the existence of two or more elements in stasis, alongside each other (Hopkinson

2007: 55). Dynamic coherence relations, by contrast, concern the notion of one thing

leading to another (ibid.: 55); so they include a certain progression in time.

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Dynamic relations are represented by causaland temporalrelations.

Hopkinsons notions of dynamicity and staticity are seen as a scaled property

rather than as a binary division of the semantic relations into two groups: static and

dynamic. There are differences in the level of dynamism even within each individual

group of dynamic relations. As a result, Hopkinson (2007) assigned a scale where the

position of individual relations is determined by their degree of semantic dynamism;

his suggested scale ranges from the most static to the most dynamic relation from

additive, to adversative, temporal and finally causal relations. This scale can be

questioned.

Kamenick (2008) applied the static/dynamic explicitation hypothesis exploring

BCR on the corpus of literary texts but the hypothesis was not confirmed fully. The

main contradiction concerned the disputable dynamicity of some temporal shifts,

especially in comparison with contrastive relations. In her corpora temporal relations

tended to be implicitated (contrary to Hopkinsons theory of dynamic relations being

explicitated), which corresponds with the assumption that too many temporal details

reduce the dynamism (Kamenick 2008: 56). The problem was, Kamenick (2008)

argues, that Hopkinsons distinction of static vs. dynamic relations was based on the

objective processuality and arrangement in time of the events and processes being

described rather than their perception by the human mind (2008: 57). The nature of

shifts in explicitness and implicitness is to make these objective events and processes

available for the subjective reader to perceive (ibid: 57). It therefore seems more

appropriate to base the distinction between dynamic and static on subjective

perceptions. A revised categorization of shifts in explicitness will be discussed in the

following chapters.

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3. 2 A proposal for a revised classification of BCR theoretical background

Bearing in mind the objections raised in the previous part, a revised concept of

staticity and dynamicity of binary coherence relations (BCRs) will be now proposed.

3. 2. 1 Dynamic approach

Translation theory has long been centered round the notion of equivalence,

which arose from the static approach to translation taking the source text as a starting

point. Later the approach to translation theory was revised by using the notion of

functional equivalence emphasizing the purpose in both SL and TL (Sager 1997: 25).

Nowadays, the major approach in translation studies has become the dynamic one12

whereas the dynamicity is closely associated with meaning.

What is specific about the study of meaning with respect to translation is,

according to Whyatt (2007: 330), the need for precision. In everyday conversation

language users hardly ever care for the precise specification of meaning, but translators

have to be able to choose the most appropriate item to express some concrete meaning

in a different language. Whyatt (2007) justifies the assumption that meaning is a

dynamic concept from the perspective of the translator. Firstly, the translators deal is to

transfer the meaning from one language to another, thus there is always a certain

movement present; and secondly, the nature of meaning itself is the object of transfer

(ibid.: 330). Similarly Sager (1997: 32) points out that the dynamic process in

translation does not involve only the change of code but also modifications in contents

or even change of purpose.

12 Compare papers by Sager (1997), Whyatt (2007), Groenendijk et al. (1996) and others.

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Groenendijk et al. in their paper on Coreference and Modality (1996) focus on

the interaction between indefinites, pronouns and epistemic modality. Yet they take it as

a theoretical challenge to show on this example that dynamic perspective suggests some

interesting new solutions to some of these problems.13

Groenendijk et al. (1996) identify the difference between a static and a dynamic

view on meaning: for the static view, meaning equals truth conditions (1996: 179), and

is described as the relationship between linguistics and the world. Whereas the dynamic

approach is based on the relationship between what the speaker does with an utterance

and its environment(1996: 180). Much more emphasis is then laid on the performative

aspect of the speech act. The concept of meaning introduced by Groenendijk and his

colleagues is such that involves change and is sometimes referred to as dynamic

semantics. It must be distinguished from other approaches because it places the

dynamics of interpretation in the semantics proper (1996: 180, emphasis is mine).

Dynamic semantics is than defined as follows:

The meaning of a sentence is the change that an utterance of it brings about, and themeanings of non-essential expressions consist in their contributions to this change.(ibid.: 181)

Such a definition is a very general one because it does not specify how the change is

brought about and what exactly gets changed.

Traditional dynamic approaches start from the assumption that the main function

of language is to convey information. Groenendijk et al. concretize then this definition

of dynamic approach by reformulating the word change by change in information

(1996: 181). The change in information depends on the empirical domain. To put it in

a simplified way; from the dynamic perspective, meaning is the information change

13

The objective of the discussed paper was to apply dynamic approach by means of logical language toexplore natural language meaning.

