2: LANGUAGE STRUCTURE AND THE
ORGANISATION OF INFORMATION
“The translator should first identify those items that stand as
autonomous units.” (Taylor 1998: 14)
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1. Ferdinand de Saussure (Taylor pp 11,12)
Syntagmas: joining words or longer units horizontally to form grammatically acceptable
and meaningful clauses and sentences.
2. Structuralism. Leonard Bloomfield. (Taylor pp 12-14)
How would you break the following sentence into autonomous units?
The lesson is scheduled for Thursday morning.
NP
The lesson
|
VP
is scheduled
AdvP
| for Thursday morning
Note that some expressions, particularly idioms, must be treated as single units.
It’s easy to get there: straight on at the traffic lights, then take the first left and – Bob’s
your uncle – you’re there.
Dividing the idiomatic expression Bob’s your uncle into small units and translating them
separately would be disastrous. Idioms are often units of meaning, i.e. they can only be
understood in their entirety.
There are various theories as to the origin of this idiom but serious etymologists are not
convinced by any of them.
3. Universal structure (Taylor pp 14, 15) Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures (1957)
Universal “deep” grammar: the core rules of human language which do not change over
time.
“Surface” grammar: the rules that are specific to individual languages and are subject to
change.
Eugene Nida (Towards a Science of Translation, 1964) used Chomsky’s concept of deep
structure to develop the notion of “kernel sentences” (kernel = nocciolo, nucleo, fondo)
based on the core elements of all languages. See example in Taylor pp 14,15.
4. The Prague School (Taylor 15-17)
Functional Sentence Perspective (FSP) and Communicative Dynamism (CD).
THEME (known information) and RHEME (new information).
Have you heard the news? Harriet’s daughter has passed the entrance test for
Cambridge.
Harriet’s daughter
THEME
Information that speaker
and interlocutor share
has passed the entrance test for Cambridge
RHEME
New information for the interlocutor
Communicative dynamism
Things are not always as simple as the previous slide suggests because we can make
decisions regarding communicative dynamism.
Harriet’s daughter has passed the entrance test for Cambridge. It’s good news and bad
news at the same time because tuition fees are £9,000 per year.
Harriet’s daughter has passed the entrance test for Cambridge, and since tuition fees are
£9,000 per year, it’s good news and bad news at the same time.
How would you translate each version?
Italian is a pro-drop language; English is not. Do you know what that means?
Is the fact that tuition fees are £9,000 per year at Cambridge likely to be new information
for UK citizens? If it is new information, in the second version the rheme precedes the
theme.
What do you know about the rules of word order in English and Italian?
M.A.K. Halliday (1985), An Introduction to Functional Grammar (Taylor pp 17,18)
Halliday also equates grammatical subject with theme with known information in
unmarked declarative sentences. However, he notes that we frequently move the
communicative focus in marked sentences in which the theme is not the grammatical
subject:
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. (Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2, Act 3, Scene
1)
The head that wears a crown
THEME
lies uneasily. (unmarked sentence)
RHEME
What is the effect of making the adverbial expression the theme? How would you
translate Shakespeare’s version.
Ways in which the information focus/communicative dynamism can be shifted.
1. Active or passive
Many low-income families were given a bonus of €80.
Many low-income families were given a bonus of €80 by the Government.
The Government gave many low-income families a bonus of €80.
Matteo Renzi gave many low-income families a bonus of €80.
2. Cleft sentences beginning with It
Prof. XXX designed this test.
It was Prof. XXX who designed this test.
3. Pseudo cleft sentences beginning with What
Mary told us something that was quite shocking.
What Mary told us was quite shocking.
The translator has to consider why the source text author chose to thematise something.
COHESION
Coherence: the extralinguistic semantic links (context) that bind a text together
so that it makes sense as discourse.
Cohesion: internal links within a text (co-text). Pro-forms, conjunctions etc.
