Appunti del corso di Lingua Inglese del Prof. C. Zanca, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Appunti del corso di Lingua Inglese del Prof. C. Zanca e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! 01.03.21 Metalanguage: the language used to talk about language In translation we have two definitions: ® Source text: the language in which the original text was written ® Target text: the language in which the text is translated Analyze a source text: understanding: . Linguistic features: words, phrases, grammar . Structural elements: how the text is composed in a structure . Semantic features are related to the meaning of the word used in the text . Pragmatic features . Intertextual: how a text relates to previous texts of the same topic or kind and also to the readers . Cultural elements. Sociolinguistic approach: language isn't isolated from context. from how and why people use language. We need to identify: . Recipients (destinatari) of the text, the audience . Different actors (called participants). In this case the text is intended as a cultural event that includes different participants, not only writer and readers, but also the possible audience and other participants in the text that have a role in the text. The participants are not only human beings but they are also organisations, institutions, places.. Reverso context is technically a corpus but the results are often not reliable! Studing a text means to know: . Lexis (words we use) + terminology are specialised words, they might be the same words that only have one meaning in a particular context, so a term is specific, monosemic. . Phraseology, connected words are phrases. . Textual features . Semantics and semantic fields: so we have to analyze the meanings created by the texts but also those created by the semantic fields (a way to create the structure and the cohesion of the text). We have different kind of meanings: o Denotative is the meaning that you find in dictionary o Connotative: the meaning that is attached by society, by people who use language. If you call a person ‘a rat” you are referring not to the denotative meaning but to the connotative one; and it is nota positive connotation in society. o Reference to the real world o Not literal meaning such as metaphor. Connotation are less coded than metaphor that are expression with particular meaning that often aren't related to the connotative meaning. . Text type, above all in a journalistic text that created different text types (political article, sport article, editorials, reports etc). Important is to identify the features of text type and to identify the same features in the target culture. Different texts create different expectations from the audience. This expectation might take also the form of how we write the text, like legal text, online chats, academic essays, newspaper articles. . Discourse type and features. The different expectations are linked to the kind of discourse which is created when a kind of text is published and used in order to interact with participants that have expectations about this linguistic event should be carried on ecc.. we need to do also some pragmatic considerations, the kind of effects we create by using some words, positions ecc.. on participants. How we want to modify the effect of the text. . Cultural elements: they might be different, like the behaviour that is expected in a particular text. Example: Journalistic text, with journalistic features (information for audience this article is 1 year old, some images, some red words. They are red because they are links, so this is an example of intertextuality). Another journalistic text that deals with a different cultural fields (italian). We have a metalinguistic message for the reader: an italian word, but with inverted commas/quotation marks that indicate that the word used isn't from the culture of the writer. For an article that deals with other cultures information aren't taken for granted, so they are added. In a translation also the numbers have to be translated (the thousand with the comma in English, but in Italian with the dot or the numbers are written with characters). . Participants: Boss (what it is accepted in English it wouldn't be accepted in Italian, like boss that in italian has a strong connotation), NHS (National Health System, Servizio Sanitario Nazionale SSN), chief executive (a very specific role in an organisation) , MP (is an acronym ‘member of parlament' translated simply parlamentare), public accounts commitee (has a particular role, we need to study and find out in google what it does and also find a fee in italian, Commissione bilancio), Downing street (it is a metonymy often the participants are written by the capital letter), the service (another way to refer to NHS), Simon Stevens (we need to search him and study him for what he does), May (before woman in italian we use the article), NHS trusts, doctors, hospitals, the government, prime minister, European countries, NHS trusts (Aziende sanitarie territoriali) . Is putting into: linguistic structure in which is important the choice of the verb. It is very typical of journalistic texts in English: when you use the progressive form you mean something that is being done but it is also intentionally being done. It is a decision of the government. This is linked to text type. . Defiant performance: is an example of collocation. Defiant is the word that is frequently found with performance to express this meaning. It has to be translated with a single unit of translation . “stretching it” in this case the use of quotation marks indicates a quotation: those aren't my words; another use is the idiomatic expression. In both cases they are used to distance the writer or the producer of the message from the content (contenuto). It means: to tell or to explain something such a way that while technically false, present an exagerating version of the truth. La May stava forzando/deformando la realtà. . Claim: is an expression used in this kind of context (like report) ha detto, sostiene. . Black alert: is an idiomatic expression. . Trusts: is an example of terminology. It is from economics, like surge. Summarizing the rolling translation stages: . Pre traslation examination/evaluation: preliminary decisions about the translation process . First draft version/modification o Analysis - lexicogrammar, terminology o Linguistic modifications . Deeper analysis (modifications, sematic and stylistic and cultural elements . Analysis of the target test version: avoid translationese consider discourse 8.03.21 Taylor gives us the concepts of linguistics, an introduction of the study of language. Theoretical background: . Linguistics and translation: syntagmatic/paradigmatic structuralism; parsing clause structure, meaningful components (syntagmatic level) marked language; theme e rheme. . Translating meaning in context, the idea that meaning should always be considered in a context. Choices at a more paradigmatic level. . Language varieties: text types and genre Translation (Article by Aston) Translation involves interpreting a source text (ST) and then generate a target text (TT) in another language which strategically directs its intended audience to an interpretation of it- generally one which in certain respects matches the interpretation given to the source text. In the article by Zanettin ‘text’ is replaced by discourse. Translation in not simply saying the same thing in another language. Translation is a process that require a first stage of interpretation of a text. Then the objective is to create a text in another language (target language). This text is linked to the original one because the audience of this new text should interpret in the same way or in similar way of interpretation of the original text. Definition of translation and translator's tasks by Zanettin Translation involves interpreting a discourse in the language of the source text and then reinterpreting it by creating another discourse in the language of the target text. There is a discourse when we include in a linguistic event the participants, so when the text is intended together with people involved in the interpretation of the text. How the text can be interpreted by people. The text is considered as used in an interaction by participants for a