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potential, from the static perspective, meaning is the truth-conditional/information

content.

To apply the idea of information change it is necessary to specify what the

information is about. There are two kinds of information: the factual information

information about the world, and the discourse information anaphora etc.

Groenendijk et al. are more interested in discourse information which keeps track of

what has been talked about (1996: 184).

Anna Espunya is another scholar who used the principle of informativeness of

an utterance in the study of translation. In her paper about explicitation in translation

and linguistic explicitness (2007), she applied Kortmanns (1991) scale of informative-

ness for interclausal relationships. Kortmann found differences in the degree of

linguistic expliciteness by various relationships. According to his hypothesis the

differences depend on the level of informativeness; more informative are those relations

that require more knowledge in order to be identified by the reader as the semantic

relation holding between them, and such relationships tend to be explicitated more

often. Thus he found a correlation between informativeness and linguistic explicitness.

Espunyas objective was to find out whether the principle of informativeness plays

a role in translation explicitation as well. The higher the position on the scale the higher

the percentage of explicitation should be (the scale is stated below). Note that the first,

most general criterion for dividing relations into more informative and less informative

ones is based on the temporal aspect: relations that express temporal simultaneity are

less informative, those expressing succession (anteriority or posteriority) are regarded as

more informative.

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Table 1: Kortmanns scale of informativeness:

most informative concession

contrast

conditioninstrument purpose

cause result

time before time after

manner

exemplification/specification

same time (simultaneity/overlap)accompanying circumstance

least informative addition

Hendriks (2004) offers another classification of semantic relations. His study

was focused on the interaction between ellipsis processes and the establishment of

coherence relations in discourse. He uses three general classes of coherence relations:

a) cause effect relations (implication is identified between two propositions),

b) contiguity relations (sequence of events centred around one common theme), and

c) resemblance relations (commonalities and contrast). Let me comment on them in

more detail. The common determinator of a cause-effect relation is implication

a proposition is implied from a presupposition. A prototypical case of such a relation is

called result (1a), other forms of the cause effect relation are explanation (1b) and

denial of preventer (1c).

(1) a Bill was about to be impeached, and he called his lawyer.

b Bill called his lawyer, because he was about to be impeached.

c Bill didnt call his lawyer, even though he was about to be impeached.

The second relation contiguity expresses a sequence of events related to one

common theme, it is called narration. The basis of a narration relation is a forward

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movement in time.

(2) Ken Starr convened his grand jury this morning, and Vernon Jordan was called

to testify.

The third relation establishes coherence in a different way than the two foregoing14

; a

resemblance relation requires that commonalities and contrasts among parallel

entities and properties in the two clauses be recognized (ibid: 136). The common

relation in example 3a is the participation in a recreational activity. In 3b the relation

between two parallel entities (John and Mary, Clinton and him) is contrasted.

(3) a Bill likes to play golf, and Al enjoys surfing the net. (parallel)

b John supports Clinton, but Mary opposes him. (contrast)

3. 2. 2 Non-classical categories

The redefinition of Hopkinsons categories should be based on a more subjective

point of view. This approach subjectivity in readers perception of text is

represented and analysed in papers by Morris and Hirst (2004, 2005, Morris 2004).

They formulated the general research question what degree of subjectivity exists in

text understanding and specified it by concentrating on the degree of subjectivity in

readers perception of lexical cohesion.

They had two major areas of research: lexical cohesion and lexical semantic

relations; and they considered them in what they called two aspects of context: the text

and the reader (leaving apart other aspects of context such as cultural and environmental

background). Lexical cohesion is defined by Morris as the continuity of lexical

meaning created by different groups of related words that run through a text (Morris

2004: 2), so called lexical chains; lexical semantic relations are the individual relations

14 A resemblance to the semantics of constituents/syntactic nodes, whereas establishing cause-effect orcontiguity relation only goes to the clause-level.

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that exist between pairs of words, and are therefore involved in the creation of lexical

cohesion (Morris 2004: 1); the latter is more relevant for the present studies.

The aim of their research was to investigate the nature of a group of related

words and the way they are perceived by readers i.e. what readers perceive as a group

of related words, how do they perceive the membership of words in various word

groups, and how much agreement among readers is there. They believed that a closer

understanding of these aspects would help to improve the relations existing in current

lexical resources such as WordNet as well as contribute to the improvement of theories

and methods. This endeavour is reflected in their concentration on so called non-

classical categories which are traditionally ignored in lexical resources but which were

identified much more often by readers. Let us explain the difference between classical

semantic categories (synonymy, antonymy etc.) vs. non-classical (all the rest) ones in

more detail.