LITERARY TRANSLATION
The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of
pale repetitive scraps like those morning snowstorms of used tissue paper that a train
passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation car. In my sanitary relations with
women I was practical, ironical and brisk. While a college student, in London and Paris,
paid ladies sufficed me. My studies were meticulous and intense, although not particularly
fruitful. At first, I planned to take a degree in psychiatry as many manqué talents do; but I
was even more manqué than that; a peculiar exhaustion, I am so oppressed, doctor, set in;
and I switched to English literature, where so many frustrated poets end as pipe-smoking
teachers in tweed.
(Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, 1955)
“The translator should first identify those items that stand as autonomous units.” (Taylor
1998: 14)
I giorni della mia govinezza, mentre mi volto a guardarli, sembrano volar via da me in
un turbinio di pallidi, ripetitivi brandelli, come quelle tormente mattutine di quadratini
di carta usata che il viaggiatore vede turbinare nella scia del vagone belvedere. Nei
miei rapporti igienici con le donne ero pratico, ironico e sbrigativo. Quando
frequentavo l’università, a Londra e a Parigi, mi bastavano quelle prezzolate. I miei
studi, anche se non particolarmente fruttuosi, erano meticolosi e intensi. In un primo
momento progettai di laurearmi in psichiatria, come fanno tanti talenti manqués; ma io
ero troppo manqué anche per quello. Un peculiare sfinimento, mi sento così oppresso,
dottore, si impadronì di me, e passai così alla letteratura inglese, dove vanno a finire,
in qualità di professori tutti pipa e tweed, tanti poeti frustrati.
(tradotto da Giulia Arborio Mella, 1993)
How has the translator corrected Nabokov’s French?
The days of my youth, as I look back on them, seem to fly away from me in a flurry of
pale repetitive scraps like those morning snowstorms of used tissue paper that a train
passenger sees whirling in the wake of the observation car. In my sanitary relations with
women I was practical, ironical and brisk. While a college student, in London and Paris,
paid ladies sufficed me. My studies were meticulous and intense, although not
particularly fruitful. At first, I planned to take a degree in psychiatry as many manqué
talents do; but I was even more manqué than that; a peculiar exhaustion, I am so
opressed, doctor, set in; and I switched to English literature, where so many frustrated
poets end as pipe-smoking teachers in tweed.
I giorni della mia govinezza, mentre mi volto a guardarli, sembrano volar via da me in un
turbinio di pallidi, ripetitivi brandelli, come quelle tormente mattutine di quadratini di
carta usata che il viaggiatore vede turbinare nella scia del vagone belvedere. Nei miei
rapporti igienici con le donne ero pratico, ironico e sbrigativo. Quando frequentavo
l’università, a Londra e a Parigi, mi bastavano quelle prezzolate. I miei studi, anche se
non particolarmente fruttuosi, erano meticolosi e intensi. In un primo momento progettai
di laurearmi in psichiatria, come fanno tanti talenti manqués; ma io ero troppo manqué
anche per quello. Un peculiare sfinimento, mi sento così oppresso, dottore, si impadronì
di me, e passai così alla letteratura inglese, dove vanno a finire, in qualità di professori
tutti pipa e tweed, tanti poeti frustrati.
FALSE FRIENDS 2
What do you remember about abuse/abusive and affluence/affluent?
Agenda
The meeting is ready to start. Item 1 on the agenda is… (ordine del giorno)
I note my appointments in my diary.
Agony
Agony refers to great pain but it does not mean that someone is dying. Toothache can be
agony but it won’t kill you.
To translate the Italian word agonia use the verb die in an appropriate way.
Alumnus/alumna (plural alumni/alumnae)
An ex-student of a school or university. Insight is the name of the magazine of alumni of
the University of Hull.
The translation of alunno is pupil; during compulsory education the word pupils is
normally used but we switch to students for those who choose to stay on in school or go
on to tertiary education.
And you should know about ancient and annoy/annoying/annoyed.
THE DIARY OF A BRAVE TRANSLATOR VERILY IN LEG – PART 2
I had a row with the boss yesterday afternoon. He likes his staff to agree with him
all the time but I haven’t got hairs on my tongue, so if I have something to say I say
it without looking nobody in the face.