CORPUS-BASED CONTRASTIVE
ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH ADJECTIVES
IN SPANISH TRANSLATIONS:
A TYPOLOGICAL ISSUE
Noelia Ramón
University of León, Spain
ICLC 6 - International Contrastive Linguistics Conference
Berlin, 30 Sept. – 2 Oct. 2010
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
INTRODUCTION
• Germanic vs. Romance languages
• Unmarked adjective position in the NP:
▫ Pre-modifying position in English
▫ Post-modifying position in Spanish
• However, the pre-modifying position is possible too
in Spanish.
• Consequence: more pre-modifying adjectives in
translations (Rabadán et al. 2009)
CORPUS-BASED STUDY
• Analysis of the most frequent Spanish adjectives in
original and translated texts
▫ Monolingual corpus: CREA
▫ Parallel corpus: P-ACTRES
• Analysis & results:
1. Quantitative study
2. Qualitative study
• Aim: improve translator training & translation
quality assessment
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
TYPOLOGY
• Word order as a major issue.
• Greenberg (1963): universal 17
▫ “Languages with a dominant VSO word order most often
present the adjective after the noun.”
• English vs. Spanish
▫ Strict word order vs. rich inflectional morphology
▫ adjective morphology: invariable vs. variable in number
(and gender)
▫ pre-modifying position vs. post-modifying position
▫ poor man vs. un hombre pobre / un pobre hombre
▫ Descriptive adjectives only have the double option
▫ Classifying adjectives may occur only in post-modifying
positions.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
METHODOLOGY
• Corpora: empirical data vs. intuition
• Monolingual corpus: CREA (Corpus de Referencia
del Español Actual)
▫ 18,500,104 words (Spain, from 2000, written texts
only, all registers)
• English-Spanish parallel corpus: P-ACTRES
(Parallel-Contrastive Analysis and Translation
English-Spanish)
▫ 1,287,349 words (translations from English originals
from 2000, written texts only, all registers)
CREA INTERFACE
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
P-ACTRES INTERFACE
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
METHODOLOGY
• Stages:
1. Quantitative analysis of the most frequent
Spanish adjectives in original and translated
texts.
2. Qualitative analysis of representative numbers
of the most frequent Spanish adjectives in
original and translated texts.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
DATA
• The 25 most frequent adjectives in Spanish: gran,
general, mayor, nacional, mejor, nuevo,
pasado, nueva, social, grandes, posible,
importante,final, unidos, cierto, largo, claro,
español, buena, internacional, igual, española,
interior, buen,
especial.
• The 25 most frequent adjectives in English: new,
good, old, long, little, great, high, best, big,
national, small, full, young, free, public, important,
white, local, black, able, early, political, real, hard,
available.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
DATA
• Adjectives not included in the qualitative section of
the study:
1. Morphologically reduced forms for the premodifying position:
▫
Gran (from grande) / buen (from bueno)
2. Classifying adjectives limited to the postmodifying position:
▫ nacional, social, internacional
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
DATA
• Final selection:
▫ grande, bueno, nuevo, importante, largo (with all
their morphological forms)
• Issues to be compared in the quantitative
analysis:
▫ a) overall frequency of use in original texts and in
translations,
▫ b) statistical significance of the differences
identified using chi-square test
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
RESULTS: STAGE 1
GRAN - GRANDE/S - MAYOR/ES
Original Spanish
900
Translated Spanish
813.29
800
700
632.26
591.4
600
553.07
500
370.52
331.61
400
300
200
146.03
135.56 125.84
90.48
100
0
gran
grande
Statistically significant overuse
grandes
mayor
mayores
Fig. 1. Number of cases per million words.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
BUEN - BUENO/A/OS/AS - MEJOR/ES
Original Spanish
Translated Spanish
600
494.1 504.91
500
400
300
206.43
200
205.07
219.35
212.84
153.8
91.94
100
82.33
60.37
83.89
51.99
buenos
buenas
104.81 110.3
0
buen
bueno
buena
Statistically significant overuse
mejor
mejores
Statistically significant overuse
Fig. 2. Number of cases per million words.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
NUEVO/A - NUEVOS/AS
Original Spanish
Translated Spanish
600
500
479.07
400
326.32312.26
300
279.64
199.07
194.7
200
137.49
144.48
100
0
nuevo
nueva
Statistically significant underuse
nuevos
nuevas
Statistically significant underuse
Fig. 3. Number of cases per million words.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
IMPORTANTE - IMPORTANTES
400
350
300
339.02
285.85
250
Original Spanish
200
137.83
150
131.27
Translated Spanish
100
50
0
importante
Statistically significant underuse
importantes
Fig. 4. Number of cases per million words.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
LARGO/A - LARGOS/AS
Original Spanish
300
250
Translated Spanish
280.75
249.34
200
150
100
77.62
97.87
27.35 37.28
50
25.51
38.06
0
largo
larga
largos
largas
Statistically significant overuse
Fig. 5. Number of cases per million words.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
RESULTS: STAGE 2
• Statistical formula to ensure the analysis of a
sufficiently representative number of instances:
•
n=
N _
•
(N-1) E2 + 1
CREA
P-ACTRES
Total Selected Total selected
nuevo
8,863
383
360
190
importante 6,272
376
368
192
largo
371
321
178
5,194
The case of nuevo
Position in context
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
Number of cases in Number of cases in
CREA
P-ACTRES
Pre- + post-modification
170 – 44.3%
75 – 39.4%
Single pre-modifier
122 – 31.8%
65 – 34.2%
Fixed expression ‘de nuevo’
63 – 16.4%
14 – 7.3%
Single post-modifier
21 – 5.4%
19 – 10%
Adjective used as noun
4 – 1.04%
-
Predicative position
2 – 0.5%
5 – 2.6%
Multiple pre-modification
1 – 0.2%
5 – 2.6%
Multiple post-modification
-
7 – 3.6%
383
190
Total
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
The case of nuevo
• Pre- & post-modification
▫ other adjectives, especially of the classifying type (el
nuevo planeamiento urbanístico consistiría en …)
▫ participle clauses (un nuevo caso revelado ayer)
▫ relative clauses (un nuevo movimiento, que sorteaba
la censura)
• Single pre-modification
▫ el nuevo sistema debe compensar a los
ayuntamientos, el nuevo servicio se ubicaría en el
recinto …, Kurtz había encontrado un nuevo
conductor, no le gusta nada mi nuevo trabajo.