Classical relations are those that are usually used in available resources (such as

WordNet); they are characterized by a sharing of the same individual defining

properties between the words and the requirement that the words be of the same

syntactic class (Morris/Hirst 2004: 46) and include these traditional categories:

Category Example

taxonomy or hyponymy robin / bird

hypernymy tool / hammer

troponymy drink / guzzle

meronymy hand / finger

antonymy go / come

synonymy car / automobile

Non-classical relations are non-hierarchical relations with no standardclassification which are not reflected in theoretical resources yet used and readers

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identify members of these categories as related in the context of the text. Morris and

Hirst use the term for relations that do notdepend on shared properties (2004: 47) and

do not have to be of the same grammatical class. The main types of non-classical

relations are the following ones (taken from Morris/Hirst 2004: 48):

Category Example

relations between members of the category ball, field, umpire / cricket

that are part of the structured activity

case relations: - general dog / bark

- sentence-specific stroke / it (In the sentence:

They stroke it.) related terms identified in the thesauri of library and information science (LIS)

In their research, Morris/Hirst (2004, 2005) were only interested in such

relations that can be found and identified within text and wanted to prepare the ground

for a future research focusing on how text-specific the word groups and relations are.

Their conclusion was the following: readers did not experience any problems to identify

the words in the text that are related, the data showed that readers do identify

a common core of groups of related words in the text. It seemed to be much harder,

however, to determine the specific type of the relation (Morris/Hirst 2004: 50), but still

the majority of identified relations were non-classical ones.

Sandra Halverson is another scholar who also emphasizes the importance of

reconsideration of current semantic categories with respect to the corpora studies

(1998). As she explains, classical categories can be define in terms of necessary and

sufficient conditions (1998: 13), all members of the category fulfil the stated conditions

and have therefore the same status, they are equal. This delimitation has been

questioned first by psychologists and philosophers who introduced the concept of

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family resemblance15. The most controversial idea was that all members of a

particular category have to share a set of common features; rather it has been suggested

that certain members of a category may share some characteristics, while others share

different ones (ibid.: 13).

The idea that subjectivity plays a crucial role in the interpretation of text has

been justified, among others, by Whyatt as well: Meaning is not objectively available

but has to be inferred or interpreted (2007: 330). Naturally, additional factors come

into play, such as context, different types of texts, and the individuality of readers.

Keeping with this argumentation a new categorization of BCRs will be suggested,

a categorization that will reflect the subjectivity of readers perception and apply it on

texts of a particular type, namely non-literary translated and original texts.

3. 3 Subjective perception of static and dynamic relations

Until now, some theoretical approaches that were considered useful or relevant

to the present topic were introduced. Let me summarize at this point what has been said

so far. The dynamicity and staticity is not a straightforward issue and can be viewed and

interpreted from different points of view. As a result, what is seen as dynamic by

someone does not have to be considered dynamic by someone else who applies different

criteria. The objective of this paper is thus to set own criteria of the classification of

BCRs with respect to their dynamicity and staticity. Especially two issues in

Hopkinsons categorization will be questioned: the location of contrast in the scale and

the nature of temporal relations.

Hopkinson counts additive and adversative relations to static ones. He is not the

only one. Similarly Hendriks (2004) puts these two types of relation next to each other15 Wiitgensteins argument

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under one heading: resemblance relations (see chapter 3.2.1). Hand in hand with

Morriss emphasis on the subjectivity of readers interpretation, it must be mentioned

that the status of additive/commonalities relations versus adversative/contrast ones is

not the same; contrast is subjectively quite dynamic, at least much more dynamic than

the mentioned additive relation. This is reflected already in Hopkinsons hypothesis (he

regarded contrast as a less static relation); I suggest, however, moving contrast even to

the dynamic scale.

Let me come back to conceptual relations discussed by Sanders/Nordman

(2000). In their study, two crucial aspects are investigated: first, whether the processing

of information (texts) depends on the type of coherence relation, and second, how the

linguistic marking of relations influences the processing (2000: 39). They came to the

conclusion that a text segment is processed faster when it is connected by a problem

solution structure (causal relation), as opposed to a list relation (addition) that is usually

considered a very weak connection (ibid.: 51). Following Sanders/Nordmans

distinction of conceptual relations, the present typology of BCR could be based on the

relative intensity of a particular type of connection. The intensity of connection is in

my view supported by the level of informativeness discussed earlier: semantic

relations that require more knowledge in order to be identified by the reader are more

informative, and such a connection is regarded as more intensive, more dynamic.16

With reference to Morris again I have to ask if it is possible and desirable to

state a limited number of categories (Hopkinson works with only four categories).