purpose. Definition of text: No smoking is a text because we don't need other words in order to understand it (create a generic discourse). It's complete and coherent, it makes sense. This text can be presented in different ways like: No smoking please. It is still an order but in this way his impact is reduced and the readers are adressed. Also, sometime we don't need to complete the sentence because we trust our reader to understand our message, even if the message isn't full. Texts: function and metafunction (goes beyond the function). Every message is both about something and adressing someone (this creates a relationship between people partecipating in a discourse). One of the metafunctions is that text need to be understood also in his structure, in the way it's organised (the construction and organisation of a text are part of the meaning and function of the text). We could define a text as the record of some speaker's or speakers’ discourse, uttered or written in some context and for some purpose. A corpus could be defined like a compiled collection of texts, either spoken or written, or both. The texts are put together following some criteria. A corpus consists of the records of authentic discourse, of actual uses of a language in their social contexts (Gordon Tucker) Hoey gives another definition of a text focusing on the fact that the interaction has a purpose: the visible evidence of a reasonably self-contained puposeful interaction between one or more writers and one or more readers in which the writer(s) control(s) the interaction and produce(s) most of the language. A real texts have these features: 1) are produced in a context; 2) for a purpose; 3) have appropriacy for the context and the purpose; 4) make sense in the context; 5) have cohesion and coherence; 6) are complete. So there are different types of text used for different purposes. So they create different discourses in our experience. These discourses involve our partecipation as performers or addressees. The experience of different type of discourse creates our communicative competence that is not a generic competence about language: we also come to have expectations associated with the use of language in a vast range of context. The whole book of Christopher Taylor is about descriptions of context. The first is a traditional one, a linguistic/syntactic context. Than we have meaning in the context and also pragmatic and cultural elements. Our interpretations of any linguistic form depends on the kind of discourse that the linguistic form creates and our previous experience of that kind of context, discourse and use of language in that kind of context. How we can define the context in a more detailed way, in five different level: graphic features: the general presentation and organisation of the written language, defined in terms of such factors as distinctive typography, page design, spacing, use of illustrations and colour (ex the variety of newspaper English with headlines, colums, captions) ortographical or graphological features: the writing system of an individual language, distinctive use of the alphabet, capital letters, spelling, punctuation, and ways of expressing emphasis (italics, bold, underlining) lexical features: the choice of language is important. The vocabulary of a language defined in terms of the set of words and idioms given distinctive use within a variety; for example, legal English employs such expression as heretofore, alleged as Latin expressions such as ex post facto grammatical features: the many possibilities of syntax and morphology defined in terms of such factors as the distinctive use of sentece structure word order, and word inflections; for example, religious English makes use of an unusual vocative construction (O God who knows) and second person singular set of pronouns (thou, thee, thine). Textual features: defined in terms of such factors as coherence, relevance, paragraph structure, and the logical progression of ideas; for ex., a journal paper within scientic English typically consists of a fixed sequence of sections including the abstract, the introduction, methodology, results, discussion and conclusion. The interpersonal or textual metafunction aspects are more important than the surface meaning, because they can reveal a mindset or a pattern, prejudices, preferences and many other aspects of language and its use. There are various methodologies used to investigate texts both qualitative (close reading) and quantitative (reading other texts of the same type E] corpus assisted discourse studies). 9.03.21 Text interpretation We need to analyze the text as a whole: source, section in which it is, date of publication, author, previous news stories/current events that might the reader don't know. Also we have to consider text type features: position of author's name, date, verb tense, images, headline and subheads, ENPs (extended noun phrases), information structure etc. Other things: intended recipient/reader, intended effect on reader (informative, persuasive, commenting..); semantic fields (areas of meanings), cohesive devices, lexical features, terminology, acronyms, register (formal/informal, personal/impersonal), style and stylistic effects (irony, rhetorical questioms, reported speech, cultural elements.. Linguistic anbalysis of comparable texts: . Compare the uses of individual expressions . Map the structures and strategies employed by the two language communities for ‘building discourse’ in differente linguitic and socio-cultural settings Basics of Language Structure Choice of words De Saussure (1857-1913) divided the language in two level: . Syntagmatic or horizonal level is when we analyze language in term of the combination of items that are possible because of grammatical or syntactical rules. It is studied by the conventional linguistics, dictionaries. . Paradigmatic or vertical level where the elements who find at the horizontal level can be substituted by different possibilities. The linguistic uses these levels to analyze sentences (our frase, but phrase is a part of a sentence, clause is a part of a sentece where you have an element like object, subject, verb). Structuralism Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) introduced the notion of Immediate Constituent Analysis, a methodology that enabled grammarians to split sentences, clauses and clause constituents into their meaningful components (parsing, at syntagmatic level). Es: like a clause: The meeting/broke up/at midnight, Noun phrase/verb phrase/temporal adverb phrase Like phrases: determiner+noun/verb+particle/prepositiontnoun We can go deeper in this analysis by considering the components of single word (morphemes), es: quick-ly (adj.+adverbial). It is important because fot the translation you have to find the unit of translation. Translators don't need to parse as deeply as morphemes but they need to identify autonomous units of language which can be easily translated. At the paradigmatic level: substitution. We have to consider the different choices among predetermined patterns, lexical bundles, co-selection. 