Research Methods in Translation and Interpreting Studies

1. Research Methods in Translation and Interpreting Studies Grammatical Level (Categories and Syntax) 16 October 2007

2. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax

3. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Grammar • “The set of rules which determine the way in which units such as words and phrases can be combined in a language and the kind of information which has to be made regularly explicit in utterances” (Baker 1992:83)

4. Grammatical Level (Categories and Syntax) • Grammatical notions • Time • Number • Shape • Visibility • Person • Proximity • Animacy • Etc.

5. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • However…. • Grammar is not a uniform and objective way of reporting events in all their detail • It is difficult to find a notional category which is regularly and uniformly expressed in all languages

6. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Grammatical categories • Morphology • “Structure of words, the way in which the form of a word changes to indicate specific contrasts in the grammatical system” (Baker 1992:83) • E.g. singular/plural • Syntax • “Grammatical structure of groups, clauses and sentences: the linear sequence of classes of words such as noun, verb, adjective, and functional elements such as subject, predicator, and object, which are allowed in a given language” (Baker 1992:83) • E.g. SVO structure

7. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Example from Raymond Chandler’s Trouble is my Business • “Anna Halsey was about two hundred and forty pounds of middle-aged putty-faced woman in a black tailor-made suit” (cited in Antonopoulou 2002:204) • Manipulation of count and non-count nouns

8. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Translation Strategies: • Addition (when the TL has a grammatical category that the SL lacks, e.g. shape, dead/alive distinction) • Omission (when the TL lacks a grammatical category that the SL has) • Optionality

9. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Number • Singular/Plural • None • One/two/more than two (iglu, igluk, iglut) • Singular, dual, trial and plural • Choices in translation: • Omission • Lexical encoding • Difficulty of overpecification

10. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Gender • “A grammatical distinction according to which a noun or pronoun is classified as either masculine or feminine in some languages” (Baker 1992:90). • Indicated by • Two different nouns (cow/bull) • Gendered nouns (German Institution (f)) • Gendered determiners (the, this, some) • Gendered adjectives • Gendered verbs

11. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Person • Pronoun use • Tu/vous • Modes of address • Tense and Aspect • Time relations (past/present/future) • Aspectual relations (temporal distribution)

12. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Voice • “A grammatical category which defines the relationship between a verb and its subject” (Baker 1992:102) • Active (the subject performs the action) • Passive (the subject is the affected entity) • Passive voice associated with • Scientific and technical writing (English) • Adversity (Japanese, Chinese)

13. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Translation issues • Functional load • the functional load of tu could be communicated in English through the use of intimate forms of address such as darling, sweetheart

14. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Case marking • Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Instrumental, Locative, …. • Ivan videl Borisa • Borisa videl Ivan • Syntax proper • How various grammatical elements are typically or permissibly strung together in any language • See SPOCA handout on Intranet

15. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Sentence • Consists of one or more clauses • Clause basic unit of grammatical description (with finite, full verb) • Major sentence • Minor sentence • Problematic in translation (e.g. Fire!)

16. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • Text • “a verbal record of a communicative event” (Brown & Yule 1983:6) • Consider this statement: • “The nearest we get to non-text in actual life, leaving aside the works of those poets and prose-writers who deliberately set out to create non-text, is probably in the speech of young children and in bad translations” (Halliday & Hasan 1976:24).

17. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • References • Antonopoulou, Eleni (2002) ‘A Cognitive Approach to Literary Humour Devices: Translating Raymond Chandler’, The Translator 8(2): 195-220. • Baker, Mona (1992) In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation, London & New York: Routledge. (Chapter 4: Grammatical Equivalence and Chapter 5: Textual Equivalence, Thematic and Information Structures). • Calvo, Juan José (2003) ‘By default or excess: Gender mismatches in translation’, in José Santaemilia (ed.) Género, lenguaje y traducción, València: Universitat de València, 406-419. • Campbell, Stuart (2000) ‘Critical Structures in the Evaluation of Translations from Arabic into English as a Second Language’, The Translator 6(2): 211-229. 

18. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • References (cont.) • Campbell, Stuart (2000) ‘Choice Network Analysis in Translation Research’, in Maeve Olohan (ed) Intercultural Faultlines. Research Models in Translation Studies 1: Textual and Cognitive Aspects, Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 29-42. • Collins Cobuild English Grammar (1990), London & Glasgow: Collins. • Crystal, David (1988) Rediscover Grammar, London: Longman. • García Izquierdo, Isabel and Josep Marco Borillo (2000) ‘The Degree of Grammatical Complexity in Literary Texts as a Translation Problem’, in Allison Beeby, Doris Ensinger and Marisa Presas (eds) Investigating Translation: Selected Papers from the 4th International Congress on Translation, Barcelona 1998, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 65-74.

19. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • References (cont.) • Kashkin, Vyacheslav B. (1998) ‘Choice Factors in Translation’, Target 10(1): 95-111. • Puurtinen, Tiina (1989) ‘Assessing Acceptability in Translated Children’s Books’, Target 1(2): 201-213. • Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. 1972. A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman. • Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London & New York: Longman.

20. Grammatical Level – Categories and Syntax • References (cont.) • Riddle, Elizabeth (1986) ‘The Meaning and Discourse Function of the Past Tense in English’, TESOL Quarterly 20(2): 267-286. • Rush, Susan (1998) ‘The noun phrase in advertising English’, Journal of Pragmatics 29: 155-171. • Trask, R. L. (1993) A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms, London & New York: Routledge. • Young, David (1980) The Structure of English Clauses, London: Hutchinson.