Morris nad Hirsts research showed that readers usually identify more categories / types

of relations than the classical ones. Hopkinsons categorization thus seems to be too

generalizing, especially as far as the temporal relations are concerned. Temporal

16 The terms static / dynamic may not fit any more as the existence of two elements alongside or the shiftfrom one thing leading to another (as Hopkinson defined them) is not the decisive aspect any longer. Inspite of this I decided to stick to Hopkinsons terminology to retain the association with his hypothesis.

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relations are of various types. Temporal relations expressing just flow of time or

coexistence at the same time are quite static, similarly too many temporal details have

rather a static effect (as suggested earlier by Kamenick, see p. 18) but change in time is

more dynamic. Change seems to be the key concept too; meanings with more change

potential are considered more dynamic; compare Groenendijk (see pp. 2021).

In order to be able to derive some statistical information and conclusions in

general, it was necessary to narrow down the number of categories or relations to be

examined, thus a certain degree of generalization was necessary. I took Hopkinsons

categories as a basis and modified them especially with respect to the degree of

dynamicity or staticity. It was the case of temporal relations which were split into two

separate groups. Further, problem-solution or cause-effect relations could be

distinguished as Sanders and Nordman (2000) did but both of them are covered

under one heading in the present analysis: causal relations. The analysis of the corpus

data showed that two more types of BCRs could be taken into consideration: the

concessive relation, included in Espunays (2007) typology as well, and a special kind

of relation, that I refer to as an explanation. The order of individual types of BCR is

only preliminary and rather intuitive at this point. Again, I have to recall the importance

of a subjective perception mentioned earlier, and say that determining the arrangement

of BCRs in the scale is based on subjective evaluation of staticity / dynamicity of the

particular relation. Moreover, it was not my primary goal to find the exact arrangement

of relations according to their subjective informative intensity / dynamicity staticity.

During the analysis I will primarily monitor the distribution of explicitness and

implicitness among the two basic categories: static relations, on one side, and

dynamic relations, on the other one.

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3. 3. 1 A revised classification of BCRs

The working categorization suggested in this paper on the basis of theoretical

research includes the categories stated below:

Table 2 An overview of proposed types of BCRs

Binary Coherence RelationsStatic Dynamic

additive relations contrasttemporal settings temporal change

causal

Static binary coherence relations (BCR) are for the purpose of this research

such relations where the connection between two entities is subjectively perceived by

the reader as weaker. They generally tend to describe a situation rather than shifting it

forward.

Additive relation the two elements involved in the relation display some common

property or properties or similarity. An example of an explicitated additive relation is

below (the explicitated phrase is in bold). The common property for the two involved

entities (the facts and the increase of oil prices) is the fact they were both an incentive

for many governments to reconsider the use of nuclear power again.

(4) ST: That, and the recent spike in oil and gas prices , has prompted many

governments to look again at nuclear power. (E4)

TT: Tato fakta spolu s nedvnm nrstem cen ropy a plynu pobdla aduvld, aby o jadern energetice znovu zaaly pemlet. (R4)

TT*: These facts together with the recent increase of oil and gas prices

In example 5, the common property of both utterances is having a partnership with an

island country even if it is not explicitely said in English. It is, however, a part of the

background knowledge that Tokyo is the capital of Japan, which is also an island

country. This connection is in English implied by using the word also. In Czech no

cohesive means is used and the connection is implicitated.

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(5) ST: Other islands that Better Place has signed deals with include

Denmark,

Hawaii and Australia. The firm also has a partnership with Tokyos

largest taxi operator, Nihon Kotsu, to provide swappable batteries for a

new fleet of electric taxis which will take to the streets of the Japanese

capital. (E13)

TT: Mezi dal ostrovy, s nimi Better Place ji uzavela dohodu, pat

Dnsko, Havaj a Austrlie. Spolenost uzavela partnerstv s nejvt

tokijskou taxislubou Nihon Kocu, v jeho rmci dod vmnn baterie

pro nov vozov park elektrickch taxk, kter se vydaj brzdit ulice

Tokia. (R13)