16.03.21 Choices, units of meaning and the translator Task of the translator: compare the uses of individual expressions. These expressions can be single lexical items but often are units of meaning which are to be considered as single translation units. It is useful to detect choices and patterns in ST and to recreate them, as far as possible, in TT. Translation strategies Malone (The Science of Linguistics in the Arte of Translation), he studies synchronic linguistics, that means linguistics dedicated to the same period of time and not across developing languages. When we have to deal with structural and lexical differences between two languages which views language functionally and structurally, can be of paramount importance. Malone provides a list of nine strategies the translator can apply in translating at the lexicogrammatical and structural level. The first strategies is ‘equation’, a sort of automatic one-to-one equivalence in the other language that include: . loan words or when you use the word of another language in your language, prestiti linguistici. Problems with cultural context, at phonetic level, because sometimes they can create different expectation on the reader. . calque or when we use word from another language adapting it to the target language. Problems for language Purists (crossare) N.B: Be careful of cognates or partial cognates: direttore in a business, it's administrator and not director. The equation is used only if there is no semantic, pragmatic, culturally-motivated or stylistic reason for translating it in any other way. There is a link in our subconscious idea of language between the use of some languages and some features of a product or of that culture. English is the language spoken internationally. There is the idea of loans that loan not only the use of words but also the idea we have of that culture and gives that idea in the language. Units of translation and the search of their equivalents must lie at the heart of any theoretical or practical discussion about translation. We have different type of equivalence: . Cognitive equivalence: equivalence of information content. . Pragmatic equivalence: whatever contextual changes need to be made its significance is the same for the target community as for the source community. . Linguistic equivalence: the maintenance of forma t various levels, those of text type and of structure at textual, sentence, phrase and word level. Second strategy: The substitution If there is no automatic equation, substitution is necessary. Example: The Italian di replaces the English Saxon Genitive (grammar level). This strategy has to be used also with proverbs and idiomatic expressions. Sometimes the substitution works at the cultural level. Another strategy is divergence that indicates the relation is one-to many. The translator is expected to choose a suitable term from a more or less extended range of alternatives. Divergence can occur also with grammatical constructions. The opposite of divergence is convergence that indicates the relation is many-to-one. The translator is expected to use a term to translate an extended range of alternatives (tu/egli/voi/lei converge in you). Amplification: some elements are added to the source text to allow for greater comprehensibility, sometimes of a collocation gap or the need of a cultural context. The opposite of this is the reduction when you take away some elements: reduction. Diffusion: the source text item is expanded but no extra information is added, say the same thing with more words. The opposite, the source item is the condensation (example with the phrasal verbs or in noun strings. The latter is used especially in scientific language, but also in journalistic, because it is a way of condensing elements in few elements. Reordering, inversion procedures. You have to reorder your translation in a way that is acceptable in the target language. This strategy is reciprocal in nature and refers to comparative syntax. From basic inversion procedures (adjective-noun; object-verb). When you have collocations (words that are good together because they sound natural in that choice), the pairing can be maintained perfectly (vita e morte=life and death), only in part (il diavolo e l'acqua santa=the devil and the deep blue sea), or match but in an inverted form (bianco e nero=black and white). Sometimes the reordering is because you put emphasys on one part. The frequent use of the passive voice in English is the cause for reordering in translation. 19.03.21 The use of extended noun phrases in English The extended noun phrases (that included only names) are constructions used at the level of the phrase where in italian it is said sintagmi nominali. It is a way to concentrate information. Noun phrases can only have one word and in this case they aren't extended (Maria, she, he ecc.). Noun phrases have more than a word and can be subject or objects in sentences (an illness, an ald, rather obstinate woman). Example: Government Environment Department Air Pollution Report Findings Scandal, this composed of two ENP (one modifies the other), Aids rape death fear. ENP have been called empty lexis in headlines, we have many examples in headlines particularly in tabloid. Grammar features for pre-modified extended noun phrases Vacuous (empty) phrases are common. The most important word is the head noun: ‘what the clause is about’. The head noun often became the subject of the normal phrase. The other words modificate the sense of the head noun (modifiers) so the modification starts from the Head Noun. The modifier on the left modifies the element on its right. Sometimes we have also adjective used like modifiers, but sometimes adjectives don't follow the last rule of the left side but can modify directly the head (central adjectives modify the head directly). Collocations remain and also hyphenated words, acronyms and similar compounds. In an ENP, the last word is the head. The logical connection between the elements is something we have to add to our interpretation and it's why it is called empty lexis. The central adjectives are adjective of particular kind: gradability (a really great team), comparative and superlative forms (greater greatest), and the ability to occur attributively (a great team) and predicatively (our team is great). Normally sasson genitive is out from ENP. * * * This is an example to search the ENP in a corpora: _nn* _nn* _nn* _nn* _nn* scandal* 22.03.21 Cohesion The topic of cohesion . .. has always appeared to me the most useful constituent of discourse analysis or text linguistics applicable to translation. (Newmark 1991:69.) Analisys of cohesive devices is one of the ways to study our text. Another concept of major importance in the analysis of text organization and of great relevance to translation largely attributable to Halliday and Hasan 1975 (theme/rheme ecc..) is that of cohesion. Cohesion is created in a number of ways within a text and indeed refers only to the links that exist within the discourse within the cotext (the other words that compose the text); that is created by the words themselves. The extra linguistic semantic links that tie a text together and which are of course crucial in the understanding of discourse, are referred to by a corresponding term, coherence-> cohesion inside the text and coherence outside the text. There are two basic ways to create cohesion and different cohesive devices: . Grammatical cohesion created by conjunctions or it can be referencial (a subject referred to other pronouns). In the last case pronouns are called pro-form, used instead of nouns, and can refer back to a previously-mentioned entity constitute '"anaphoric reference', but where the reference is to an entity further ahead in the discourse, it is termed 'cataphoric reference’ . Lexical cohesion: cohesion created by lexical words. o Omission/substitution/ellipsis of part of text. An example of substitution for nouns is one/ones; for verb is do, for clause is so, not, modality (perhaps, maybe). The substitution has to be made in the translation. The ellipsis is called also substitution by zero (ex: Are you tired? Yes, l am). o Repetition of something said before o Creation of lexical chains of same semantic field or same sound. The lexical chains are created also by words that have some semantic relations like synonyms or near synonym, antonymy (opposite words), hyponymy (parts of elements belonging to a whole categories: the tiger is an endangered animal (a superordinate term -animal- (hypernim) is associated with a subordinate hyponym), meronymy (part/whole relation), metonymy (London=England). The proouns that are required in English (used also for cataphoric or anaphoric reference) can be omitted in Italian translation. Using pronouns in Italian is often marked, so if in English the pronoun is not marked, in the translation hasn't been used the pronoun. Ex: He knows that-: lo sa not (?) *lui sa, but | know that you know that she is lying So che sai che mente* lo so che tu sai che lei mente (no ambiguity). Lexis and Terminology: choices The writer / language user / translator has choices that have been analysed in the meaning on the page through: Componential analysis which consists in breaking a word down into its semantic components (eg man = male + human + adult). The whole meaning of the word is given by the different components that can be identified in a word (according to Fowler 1977). CA is a valid instrument of measurement for the semantic features of words. Lexical translation