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Research Methods in Translation and Interpreting Studies

Research Methods in Translation and Interpreting Studies. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions 23 October 2007. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions. Text “a verbal record of a communicative event” (Brown & Yule 1983:6).

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Research Methods in Translation and Interpreting Studies

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  1. Research Methods in Translation and Interpreting Studies Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions 23 October 2007

  2. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Text • “a verbal record of a communicative event” (Brown & Yule 1983:6)

  3. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Motivated choices at Grammatical and Lexical Levels • Dialect/regional variation • Geographical • Temporal • Social • (Non-) standard • Register • Text type/genre & potential readership • Personal style & idiolect

  4. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Example of Dialect/Regional Variation • Proliferation of negatives and use of double negatives in Black English Vernacular (BEV) • I ain’t never had no trouble with none of ‘em • You better not never steal nothin’ from me

  5. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Dialect issues relevant to translation • Tendency to avoid dialectical use in English translations (TEC) • Function of dialectical choices for characterisation • Minority languages/cultures • Political import • Empowerment through translation

  6. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Register, Text Type & Readership • Register • Difference between a high and low level of formality (Hale 1997) • Typical conventions of the type of communication in question (register of science, news reporting etc) (Biber 1995, 1998) • Intricate set of choices determined by features of the situation in which it is used (Halliday)

  7. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Register according to Halliday • Field (the what and why of the communication) • Tenor (the who of the communication; i.e. relationship between speaker/writer and hearer/reader) • Mode (the how of the communication; the textual features which realise the features of the situation)

  8. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Genre • A typified, institutionally recognised form that is used in typified social contexts – e.g. the newspaper editorial, the press release, the petition, etc. • Style • The variety of languages that reflects the relationship between the speaker and hearer or writer and reader (intimate, casual, formal) • Recurrent textual features in the speech or writing of a particular individual (similar to idiolect)

  9. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Register vs. Style • Register is always associated with specific situations • Style is not linked to any particular situation • Humorous style: adopting style that is inappropriate to context or situation

  10. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Overlap between terms (register, genre, style) • Always clearly specify what definition of the term you are following • Register, genre and style can be deliberately manipulated. How is this conveyed in translation/interpretation?

  11. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Cross-linguistic Variation • Imperative use • Use of imperatives in instructions, public notices, advertisements, menus, knitting patterns • Imperatives with negatives/ Passive/ less direct (non-imperative) forms)

  12. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Cross-linguistic Variation • Nominalisation • “Nouns that are related to verbs or adjectives morphologically; the nominalization is said to be “derived” from the verb or adjective. For example, civilisation is a nominalization derived from civilize, and kindness is a nominalization derived from kind (Biber et al. 1998:59)

  13. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Nominalisation • Almost four times as many nominalisations in English academic prose than in speech or fiction (based on Biber et al. 1998:60) • Other languages?

  14. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • Motivated Variation in Translation/Interpreting • Use of passive constructions in court interpreting • Translation as a genre/text-type • Difference in zero/that patterning in translated vs. original English (Olohan & Baker 2000) • Tendency to avoid contractions (Olohan 2003) • Avoidance of dialectical or regionally-marked structures in translation • Translator Style • Individual translator style (lexical and grammatical choices) across translations of different authors and different texts, sometimes even different source languages (Baker 2000)

  15. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • References • Al-Ani, Aseel and Alya’ Al-Rubai’ (2004) ‘The Translation of English Dialectal Dramatic Dialogue into Arabic’, Across Languages and Cultures 5(2): 233-257. • Assis Rosa, Alexandra (2001) ‘Features of Oral and Written Communication in Subtitling’, in Yves Gambier and Henrik Gottlieb (eds.) (Multi)Media Translation, Amsterdam & Philadephia: John Benjamins, 213-221. • Baker, Mona (2000) ‘Towards a Methodology for Investigating the Linguistic Behaviour of Professional Translators’, Target 12(2): 241-266. • Biber, Douglas (1988) Variation across Speech and Writing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  16. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • References • Biber, Douglas (1995) Dimensions of Register Variation: A Cross Linguistic Comparison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • Corbett, John (ed.) (1999) Written in the Language of the Scottish Nation. A History of Literary Translation into Scots,Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. • Craig, Ian (2006) ‘Translation in the Shadow of the Giants: Anglophone Caribbean Vernacular in a Translated Literary Text’, The Translator 12(1): 65-84. • Cummins, Sarah (2005) ‘Discourse and register functions of detached structures: A case study of the translations of two plays’, Target 17(1): 145-158.

  17. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • References (cont.) • Crystal, David and Derek Davy (1969) Investigating English Style, London: Longman. • Harvey, Keith (2000) ‘Describing Camp Talk: Language/Pragmatics/Politics’, Language and Literature 9(3): 240-260. • Labov, William (1972) Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. (Chapter 3: Contraction, Deletion, and Inherent Variability of the English Copula; Chapter 4: Negative Attraction and Negative Concord). • Leech, Geoffrey and Michael Short (1981) Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose, London & New York: Longman.

  18. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • References (cont.) • Leppihalme, Ritva (2000) ‘The Two Faces of Standardization: On the Translation of Regionalisms in Literary Dialogue’, The Translator 6(2): 247-269. • Määttä, Simo K. (2004) ‘Dialect and Point of View: The Ideology of Translation in The Sound and the Fury in French’, Target 16(2): 319-339. • Marco, Josep (2000) ‘Register Analysis in Literary Translation: A Functional Approach’, Babel 46(1): 1-19. • Morini, Massimiliano (2006) ‘Norms, Difference, and the Translator: Or, How to Reproduce Double Difference’, RiLUnE - Review of Literatures of the European Union:Traduzione Tradizione? Paths in the European Literary Polysystem (Online): http://www.rilune.org/ENGLISH/mono4/Morini_Rilune4_2006.pdf. (also on intranet)

  19. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • References (cont.) • Olohan, Maeve and Mona Baker (2000) ‘Reporting that in Translated English. Evidence for Subconscious Processes of Explicitation?’, Across Languages and Cultures 1(2): 141-158. • Pettit, Zoë (2005) ‘Translating register, style and tone in dubbing and subtitling’, JoSTrans - The Journal of Specialised Translation 4 (Online): http://www.jostrans.org/issue04/articles/pettit.html. • Snell-Hornby, Mary (1995) Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. • Steiner, Erich (1998) ‘A Register-based Translation Evaluation: An Advertisement as a Case in Point’, Target 10(2): 291-318.

  20. Dialect, Register, Style and Generic Conventions • References (cont.) • Trosborg, Anna (1997) ‘Text Typology: Register, Genre and Text Type’, in Anna Trosborg (ed.) Text Typology and Translation, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 3-23. • Wilkinson, Jane (2005) ‘Staging ‘Swissness’: Inter- and Intracultural Theatre Translation’, Language and Intercultural Communication 5(1): 72-85. • Wong, Laurence (2001) ‘Voices across Languages: The Translation of Idiolects in the Honglou meng’, in Leo Tak-hung Chan (ed) One into Many: Translation and the Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature, Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 97-114. • Wong, L. (2002) ‘Translating Register: With Reference to English, French, German, and Italian Versions of the Hong lou meng’, Babel 48(3): 247-266.

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