TT*: The firm closed a partnership with the Tokyos largest taxi operator

Temporal setting is used in description of two temporal situations that take place

simultaneously, or when some accompanying circumstance is described, as it is the

case in example 6:

(6) ST: Indeed, no sooner did our meeting finish, and with the world

commemorating International Human Rights Day, the Syrian regime

launched a massive campaign of arrests and intimidation directed

against some of the countrys most prominent dissidents. (PS_EN28)

TT: Ba sotvae nae schzka skonila a zatmco si svt pipomnal

mezinrodn den lidskch prv, syrsk reim zahjil rozshlou zatkac

a zastraovac kampa namenou proti nkterm z nejvznanjch

disident v zemi. (PS_CS28)

TT*: and meanwhile the world was commemorating International Human

Rights day

Explicitaiton of this type of relation covers instances where the time of the story

the temporal setting is highlighted. Compare also exapmle 7:

(7) ST: The example Dr Bower and Dr Christensen used was a nerdy one:

computer hard-drives. But unbeknown to them a more familiar one was

in the making. (E13)

TT: Doktoi Bower a Christensen demonstrovali svou tezi na pomrn

specializovanm pkladu pevnch disk. Pitom v t dob se u rodil

jin, mnohem pstupnj irokmu publiku. (R13)

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TT*: But at that time another one was already in the making

Dynamic binary coherence relations are such relations where the connection is

subjectively perceived by the reader as stronger. They include an informational change,

adversative meaning or temporal progression.

Contrast two elements or two situations are set in opposition in order to emphasize

the adversative meaning. Contrast may take the form of parallelism as in example (8),

where the approaches of two groups of congressmen are compared and contrasted:(8) ST: Some congressmen want it spent on the industries and households

hardest hit by the rises in fuel and power prices that cap-and-trade will

inevitably bring. Others want it spent on research into and subsidies for

cleaner forms of energy. (E1)

TT: Nkte z kongresman je chtj pout pro firmy a domcnosti nejvce

zasaen nrstem cen paliv a energi, kter nov systm nepochybn

pinese. Dal je zase chtj investovat do vzkumu a podpory istch

forem energie.(R1)

TT*: Some of the congresmen want to use them for Others, again/on the

other hand, want them invest into

Temporal change describes temporal situations that express anteriority or

posteriority; subsequently the progress in time or the contrast between before now

after is emphasized. In example (9) the anteriority of the existence of the dynastic

succession practice is explicitated in Czech.

(9) ST: As products of revolutionary military takeovers, these secular

nationalist regimes failed to produce genuine popular legitimacy and

have had to fall back on the dynastic succession practiced by the

regimes they toppled. (PS_EN29)

TT: Coby produkty revolunch vojenskch pevrat si tyto sekulrn

nacionalistick reimy nedokzaly vypstovat skutenou veobecnou

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legitimitu a musely se obrtit k dynastickmu nslednictv,

uplatovanmu dve reimy, je svrhly. (PS_CS29)

TT*: ... applied earlier by the regimes, that they toppled.

Causalrelation concerns relations expressing result or effect of some action. The

two elements involved represent cause and consequence or problem and solution, the

connection between them is subjectively perceived as a very strong one. In example

(10), the TT version explicitates the consequence of the decision to deliver gold

physically:

(10) ST: Pictet, the wealth-management group, decided some time ago to take

physical delivery of gold (rather than get exposure via the derivatives

market), and has had to find extra space in its vaults. (E5)

TT: Sprvcovsk spolenost Pictet se ped asem rozhodla zlato fyzicky

dovet (namsto aby ho nakoupila pes trh s derivty) a musela kvli

tomu rozit sv sejfy.(R5)

TT*: and because of that had to extend its vaults.

The analysis will thus consisted of two steps which both require a thorough

understanding: first, to identify the shift, and second, to determine the type of the BCR

that is shifted. Identifying the shift may present a problem in two aspects: determining

if the meaning is explicitated at all, and distinguishing translation-inherent explicitation

/ implicitation (given by the process of translation itself) from an optional shift (given

by stylistic preferences). It can be, however, easily solved by following the common

rule: if there is a stylisticly plausible alternative in the TT, than it is translation-inherent

E/I.

The second step determining the correct type of binary coherence relation

finally proved to be more disputable. The process of identifying the type of BCR

should follow the definitions of individual categories stated above. Yet sometimes there

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were more semantic aspects involved in the phrase and it was very hard to decide

which is dominant. Consider the following examples.