can take its cue from this concept of the components of the words. According to Newmark: we have to break down the word in its components and some of these must be analyse before translating the text and adapt to the particular context which the translation is required. Newmark shows this process for the word bowdy (sconcio): . Essential (functional components) terrible... e My mother and creep Lucas met me at Sheffield. My mother looked dead thin and has started dressing in clothes that are too young for her. Lucas creep was wearing jeans! His belly was hanging over his belt. | pretended to sleep until we got to Scotland e Lucas mauled my mother about whilst he was driving. Stick Insect and Maxwell House are nickname, the first is referred to physical features of this person, the second is a coffee brand very famous in Britain. Dead cheerful: normally considered opposite but here are put together. It is an oxymoron. Creep: before used like a modifier adjective then in Lucas creep. Scotland/Skegness: in this there something implied, it's strange that the father doesn't mind so why the Father should consider this strange? Skegness was a very popular seaside resort among teenagers. Lucas creep was wearing jeans!: maybe he was considered to be too old for wearing jeans. At the time of the publication of the book jeans are used by young people (also time is important to interpretate a text: ex the jeans now are used by everybody, but in the past no). The protagonist pretends to sleep: he doesn't want to talk with the adults. Mauled: stuzzicare in a nice way that is disgusting for a teenagers. Chapter 2 Translating meaning in context Sematics. The basic concepts include: . reference, the way language relates to the world it describes. This is considered in terms of referent and referring expression; . semantic units, an attempt is made to isolate translatable units chunks of meaning; . equivalance Context: when we use language we create scenarios and frames in which language is used. the visualising of context as a mental picture consisting of the sets of features that make up the situation has been proposed in various forms by several scholars. This section begins by examining a number of these ideas. Another way in which this scenario is called is the context of situation, a bit more analytic to describe these features. the context of situation with its components field tenor and mode is examined from the Hallidayan perspective as an introduction to a contextual model devised by Julian house. The context includes the difference between denotation (denotative meaning) and connotation (connotative meaning): the semantic distinction between denotative and connotative language is explained and particular reference is made to the modern phenomenon of politically correct language use. Semantic lexical fields: the question of the association of words from a semantic point of view is examined through a broad interpretation of the idea of lexical cohesion and semantic fields in discourse. Pragmatics: The cooperative principle by Grice that controls the way conversation develops and the associated implicatures are discussed as a key to understanding how successful communication works. Then there is a part dedicated to the knowledge of the world: For translators a general knowledge of the world surrounding them needs to be supplemented by an understanding of the universe of discourse and the context of culture. This enables meaning to be interpreted in relation to the personal set of beliefs held by the speaker/ writer and the cultural believes and mores of both the source and target culture. Speech acts: with particular reference to the scholars Austin and Searle the idea of ‘speaker meaning’ and the interpersonal element in communication is examined through an explanation of locutionary and illocutionary (speech) acts perlocutionary effect and felicity conditions. Culture Semantics is the study of meaning. It links language to the cognitive world. A meaning we need to create in another language. It's possible for a good translator to convey meaning from one language into any other language. Sometimes we need lexicogrammatical adaptation to have the same meaning (I'm cold E ho freddo e non sono freddo). The semantics have not just a meaning dimension but also an interpersonal/sociological dimension. A language ...is a system for making meanings: a semantic system with other systems for encoding the meanings it produces. The term semantics doesn't simply refer to the meaning of words. It is the entire system of meanings of a language, expressed by grammar as well as vocabulary. Halliday said that meaning in a text is realized by words connected through lexicogrammatical rules. The text is a semantic unit: meanings are realised through wording. Importance of . sign (word/part of word) - corresponding object in real world (reference) . lexicogrammatical choices and rules . sociocultural implications (implicature) textual/discourse expectations Importance of the concept of Reference, that is the study of word. We can divide the words in two types: function words (like pronouns and conjunctions) and content words. The latter refer to abstract or concrete things and have a referential meaning that is the meaning that refers to an object or a notion outside the language or that refers to an entity in the external world. Referential meaning is extra-linguistic. Referential meanings must be understood in connection with the cultures. The same word may have different referential meanings in different cultures. He has to divide the text in semantic units or chunks. The meaning of an individual unit may alter as it shifts from being an isolated word to being part of group. Patterns (part of the text that are repeated)/chunks (part of the text that we consider useful for translation) of meaning may mean something which is more than the sum of its parts. The idea is that words and sentences cannot be translated in isolation. Translations must comprehend also at a higher level than the grammatically indicated chunks: co-text, patterns, discourse, cultural elements. Equivalence (strategy of equation): Translations must comprehend a higher level than the grammatically indicated chunks: co-text, cultural elements (so with cultural equivalence). Translations might be seen as the art of matching referring expressions and functional items in 2 different languages. “To convey meaning through the written word (or spoken). They must decide on the meaning of the source text and relay, through words and syntax, that same meaning in the target text” p 68 But you should also consider the meaning created in context. Context: according to the Oxford English Dictionary, context is defined by the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement or idea; in linguistic terms, it is also the parts that immediately precede and follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning. He can interpret the context in terms of how we imagine the situation in the real world and it's called scaffolding, scenarios, frames, situation. Context in Discourse - Scaffolding Human beings are able, when processing language. to activate ‘contexts’ in order to sieve through a filter what they hear or read. With computer-like speed they handle the meaning of the text starting from an analysis of the situation and adopting a top-down processing mode, and not simply from deciphering the sequence of clauses and sentences (bottom-up processing). The top-down processing allows the context of discourse to create the necessary ‘scaffolding’ to generate the right expectations for understanding the content of discourse. Context - Mental Context - Scenario It is the representation of the stereotypical components of a definable situation, a sort of mental picture in which the participants in a situation find themselves. The language activated within the scenario will draw on words, expressions and permutations which have been said, heard, read or written in similar circumstances. NB. Since the translation act requires the re-enactment of a scenario at a later time (but at the same time in the case of simultaneous interpreting), it is necessary for the translator to cross the threshold of the original writer's mental picture. -> so, a language appears within a scenario, a stage