The case of nuevo
Original Spanish
45
40
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
Translated Spanish
44.3
39.4
35
31.8
34.2
30
25
20
16.4
15
10
10
7.3
5.4
5
0
pre & postmodif.
single pre-modif.
fixed expr. 'de nuevo'
single post-modif.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
The case of importante
Position in context
Number of cases in Number of cases in
CREA
PACTRES
Single post-modification
112 – 29.7%
59 – 30.7%
Predicative adjective
95 – 25.2%
78 – 40.6%
94 – 25%
27 – 14.06%
Pre- + post-modification
50 – 13.2%
24 – 12.5%
Single pre-modification
24 – 6.3%
3 – 1.5%
Adjective used as noun
1 – 0.2%
-
-
1 – 0.5%
376
192
Multiple postmodification
Multiple pre-modification
Total
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
The case of importante
• Single post-modification:
▫ fue una decisión importante,
▫ poseía una experiencia importante
• Predicative position:
• le afectan numerosos factores y es importante
analizarlos
• Multiple post-modification:
▫ información estadística importante
▫ un salto cualitativo importante.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
The case of importante
Original Spanish
Translated Spanish
45
40.6
40
35
30
29.7 30.7
25.2
25
25
20
14.06
15
13.2 12.5
10
5
0
single post-modif.
predicative
multiple post-modif.
pre & post-modif.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
The case of largo
Position in context
Number of cases Number of cases
in CREA
In PACTRES
Fixed expression ‘a lo largo de …’
195 – 52.5%
8 – 4.4%
Single pre-modification
85 – 22.9%
74 – 41.5%
Pre- & post-modification
35 – 9.4%
29 – 16.2%
Noun
26 – 7%
24 – 13.4%
Single post-modification
8 – 2.1%
21 – 11.7%
Predicative
8 – 2.1%
6 – 3.3%
Multiple post-modification
7 – 1.8%
14 – 7.8%
Multiple pre-modification
5 – 1.3%
2 – 1.1%
Numeral
2 – 0.5%
-
371
178
TOTAL
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
The case of largo
• Fixed expression a lo largo de …
• a lo largo de la historia
• Single pre-modification:
▫ su largo cuerpo, recogió un largo aplauso, el largo verano
• Pre- & post-modification:
▫ el largo enfrentamiento que mantienen ambas administraciones,
▫ iniciar un largo proceso evolutivo
▫ un largo camino que desciende hacia el río
• Noun (in expressions of measure):
• tiene más de 4.500 kilómetros de largo
• Single post-modification:
▫ memorizar un poema largo
▫ tenían el morro largo
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
The case of largo
Original Spanish
55
Translated Spanish
52.5
45
41.5
35
22.9
25
16.2
13.4
15
9.4
5
-5
4.4
fixed expr. a lo largo de single premodif.
11.7
7
2.1
pre & post-modif.
noun
single post-modif.
ICLC 6 - International Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
CONCLUSIONS
• Initial hypothesis: generalized overuse of the
pre-modifying position.
• Not proven in the case of the 3 adjectives
analyzed, as they are already frequent in the premodifying position in original Spanish.
• Further studies are needed focusing on other
(perhaps less frequent) adjectives.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
CONCLUSIONS
• However, other interesting data have been revealed:
• From the quantitative perspective:
▫ Several adjectives presented overuse in translations
(bueno, grande, largo), but others were actually
underused (nuevo & importante)
• From the qualitative perspective:
▫ Some of the most common adjectives present different
usage patterns in originals and translations:
 Fewer fixed expressions (de nuevo, a lo largo de) (lower
degree of typicality of translated language).
 More predicative uses than in original texts
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference
REFERENCES
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Baker, M. 1993: “Corpus Linguistics and Translation Studies.” In Baker et al. (eds.) Text and
Technology. In Honour of John Sinclair. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 233-250.
Comrie, B. 1981: Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. Chicago: Chicago University
Press.
Croft, W. 1990: Typology and Universals. Cambridge: CUP.
Greenberg, J.H. 1963: Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of
meaningful elements. In: Greenberg, J.H. (ed.) Universals of Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press. 73-113.
Laviosa, S. 1996: “Comparable corpora: Towards a corpus linguistic methodology for the
empirical study of translation.” In Thelen, M. and Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. (eds.)
Translation and Meaning, Part 3. Maastricht: Hogeschool Maastricht. 153-163.
Mallinson, G. & Blake, B.J. 1981: Language Typology. Amsterdam: North Holland.
Rabadán, R., B. Labrador & N. Ramón. 2009: Corpus-based contrastive analysis and translation
universals: a tool for translation quality assessment English-Spanish? Babel 55: 4, 303-328.
Ramón, N. 2009: Translating Epistemic Adverbs from English into Spanish: Evidence from a
Parallel Corpus. Meta 54: 1, 73-96.
Ramón, N. & B. Labrador. 2009: Translations of –ly Adverbs of Degree in an English-Spanish
Parallel Corpus. Target 20: 2, 275-296.
Toury, G. 1995: Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
ICLC 6 - International
Contrastive Linguistics
Conference