In example (11), the timing of the investments in renewables is explicitated in

the TT lexically by adding the phrase i za situace; this may be interpreted as an

explicitation of the temporal aspect (when the utilities ar obliged to invest in

renewables), but it might also evoke the idea of something happening againstgeneral

expectation, which would than be interpreted rather as a concession (a kind of

contrast):

(11) ST: At worst, it will oblige utilities to invest in renewables when there arecheaper low-carbon alternatives available, and so add to the cost of

cutting emissions. (E1)

TT: Pinejhorm pak energetick spolenosti budou investovat do

obnovitelnch zdroj i za situace, kdy maj k dispozici levnj

nzkouhlkov alternativy, m by se nklady na omezovn emis jet

zvily. (R1)

TT*: to invest in renewables also in the situation, when there are cheaper

low-carbon alternatives available.

Temporal change in the sense of posteriority is very clause in meaning to that

type of causality that stresses the effect of an action. The Czech word nakonec in the

example below may be thus interpreted temporaly (something happens after something

else), but also as a special type of causality (something happens as a result of

something else).

(12) ST: The hesitation of Colombias business community to confront

Chvez may prove to have been the last remaining hurdle for Uribe, the

United States, and a handful of Latin American democracies to clear

before they could face up to Chvez. (PS_EN14)

TT: Mon se nakonec uke, e vhn kolumbijsk podnikatelsk

komunity konfrontovat Chveze bylo posledn zbvajc pekkou,

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kterou museli Uribe, Spojen stty a hrstka latinskoamerickch

demokraci pekonat, aby se mohli Chvezovi postavit. (PS_CS14)

TT*: It may prove in the end

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Analysis

4 Corpus-based approach

4.1 Types of corpora

First some notes about corpora in general will be summarized in order to clarify

the terms that will be used throughout this paper. A corpus proved to be a useful tool in

translation investigation that can help to illustrate differences between the source text

and translation or eventually between translated and non-translated (original) texts. Paul

Baker (2006) provides a basic definition of a corpus according to which corpus refers to

a body of electronically encoded texts (Baker, P. 2006: 25). It does not mean,

however, that corpus may consist of any random texts. Unlike databases or archives

which are created with the motivation to simply collect texts a corpus is usuallydesigned for a particular function, with a particular objective in mind.

There are several types of corpora classified on the basis of different criteria,

such as the number of languages involved, direction of translation or types of text to be

included. For the matter of clarity, the types of corpora distinguished with respect to

different criteria are listed in the table on the following page.

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For Mona Baker (1995), type A applies to a parallel corpus (as indicated in the

brackets) and type B to a comparable corpus including non-translation texts in the TL.

An important type of corpus is a specialized corpus, which is used to study a particular

type of text or in Bakers conception (Baker, P. 2006: 25) a particular variety of

language. McEnery and Xiao (2007: 134) further mention a reference corpus which

consists of large amount of data (wide range of texts) and is representative of a

particular language variety. Reference corpus could be labelled as a special type of the

comparable corpus.

The corpora designed for the purpose of the current paper could be described as

a) a parallel corpus: bilingual (English Czech), unidirectional (from English to

Czech), specialised (newspaper articles), and

b) a comparable corpus: monolingual (Czech), unidirectional (from English to Czech),

specialised (newspaper articles) designed with both translations and original texts in

Czech.

The traditional problem of the work with a corpus is the fact that there is not

always an appropriate corpus available. Within this context Baker, P. (2006: 24) raised

an interesting point the issue of familiarizing yourself with the corpus. The best way

to do so is to build own corpus and carry out a pilot study first to find out what texts are

to be included and how easily can they be obtained or converted into an electronic

format. This process may also help to make the first hypotheses, as certain patterns are

noted during the processing of texts.

Corpora therefore tend towards a more balanced, carefully thought-out collectionof texts that are representative of a language variety or genre. (Baker, P., 2006: 25)

An important feature of corpora of all types is their representativeness

(Halverson 1998) or sampleness (Baker, P. 2006). A corpus always represents a sample

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of all existing texts and can never be exhaustive. In Bakers view, the degree of

representativeness depends on the consistence of selected texts (given by the criteria for

selection) and the volume of the corpus17. Halverson (1998), by contrast, focuses on the

definition of the target population in other words: what the corpus is intended to

represent as the most important aspect rather than the size of the corpus. Defining the

target population than consists of two steps: specifying the boundaries and descri-bing

the internal structure (1998: 7). Delimiting of boundaries is usually problematic in

relation to inclusion/exclusion of non-professional translations, yet Halverson, similarly

as Toury,suggests a criterion which is based on the identification of a particular text as

translation in the target culture; such a text represents legitimate data for the corpus.