in which we use language, and this stage chooses somehow the words, expressions etc that were heard, read, said, written, in similar circumstances. Context - Frames Minsky talked about 'frames' that contain our knowledge of a given phenomenon: “A frame is a data- structure for representing a stereotyped situation, like being in a certain kind of living room, or going to a child's birthday party. Attached to each frame are several kinds of information. Some of this information is about how to use the frame. Some is about what one can expect to happen next. Some is about what to do if these expectations are not confirmed.” Other scholars spoke of ‘mental models’ (Johnson-Laird, 1980), ‘schemata’ (van Dijk) and ‘situation model” (Kintsch). Lexical Priming (Hoey) also shares some features. In simple terms they all state that these cognitive representations of events, acts, persons, support and integrate the comprehender's existing world knowledge and the information derived from the text. When we analyse context we can define some features of the context (described by Hymes in 1972): . participants (speaker and audience, authors etc.) . message form . message content . setting where it is placed . medium of communication (written, spoken and other media) . intent of communication . effect of communication . the key (tone) . the genre, the kind of text type we referred to . the norms of interaction Firth described the context components (relevant for our translation) in shorter way, talking about: . the participants (roles and status) . the verbal and non-verbal action of participants . the relevant objects and events . the effects of the verbal action. Definition of the context by Halliday Halliday defined it like context of situation because the context isn't just the meaning but also a social semiotic sense. According to Michael Halliday linguistics is a branch of sociology, a social semiotic which of texture and a level of predictability that facilitate comprehension. Clearly, translators have to be attuned to the range of vocabulary at their disposal in order to navigate within the semantic field in question. In the limited cases of specific textual discourses (recipes, weather forecasts, air-traffic controllers, etc.), the range will be restricted and circumscribed in both source and target language and therefore more easily accessible (but semantic fields may differ slightly). The less specific and more general the wording, the more scope there is for lexical choice and semantic wandering. It is easier to find an equivalent in the one-to-one lexical transfer of a technical term (alloplastic adjustment/adattamento alloplastico) than is the case with a vaguer, many-to-many potential transfer (eg. Equipment / equipaggiamentto, attrezzatura, strumenti, arnesi, apparecchi, dispositivi). In these circumstances the linguistic categories of ‘scenarios’, ‘frames’ etc. and the idea of ‘context of situation’can help the translator to choose the ‘correct’ candidate. Semantic prosody Semantic prosody describes the way in which certain seemingly neutral words can come to carry positive or negative associations through frequently occurring with particular collocations. Sometimes the choice of word depends not by the meaning or the connotation, but by the use in positive, negative or other valuation of situation. So, there are words that are only used in positive or negative situation, for example: ‘provocare’, is always negative. Connotation vs Semantic Prosody Difficult distinction We could say that connotation is conscious and determined by culture / external situations. Word /expression vs Lexical ‘company’ /colour: Semantic prosody is determined by the co-text and regards ‘apparently neutral’ words. Lexical Priming - not only positive / negative evaluation “[a]s a word is acquired through encounters with it in speech and writing, it becomes cumulatively loaded with the contexts and co-texts in which it is encountered, and our knowledge of it includes the fact that it cooccurs with certain other words in certain kinds of context” (Hoey 2005: 8) Corpora The use of corpora and corpus technology for translation purposes has been on the agenda of teachers in applied translation studies since the mid1990s'. Corpora are very much linked to software and computers. They are useful for professional translators because translators also work with databases of translation, in order to find examples of the same kind of term, linguistic problem etc.., and use it in new translation. Introducing corpora and concordances in the classroom has been highly encouraged in order to raise student awareness of language differences, provide student with authentic linguistic material and enhance their translations by providing accurate and idiomatic words and phrases unlikely to be found in more traditional resources. The use of TM (translation memory) systems has become fully integrated in translator training programmes as TM systems are now considered a pre-requisite by Language Service Providers. Our definition of linguistic corpus: compilation of homogeneously encoded computer readable texts for linguistic purposes. Being homogeneous means choice of texts / representativeness, accuracy; source L1, L2, ESP, News, Politics, Literature ecc..; objectives (reference or specialized corpora). So, it means that the texts are selected because of some criteria. Encoded means that these corpora must have some tags. some kind of encoding/annotation in order to be used by a computer. Not all corpora are encoded, but all of them have annotation. We extract information from the corpus by the software. This corpora are collected because of purposes: Linguistic Analysis (Description, Discourse Analysis, Text Analysis, Literature studies) e Reference (Translation, Lawyers, News) e Language teaching / Learning (Aston - ‘form focussed pedagogy'),Data driven learning (Johns). 30.03.21 The corpus is inductive, it doesn't give definition written by linguistics like in dictionary. With the corpora we see example of the use and from these examples we must decide ourselves about what are the features of the use of language. Importance of checking intuitions against data. It can focus on non-obvious meanings, revealing features of language that we didn't know about. We can have different definitions of corpora that focus on different aspects of corpora. In linguistics, corpus (plural corpora) is a large and structured set of texts (now usually electronically stored and processed). A corpus may contain single texts in single language (monolingual corpus) or text data in multiple languages (multilingual corpus). Multilingual corpora that have been specially formatted for side-by-side comparison are called aligned parallel corpora. (Webster's Online Dictionary) A corpus is a collection of naturally-occurring language text, chosen to characterize a state or variety of a language. (Sinclair, Corpus, Concordance, Collocation, 1991:171). A corpus can be defined as a collection of texts assumed to be representative of a given language put together so that it can be used for linguistic analysis. Usually, the assumption is that the language stored in a corpus is naturally-occurring, that it is gathered according to explicit design criteria, with a specific purpose in mind, and with a claim to represent larger chunks of language selected according to a specific typology. [...] in general there is consensus that a corpus deals with natural, authentic language. (Tognini- Bonelli, Corpus linguistics at work, 2001:2). A corpus is a collection of texts, designed for some purpose, usually teaching or research. [...] A corpus is not something that a speaker does or knows, but something constructed by a researcher. It is a record of performance, usually of many different users, and designed to be studied, so that we can make inferences about typical language use. Because it provides methods of observing patterns of a type which have long been sensed by literary critics, but which have not been identified empirically, the computerassisted study of large corpora can perhaps suggest a way out of the paradoxes of dualism. (Stubbs, Words and Phrases, 2002:239- 40). In the corpora we have a vertical perspective, we don't read the entire text and we have concordances (example of use focusing in a