Theorising about Translation through Parallel Corpora

Abstract : An incursion into the potential use of parallel corpora in translation studies is sustained by an analytic approach to various repertoires of translation equivalents following the cline equivalence, non-equivalence. Normalization and lexical creativity are discussed as main contributors to generalizing about translation theory and practice.

1. Main Objectives

Parallel corpora represent a sound basis for the theory and practice of translation , contrastive studies and teaching ( James 1989; Baker 1995 ; Santos 1996; Aijmer et al. (eds) 1996; Laviosa 2002; Mauranen 2002 ; Bernardini 2006). Among the possible advantages that parallel corpora offer to research in these domains we here mention the following coordinates :

- increase knowledge about language-specific, typological and cultural differences, as well as universal features ;

- help in explaining structural divergences ;

- deal with language-dependent explicitation constraints;

- clarify upon the differences between source texts and translations, and between native and non-native texts;

- provide data about the repertoires of translation equivalents at the word level and

about non-equivalence;

- provide a useful supplement to decontextualised translation equivalents listed in dictionaries.

In this paper we shall argue that parallel corpora and translation practice can represent effective means to emphasize the points of contrast between the syntactic and semantic behavior of verbs of touching in English and Romanian ‘translation equivalence being the best available basis of comparison’( James, 1996: i ).

2. Corpus Analysis

The analysis has been applied on unidirectional corpora by aligning pairs of sentences (ST /vs / TT) with verbs of touching occurring in different contexts extracted from Romanian literary works and their English translations (see Corpus Sources B). Contextualization has been highlighted semantically, taking into account both definitional and associated semantic features incorporated by the verb, clarifying or modifying its meanings ( Dima, 2003 a, b), and syntactically by transitive usage.

Verbs of touching in Romanian and English constitute a subfield of the larger semantic field of physical perception verbs. They express not only an object’s location but also its actual physical contact with another object : X is in contact with Y, implies X is located at Y. The componential analysis applied to these verbs underlines the presence within their semantic matrix of the distinctive feature [+ contact], feature responsible for the delimitation of the case frame [ _ A O L (I) ] ( Dima ,2005).

The parallel corpora selected include Romanian sentences and their translations into English. The analysis focuses on evaluating the semantic roles of the NPs gravitating around the perceptual predicates of touching in both languages and on the types of equivalence in translating these predicates.

The first group of aligned sentences , (1-5) , subcategorizes the verbs atinge and touch as three-argument predicates [_(A)O I ) ( Dima, 2003 b), including both intentional and non-intentional agents, thus allowing for ambiguity both in the ST and TT.

Romanian English

1. Când mă atingi, eu mă cutremur,

1. Your fingers touch me and I shiver.

2. Să m-atingă visătoare

Cu piciorul ?

2. Touch me in her reverie

With her ankle ?

3. El ridică mâna bătrânului şi o atinse cu fruntea.

3. He raised the hand of the old man and touched it with his forehead.

4. Părul lui i-atinge părul.

4. When his hair did touch her tresses.

5. Barba albă atinse apa, se scufundă.

5. His white beard touched the water and down he went.

In (1-5) , the verbs atinge and touch allow full equivalence in translation , their meaning being kept along the semantic dimension getting into contact with despite the variation in the syntactic environment

In (1) and (2) the Subject NP in Romanian is [+ Human ] and it is understood from the verb inflection e.g. atingi , atinga. Agency is here represented by the Actor which performs the action without affecting the Object : “ The Object [ ] canonically occupies the Direct Object NP position in surface structure and it denotes the entity which undergoes a change of state or condition , being affected, or just “contacted” by some other entity”( Dima, 2005: 213).

In the English version (1), the translator has chosen a [-Animate] Subject expressed by a metonymical genitive construction bearing the semantic role of Instrument e.g. your fingers : “ In the case of verbs of feeling and touching the Instrument is normally opaquely incorporated: the hand, the palm, the finger, etc. When it is transparently incorporated it adds some emphasis to the action performed by the intentional Agent and is syntactically marked by a PP headed by with “( Dima, 2005 : 214 ).

Universitatea "Dunarea de Jos" Galati, master anul I