Another criterion mentioned in this debate is the inclusion of translations produced only

by native speakers of the TL.

The object of study that we want the corpora to represent is called by Halverson

(1998: 12) category. She promotes so called prototype categorization working with

non-classical categories as opposed to classical ones (as was explained earlier, see

page 2426) because they seem to be much more suitable for constructing a corpus; the

boundary is not fixed, all members are not equal, definitions are relative and allow for a

narrower generalization.

It is a well-known fact that working with a corpus is always a two-fold process

consisting of the phase of corpus building and of the phase of corpus analysis. The

former phase is a process of decision-making about the texts to be included. The usual

parameters are domain, medium and time of creation and should be applied with respect

to the intended goal.

17 Baker, P. (2006: 28) suggests corpora of about million words for studying grammatical phenomena,whereas discourse phenomena can be studied on a corpus with much smaller amount of data.

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...all discussion of corpus text selection and classification, the types of analysisadopted, and the significance of the findings must be grounded in an explicitdescription of what the enquiry takes to be its object. (Halverson 1998: 2)

The latter part is usually associated with quantitative and statistic methods, but it alsoincludes apart from collecting data (the objective part) the interpretation of the data

collected (the subjective, but no less important process).

4.2 Material and method

The intended goal was to explore Hopkinsons reworked hypothesis on a

different, yet comparable corpus. My corpus is comparable with Hopkinsons one in

size (approximately 50,000 words) and it differs in the direction of translation

(Hopkinson: from Czech to English, I from English to Czech), and more importantly

in the type of texts used (essays vs. newspaper articles). These parameters determine the

target population of the corpus. It was desired to create a corpus that would consist of

non-fictional English texts and their Czech translations. This was achieved after an

Internet research of both international and Czech media. Some Czech periodicals

publish translated articles from international periodicals, thus it was a logical choice to

use them, as they are usually provided in an electronic format on the Web as well,

which simplifies the technical part of work significantly. Moreover, magazine articles

give the possibility to work with up-to-date texts which is probably not primarily

required nevertheless, it makes both the source texts and the translations comparable

in terms of the time of publishing.

The corpus is an ad hoc corpus it was created for the purpose of the present

paper it is not supposed to serve as a general translation corpus. This is also reflected

in the size and multiplicity of the sources which are with respect to the extent of the

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paper limited. Yet I tried to get a certain degree of diversity by using texts from two

different sources of a similar type of periodical. The sources included English articles

from The Economistpublished in Czech translation in the Czech weekly magazine

Respekt, and Project Syndicate where the commentaries are provided both in original

English and in translations into various languages, including Czech.

At this place, I would like to comment briefly on the issue of authorship. The

authors of the articles and commentaries vary (as it is standard practice in a newspaper),

similarly most of the articles are usually translated by different persons in each

magazine. The translators in Respektare H. Koutn, P. Horkov, V. Jani, Z. astn,

L. Mikolajkov, J. Krodkov, H. Brta and L. Dostlov. The commentaries in Project

Syndicate were translated by J. Kobla and D. Dadu. The weekly magazine The

Economistdoes not even indicate the name of the author to express the idea that the

articles are composed as a collective work. Nevertheless, the issue of authorship is not

so important for the objective of this paper, because it explores a general phenomenon

in translation. The identity of the translator was not taken as a relevant criterion for the

analysis, and more importantly, for the interpretation of the analysis.18

The basic word statistics analysis was carried out with the assistance of the

WordsmithTools software (Scott 1999). Such an analysis enables a general comparison

of the analysed texts (in terms of size, type/token ratio and other parameters). The

instances of BCRs were then looked up manually in the running text. The general

information provided by the Wordlist tool include the following parameters: file size (in

bytes, i.e. characters), tokens (running words), types (distinct words), type/token ratio

(TTR) measures the vocabulary variation within a text, standardised type/token ration

(STTR), mean word length (in characters), and mean sentence length (in words).

Table 4 General statistics18 The authors and translators if known are listed in the bibliography overview.