particular word or structure), frequency lists (of empty word, nouns, adjectives, group of words) and collocations (words that co-occur with other words). Find the collocations gives us also the frames and the scenarios in which the word can be located. The study of corpus is systematic and quantitative as well as qualitative perspective. But the corpus used is something we have to consider for the results, that not always can be reliable. We have different types of corpora: spoken or written, and in the latter there is the difference between monolingual and bi-/multi-lingual. If we have a monolingual corpus it could be for general purposes (Language for General Purposes, called reference corpora) or Language for Special Purposes (LSP, like medical, economic, legal corpora). When the corpora are bi-multilingual they can be comparable, when there are similar texts in different languages, or parallel when there are translations (translations L1 to L2; bidirectional L1 to L2 and L2 to L1; free translation of many language). The written corpora might be synchronic (different varieties of English at the same time) or diachronic (different example of the same type of English but in different time, modern or medieval English ecc). The corpora can contain plain text or annotated (tagged) texts (this is what we have to use if we search single words or unit of meanings). Sometimes we have native speaker corpora and learner corpora (of student, useful to highlight the most frequent student error). Some corpora: The British National Corpus (BNC) e The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) e Mark Davies and his BYU Corpora e Sketch Engine e The Repubblica Corpus e Sketch Engine Latin SE e Sketch Engine French or English Literature. -> a practical explanation of how the last one works, it's in the fourth recording, minute 41st. 06.04.21 In order to work as a mediator or translator for different audience and in different contexts you need to have a life experience, not only a study preparation (Lanna Castellano). The article “Swimming in words”: ‘In this paper I discuss the basic operations necessary to create and use small comparable corpora outlining an experiment conducted with undergraduates to produce an English translation of an Italian newspaper article, and suggest ways in which the procedures involved may contribute to language learning”. Translation involves interpreting a discourse in the language of the source text and then reinterpreting it by creating another discourse in the language of the target text. This process can be done also by students using different tools like corpora. The new discourse has to sound right in the tt. But do we really know how we translate or what we translate? According to Firth sounding right: translators know they cross over (to language) but do not know by what sort of bridge. They often re-cross by a different bridge to check up again. Sometimes they fall over the parapet into limbo; according to Fawcett: translation quality assessment proceeds according to the lordly, but completely unexplained, whimsy of ‘It doesn't sound right’. Evaluating translation is always controversial and uncertain but our aim is the endeavour of sounding right at least for the text under examination. Translation can be a means to help learners develop reading and writing skills, as well as increasing their cross-cultural and cross-linguistic awareness. Corpora allow for language exploration and foster the language learning processes involved in finding appropriate translation candidates in a corpus. Corpora can be used not only to compare the uses of individual expressions, but to map the structures and strategies employed by the two language communities for “building discourse” in different linguistic and socio-cultural settings. He uses a comparable corpus: collection of texts of two or more language, they could be bi or multi-lingual corpora, the texts are not translations (in that case you would have parallel corpora) but they are similar in object and topic. In this case we can do a contrastive analysis of individual expressions of language but also it provides learners a mapping of the structures and strategies employed by the two language communities for building a discourse in different linguistic and socio-cultural setting. The basic of translating is always finding not the same meaning but a suitable equivalent in the language you are translating into, learners have to strive to find the most appropriate words for the new audience. This is not simply a matter of terminological accuracy, but involves comparing codes that are at higher level, like cultural codes and rhetorical structures. So, basically we have to try to build a discourse in another socio-cultural setting. This is summed up in interpreting discourse and reinterpreting discourse in the target language. The translation for the Italian ‘in vasca’ in English is ‘swimming’ and not ‘in pool”. Corpora used for the experiment were collected from CD-ROMSs of newspapers: The Daily Telegraph and The Independent in order to create the English corpus and Il sole-24 for the Italian one. 2) idiom principle “a language user has available to him or her a large number of semipreconstructed phrases that constitute single choices, even though they might appear to be analysable into segments” (1987:320). Hoey: ‘lexical priming' importance of individual previous experiences and encounters in a socio-cultural dimension in determining these single choices. We can use also online resources, not only corpora, such as: Encyclopaedic information (background culture): Wikipedia, News, Specific web pages, Specific texts..; Search engines: Google (advanced search) Google images, news, Ngrams, sets, books; Online lexico- grammatical reference and tools: Online Grammars, Dictionaries, Thesauri, Glossaries, text analysis software; Web 2.0: forums. Blogs, social networks, etc; Corpora: Online Corpora, Web as a corpus. Lexical priming (verb) + pieces together; Pattern: (verb) + (noun_plural) + together -> words that tend to occur together in recurring expressions. How do we find out the verb(s) used? We use a corpus online. So using Corpus of Contemporary American English, it is put (main solution), gluing, write. When we talk about phraseology and the way words are put together we might find help in an article by M. Hoey, published in MED Magazine (a blog that doesn't exist now). This article refers also to De Saussure Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic axes, Chomsky generative grammar that realizes in different ways in different languages, Sinclair Open choice and Idiom principles, the idea that we have to deal with Chunks, Bundles, Scenarios, Context of situation, Phraseology Corpora and Corpus linguistics methodology exploration Sounding right, Text and discourse ... etc The theory of lexical priming draws on cognitive psychology and builds upon the work of John Sinclair. It is a lexically-driven theory of language that “would seem to offer a dynamic mechanism for change, worthy at least of exploration”. The idea of priming comes from cognitive psychology and it is a technique that allows one to study the manner by which we create connections between words and how we create a mental lexicon in our brain. The basic experiment in studying priming consists in giving subjects (ai soggetti) two strings of letters asking them to decide as rapidly as possible whether each word is a word or non-word. Eg: nurse plame, bread butter, bread nurse The important isn't the ability of recognise the non-word, but the time that you need in order to recognise it. If the two words are related the recognition time is significantly shorter than if they are unrelated. The interpretation of this result is that the reading of the first word preactivates the reader's attention. facilitating the processing of the related word. This preactivation is known as “priming”. If you are an advanced learner of English, you have a great deal to be proud of. The fact that you are reading this article proves that you have already developed considerable skills in reading English. And yet the chances are that you sometimes feel that you struggle to sound fluent and natural in English (especially when you write or translate important text into a foreign language). Fluency