![Influence through
translation
Darwin Correspondence Project Database
Letter 224, dated 28 Oct 1833
www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-224/
“I thought in the first part (of this last journal)
that you had, probably from reading so
much of Humboldt, got his phraseology &
occasionly [sic] made use of the kind of
flowery French expressions which he uses,
instead of your own simple straight forward
& far more agreeable style.”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/lanc11-151209082015-lva1-app6891/85/Syntactic-change-through-translation-A-corpus-based-approach-to-language-change-12-320.jpg)
Syntactic change through translation: A corpus-based approach to language change
- 1. Syntactic Change through Translation: a Corpus-Based Approach to Language Change Mario Bisiada University of Manchester Corpus Research Seminar, 10th of November 2011 University of Lancaster
- 2. Translation and language change “Translation Universals” (Baker 1996, Laviosa 1998) “Law of Interference”: ‘In translation, phenomena pertaining to the make- up of the source text tend to be transferred to the target text.’ (Toury 1995) Quantitative norm innovations (Koller 1998)
- 3. Hypotaxis & Parataxis in German “Although I had never seen him before, I could tell it was him” Hypotactic Translation: S O V V S Obwohl ich ihn nie gesehen hatte, wusste ich, dass er es war.
- 4. Hypotaxis & Parataxis in German “Although I had never seen him before, I could tell it was him” Hypotactic Translation: S O V V S Obwohl ich ihn nie gesehen hatte, wusste ich, dass er es war. => SXV – VSX
- 5. Hypotaxis & Parataxis in German “Although I had never seen him before, I could tell it was him” Hypotactic Translation: S O V V S Obwohl ich ihn nie gesehen hatte, wusste ich, dass er es war. => SXV – VSX Paratactic Translation S V O S V Ich hatte ihn nie gesehen, doch ich wusste, dass er
- 6. Hypotaxis & Parataxis in German “Although I had never seen him before, I could tell it was him” Hypotactic Translation: S O V V S Obwohl ich ihn nie gesehen hatte, wusste ich, dass er es war. => SXV – VSX Paratactic Translation S V O S V Ich hatte ihn nie gesehen, doch ich wusste, dass er
- 7. Model of language change Translation is language contact Not centred on internal factors
- 8. Model of language change Translation is language contact Not centred on internal factors Translation exerts developing influence Not centred on innovation
- 9. Model of language change Translation is language contact Not centred on internal factors Translation exerts developing influence Not centred on innovation Translation does not cause change Non-causal
- 10. The Theory of Utterance Selection Croft (2000) Language use is ‘replication’ ‘differential replication’ ≠ ‘altered replication’ Innovation affected by language- inherent factors, propagation predominantly social Propagation occurs through social acceptance, not by causal mechanisms
- 11. Influence through translation Montogomery (2000): Influence of Greek on Latin (2nd and 1st century BCE) “Our earlier orators thought highly of translation from Greek to Latin (…) There is much art in Greek authors’ eloquence, so that translating them gives us license to use the best words we can find, since anything we might use is naturally our own.”
- 12. Influence through translation Darwin Correspondence Project Database Letter 224, dated 28 Oct 1833 www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-224/ “I thought in the first part (of this last journal) that you had, probably from reading so much of Humboldt, got his phraseology & occasionly [sic] made use of the kind of flowery French expressions which he uses, instead of your own simple straight forward & far more agreeable style.”
- 13. Question How can we investigate whether translation has an effect on the preference of syntactic patterns?
- 14. Research Method Combine corpus linguistics and translation studies Diachronic translation corpora
- 15. Research Method Two-step corpus study 1. Diachronic comparison of translation choices
- 16. Research Method Two-step corpus study 1. Diachronic comparison of translation choices 2. Compare findings with non- translated German texts
- 17. Previous studies Covert Translation project since 2006 Genre: Popular Science Corpus: 1978-1982 and 1999-2002 300,000 words in total Baumgarten, N. (2008) ‘Writer construction in English and German popularized academic discourse: The uses of we and wir’. Multilingua, 27 (4), 409-38 Becher, V. (2011) ‘Von der Hypotaxe zur Parataxe: Ein Wandel im Ausdruck von Konzessivität in neueren populärwissenschaftlichen Texten‘. In Breindl et al: Satzverknüpfungen. Berlin: de Gruyter
- 18. Previous studies Musacchio 2005 Genre: Economics Articles (The Economist, La Stampa, Economy; Corriere della Sera, Sole 24) Corpus: 2001-03 (synchronic) 70 articles (words not given) Musacchio (2005) The Influence of English on Italian: The Case of Translations of Economics Articles. In Anderman & Rogers, In and Out of English.
- 19. From Hypotaxis to Parataxis Genre: business & economics essays Source: Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business Manager Objects: Concessive conjunctions, eg although; causal conjunctions, eg because
- 20. From Hypotaxis to Parataxis 1982-3 2008 Translation Corpus 500,000 words 500,000 words Comparable Corpus 200,000 words 200,000 words
- 21. My study Hypothesis to be tested: “In contexts where the English source text allows a choice between parataxis and hypotaxis for the German translations, translators choose paratactic constructions more frequently now than they did a few decades ago.”
- 22. Conclusion There is tentative evidence that translation may contribute to syntactic change This change manifests itself in the shift of preferences More research is needed on other languages and genres, eg newspaper articles, non-fiction books and novels
- 23. Thank you for your attention! Questions or Challenges?