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GENERAL

INFORMATION

ST TT

The Economist Project

Syndicate (EN)

Respekt Project

Syndicate (CS)File size (bytes) 172 208 179 343 181 479 175 747

Tokens 28 535 28 758 26 357 25 157Types 5 430 5 239 9 102 8 957TTR 19.03 18.22 34.53 35.60STTR 47.12 47.14 62.78 65.70Word length 4.80 5.00 5.62 5.71Sentence length 20.05 22.72 17.92 19.72

THE SIZE OF

CORPUSST TT

Tokens 57,293 51,514

The word statistics were presented to provide a general idea of the corpus which

consists of approximately 57,000 words. It also illustrates that the ratio between the two

different sources: The Economistand Project Syndicate is comparable. Other features

(such as an average sentence length and TTR) are general style markers. The source text

(ST) and target text (TT) differ obviously in terms of type/token ration (TTR). The TTR

is the ratio of distinct words to the overall number of words in a text. It serves as

a signal of the diversity of vocabulary the higher is the ratio, the wider is the range of

vocabulary that he author uses. This proportion, however, doesnt apply always and

completely. The TTR varies in accordance with the length of the text which is being

studied (Scott 1999). For a more informative result it is advisable to use the so called

standardised type/token ratio (STTR) which is calculated for every n (by default

n = 1 000) running words as the wordlist goes through the text and than a running

average is computed which means that you get an average type/token ratio based on

consecutive 1,000-word chunks of text (Scott 1999). In our corpus, both the TTR and

the STTR were significantly higher for the target texts.

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The methodology involves the study of corpus data of pairs of English ST and

Czech translations, which were extracted manually from English-written magazine and

newspaper articles and their translations. The text was searched for occurrences of

binary coherence relations. The corpus processing consisted then in analyzing the

database of occurrences of BCRs that were implicitated or explicitated, and classifying

them in terms of the type of relation. The first step included the identification of a BCR,

the second step included assigning an interpretation to the BCR, and the last step

consisted in the classification of the translation strategy as a shift (explicitation or

implicitation) or non-shift.

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5 Discussion of corpus findings

An exploration of explicitness and implicitness of binary coherence relations

yielded the following results. Explicitation outnumbered implicitation, and explicitation

shifts were much more frequent by dynamic coherence relations. Thus, in rough outline,

the hypothesis seems to be confirmed. Nevertheless, not all partial results, regarding

individual types of BCRs, were so convincing. They will be discussed more thoroughly

in the following chapters.

5. 1 Parallel corpus

Explicitaiton is usually more frequent than implicitaiton this presumption

stood at the beginning of the hypothesis that Hopkinson formulated. He took into

account the general presumption that there are not only quantitative, but also

qualitative differences between explicitation and implicitation (2007: 54). Then he

elaborated this presumption and formulated his observation that particular types of

meaning (dynamic) attract explicitation more than other types of meaning (static).

Coming back to the quantitative part of the argument it can be concluded that his

hypothesis was confirmed in this respect. The distribution of explicitated and

implicitated phrases in the analysed text varied importantly: 85 % to 15 %, respectively

(see table 5).

Table 5 Occurrences of explicitated and implicitated BCRs in the analysed text

Implicitation Explicitation All

occurrencesTotal number 24 136 160

Percentage 15 85 100

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The other part of Hopkinsons argument says that dynamic relations tend to be

explicitated more often. The relations that were suggested as dynamic in the theoretical

part proved to be explicitated or implicitated more frequently than the static ones (with

the ratio of shifts affecting static relations to shifts affecting dynamic relations of 1:2).

Table 6 The distribution of the shifts between static and dynamic relations I

Static Dynamic All occurrencesNo. 52 108 162% 32.5 67.5 100

It is also worth noticing that this ratio remains approximately the same even

when explicitation and implicitation were considered separately (compare table 7 and

figure 1); it is roughly 1:2 for explicitation and 2:3 for implicitation.

Table 7 The distribution of the shifts between static and dynamic relations II

Static Dynamic

Explicitation

(139)

No. 43 96% (100 % = 139) 31.6 68.4

Implicitation

(23)

No. 9 15% (100 % = 23) 37.5 62.5

0

20

40

60

80

100

All Implicitation Explicitation

Figure 1 Ratio of static and dynamic relations (%)

Dynamic

Static

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The frequency of explicitation and implicitation shifts is shown in the following

table. Table 8 shows the number of shifted pairs of BCRs for each individual type of

relation that was defined in the theoretical part; it also distinguishes explicitated and

implicitated instances.

Table 8 The frequency of E/I shifts in absolute numbers

Static Dynamic

additive temp. setting contrast temp. change causalexplicitation 34 9 45 19 29implicitation 5 4 12 2 1

05

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

additive temp.

set

Tesi Su Esplicitazione

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