has nothing to do with intelligence. Native speakers of all types of intelligence are fluent speakers and of course sound effortlessly natural. In the traditional view of English we have a distinction between grammar and vocabulary: we produce sentences by putting words from the vocabulary into appropriate grammatical structures. Hoey said that this view of English accounts well for creativity in language, but it does not account well for fluency (that is different from grammar and vocabulary)... BUT, Native speakers would be less fluent than non-native speakers because they would have more words in their list to choose from! So they would hesitate in the choice. Likewise, there would be no reason why a sentence you produced should be any less natural than one produced by a native speaker, as long as it was grammatical. The explanation for the native speaker's characteristic fluency and naturalness lies in the fact that we do not construct sentences out of single and separate words. Words work together in predictable combinations. This refers to idiom principle, chunks, bundles, scenarios, context of situation, phraseology. Hoey made some example, like with the word crazy: be crazy, go crazy, to do something crazy, drive somebody crazy, crazi about something. Other examples are with hard: it occurs after a range of verbs in phrases such as: worked hard, tried hard, fought hard, die hard, found it hard, prayed hard, raining hard, squeezed hard; or before verbs in phrases such as: hard to believe, hard to understand, hard to imagine, hard to explain, hard to follow, hard to hear, hard to remember, hard to bear; with a range of nouns in noun phrases such as: hard luck, hard line, hard facts, hard evidence, hard lives, hard water, hard labour, hard winter, hard currency. They work together in predictable combinations in ST, but we have to pay attention in TT. Each combination uses hard in a slightly different way and knowledge of the word hard includes knowledge of all these possibilities and very many more. Yet any native speaker of English, whether intelligent or not, will have immediate and automatic access to every one of these combinations. The existence of combinations like these is proof that the traditional view of language as separate grammar and vocabulary has to be modified. A new view of language: Lexical priming This view of language assumes that language users store the words they know in the context in which they were heard or read. > According to this view, every time speakers encounter a word or phrase, they store it along with all the words that accompanied it and with a note of the kind of context it was found in - spoken / written, colloquial / formal, friendly / hostile, and so on. They also notice where the person who has used the word comes from and whether he or she was being humorous or serious. They notice, too, whether the word or phrase is typically used in particular kinds of text, in academic writing, for example, rather than novels, advertisements or newspaper writing. They even notice whether it is associated with the beginnings or ends of sentences or with paragraph boundaries. Bit by bit, they begin to build up a collection of examples of the word or phrase in its contexts, and subconsciously (it isn't a conscious process) start to notice that these contexts have some pattern to them. More specifically, whenever a native speaker encounters a word, he or she makes a mental note, quite subconsciously, of: . The words it occurs with . the grammatical patterns it occurs in . the meanings with which it is associated. They also make a subconscious note of: BIwhether it is used to be polite (or rude) Biwhat kind of style it tends to occur in BIwhether it occurs more often in speech or writing BIwhether the speaker is someone younger or older. "> This process of subconsciously noticing information is referred to as lexical priming (the tendency. not a rule, of recognise words in particular context or accompanied by other words). Noticing all these things is what makes it possible for a speaker to use the right phrase in the right context at the right time. Without realizing what we are doing, we all reproduce in our own speech and writing the language we have heard or read before, in a semi-automatically way. Lexical priming is the process whereby “[a]s a word is acquired through encounters with it in speech and writing, it becomes cumulatively loaded with the contexts and co-texts in which it is encountered, and our knowledge of it includes the fact that it co-occurs with certain other words in certain kinds of context”. The encounters between words are indicated in word sketch. The connections depend on the context. Subconscious process: ‘Non-obvious’ meanings. Much of what carries meaning in texts is not open to direct observation: ‘you cannot understand the world just by looking at it' (Stubbs (after Gellner 1959) 1996: 92) We use language ‘semi-automatically’. Even authors are unaware of all the meanings their texts convey. CORPUS TECHNIQUES for CRITICAL analysis of ‘SHORT’ TEXTS. Stubbs (1996 analyses the letters of Lord Baden-Powell (founder of boy scouts). to the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. He analyses the collocation of happy/happiness distinguishing between the letter to boys scouts and the one to girls scouts: in the letter to the boys they are: be, get, live, life, die; to the girls: children, world, make, bring, give out. From these different collocations we see that there are two different attitudes. The difference is clear: one says we have the right to be happy, on the other side you have the duty to make somebody else happy. Probably this isn't consciously done, Stubbs said that Baden-Powell didn't mean to be so selfish and against happiness for girls but was the reflection of the attitude of the mentality of the time. So, we use the language semi-automatically. Even authors (Baden Powell) are unaware of all the meanings their texts convey. Does this mean that the discourses/contexts we are exposed to (even online) defines what we think? Maybe, but awareness is important. Receptive and Productive Vocabulary Knowledge Receptive vocabulary knowledge refers to the ability to understand a word when it is heard or seen (lexical priming passive face). Productive vocabulary knowledge is the knowledge to produce a word when one writes or speaks, this knowledge can be semi-automatic (lexical priming active face). Words are known receptively first and only after intentional or incidental learning becomes available for productive use. Back to Hoey's article: We use the words and phrases in the contexts in which we have heard them used, with the meanings we have subconsciously identified as belonging to them and employing the same grammar. This (so semi-automatic) is how native speakers are able to be fluent and because the things they say are subconsciously influenced by what everyone has previously said to them, it also explains why they almost always sound natural. It also explains why they almost always sound natural. Natural / fluent/appropriate/sounding right /fitting the discourse / corresponding to our culture / to our value system ... there is a shift from co-text (combination of words in the phrase) to sociocultural identity. Sexist/racist/intolerant/authoritarian etc. discourses might be ‘natural’ or expected in some contexts (like the letters for the boy scouts). The fact that we are fluent as native speakers (because they are being exposed to language and they use it semiautomatically because of this exposition), doesn't mean that we are fluent in all the situations. Our ability to be fluent and natural is, however, limited to the situations we are familiar with. If we have heard a word used repeatedly in particular ways in casual conversation with friends, we will be able to use it confidently in the same situation. It does not follow that we will feel confident about using it in academic writing or talking to strangers. So, learning a word means learning it in many different contexts. So learning (and exploring) a word means learning it in many different contexts. First difference in NSs and NNSs: amount of exposition of words in context. Native speakers have acquired a large corpus of examples of the words of English in their typical contexts, and from this they learn how the words are used. By contrast, non-native speakers have typically heard (or read) relatively few examples of even the more common words in natural use and have therefore had less opportunity to learn the way these words typically occur. So, first difference is the amount of exposition to language in contexts, a non- native is typically exposed to less language. All languages have a set of pragmatic conventions about language use. These conventions are social and cultural. So they differ from language to language, from country to country, and from culture to culture. Speech Acts (Searle 1969): People use language to do things in reality, not just to express meaning. For example to: . get other people to do things (request, order, persuade) . give information . express opinions . express emotions . make commitments (offer, promise, agree to do something) Some actions are more performative because they change reality. These type of actions are expressed by verbs called performative verbs (I name this ship, ‘battezzo questa nave’, that ship will be called in that way because you said that; | swear). This distinction is given by Austin who distinguishes three kinds of actions performed by the utterance: . Locutionary act - a communicative act of speaking or writing . illocutionary act - what the speaker/writer is doing with the locutionary act, what kind of expect you create . perlocutionary act - the (often unpredictable) effect the locutionary act produces on the listener/reader, if he or she understand the pragmatic intention or not. These three kinds of act (that correspond to three kinds of effect) must be translated in the target language. It is truth that in language sometimes the illocutionary effect becomes part of language like Can you tell me what time is it?, you know that the other asks you to say the time (illocutionary act) and not if you are able to say it (locutionary act). Grice: Cooperative Principle and Cooperative Maxime There is a general principle that is beyond interaction: all of us respect the idea of being cooperative in the creation of meaning. "Make your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged". The principle is intended as a description of people's normal behaviour in conversations, not as a prescriptive command. Breaking the principle is often creative (advertising, poetry, etc.), to play with language. Four conversational maxims: . Maxims of quality: o Do not say what you believe to be false. o Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. . Maxims of quantity o Make your contribution as informative as required. o Do not make your contribution more informative than is required. . Maxim of relation o Be relevant. The most important maxim, since it is responsible for preventing random, incoherent conversations lacking any continuity. . Maxims of manner o Avoid obscurity of expression. o Avoid ambiguity. o Be brief. o Be orderly. When these maxims aren't respected maybe the interlocutor gives a different meaning and effect of what he says. The conversational maxims are broken rather more often than linguistic rules (e.g. in grammar). We can break the conversational maxims in two main ways: We can VIOLATE them: This means that we break the maxims surreptitiously, or covertly, so that other people do not know. If we violate the maxim of quality, we lie. If we violate the maxim of quantity by not giving enough information, if someone finds out we can be accused of 'being economical with the truth', another deceit. If you like, violating the maxims amounts to breaking them 'illegally', just as people who steal are guilty of laws concerning theft. As with laws, some maxim violations can be more heinous than others. Lying in a court of law is disapproved, but ‘white lies', small lies to keep the social peace, are often thought as acceptable. We can FLOUT them: If we FLOUT a maxim, we break it in a FLAGRANT (and often foregrounded) way, so that it is obvious to all concerned that it has been broken. If this happens, then it is clear that the speaker is intending the hearer to infer some extra meaning over and above what is said (evidence for this is that people often say things like 'He said he was happy, but the way he said it implied he wasn't really'. Grice distinguishes what he calls 'sentence meaning' from 'utterer's meaning' and he refers to an utterer's meaning indicated through a flout as an IMPLICATURE. So the implicature is what we have been referring to so far as the ‘extra meaning". Language is a way to act socially. Our linguistic behaviour and our linguistic 'acts' are part of a text (written or spoken) and they are realized pragmatically. With these acts we do not only convey messages but we influence other people with requests, proposals, advice etc. Language acts mechanisms are not always direct and explicit. Like: “Nice weather, isn't it?”: two people at the bus stop. 2) The main purpose is to socialise, to create a common ground for conversation and not to make a statement about the weather. Standard phrases should be translated with standard equivalents in the TL, they should not be translated literally. People use language in order to achieve different aims. Apart from conveying meaning, all utterances have some communicative force. Under the surface structure of what is being said there is the underlying force. The overall meaning of an utterance largely depends on the addresser's intentions, and on the underlying communicative force. The translator must understand the overall communicative force of the utterances of the ST in order to convey it appropriately in the TT. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (1962): Functions: . THE LOCUTION: the literal meaning of an utterance, the formal meaning of the words . THE ILLOCUTION: the communicative force (the act that is performed by it: warning, request, etc.) . THE PERLOCUTION: the effect on the hearer or reader B: communicative functions. Elements of an act of verbal communication Jakobson (1960): communicative scheme; Communicative functions. Although texts are generally multifunctional, one function generally predominates. To sum up Taylor Language to Language: Context and translation: . Lexicogrammatical context . Translation strategies . Semantic context . The context of Situation (Halliday) . Pragmatics . Text types (very general features) . Rolling Translation Methodology Zanettin ‘Swimming in words’: we aren't translating just meaning or text, but we are translating discourse that involve the expectation of different audiences and different culture and in different language. . definition of translation task . Translating discourses . Form vs function of translation units . Help from corpora Also in this article is also seen a difference between expression that might have a similar form but a different function in the two languages and on the other side words that might have similar functions but different forms. In this course our aim is to analyse what is appropriate to the context, what is sounding right when you write or translate. The student in the Zanettin's article try to sound right by using a corpus. The theory of lexical priming sums up all of these concepts: . Appropriateness and ‘sounding right’ as a result of our exposure to language . L2 Learners and non familiar discourses: we need to compensate for lack of exposure Evaluation S.Hunston and G.Thompson e Corpus linguistics methodology can help. Transitivity It is another aspect of language, defined by Fowler (1991) like the foundation of representation: it is the way the clause is used to analyse events and situations. Sinclair (1990) added that it is a consequence of linear/temporal nature of language (compared to, say, pictures). Language forces the author to structure a ‘whole’ event in linear fashion and allows them to portray reality as they wish, to construct an argument in syntax. We make choice in the linear sequence and these choices are how we construct an argument in syntax. Example: in the headlines of article, the journalist has to describe an event with few words. Transitivity studies the different choices in the representation of reality, example: when we decided to use a passive or active form of a verb, giving importance to the subject or the object. Transitivity is simply the