and the quest for Translation Universals UCCTS 2907 2010 Anna Mauranen Search for Translation Universals Characteristics that translations generally have began in the early mid 1990s ID: 428568
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Slide1
Translation corpora
and the quest for Translation Universals UCCTS 29.07. 2010Anna MauranenSlide2
Search for Translation Universals
Characteristics that translations generally havebegan in the early / mid -1990sroots in translation studies and corpus linguistics Toury
,
Klaudy
Blum-
Kulka
Baker,
Laviosa
Olohan
Slide3
Why ”Universals”?
Objections from Translation Studies”Translations inextricably linked to their particular contexts”Any science seeks general laws, why not Translation Studies (Chesterman
)
”Impossible to capture translations from all times and all languages” (e.g.
Tymoczko
)
What discipline has such access?Slide4
Not all translations are typical; Borderline cases of blends, shortened versions etc. (Paloposki)
Translations can import new genres to cultures, thus precede spontaneous texts in the target language/culturenot all specimens are typical, let alone ’pure’, why
not take on the reality rather than deplore the absence of purity?
“Talk rather about ‘laws’ or ‘tendencies’ (
Toury
)
Just a watered-down version of the same?
Universals are absolute, translation is probabilistic” (
Frawley
)
Are
universals absolute?
Slide5
The difference? Cf. language universals: “Language universals are by their very nature summary statements about characteristics or tendencies shared by all human speakers.” (Greenberg et al. 1966)
“...universal features of translation, that is features which
typically
occur in translated texts rather than original utterances and which are not the result of interference from specific linguistic systems.” (Baker 1993)Slide6
Universals not just
linguistic featuresA variety of ‘universals’ suggestions in linguistics E.g. Bybee (2003):“...the true language universals are universals of change.”
Most TU hypotheses phrased in process terms, as shifts;
In translation, the processes involved may be the most interesting candidates,
or, the nature of
translation as
a particular kind of language contact.Slide7
Not an exclusive
focusThe quest for universals is not the only ’core’ issue in
understanding
translation
.
Others
:
Typology
Variation
ChangeSlide8
So, why?
Theoretical interest: what is translation?Descriptive interest: what
are
translations
like
?
Applied
interest
:
can
we
improve
translations
and
translator
education
with
a
deeper
understanding
of
what
translations
tend
to
have
in common?Slide9
Data for universals research
From differently related languages:- typologically and genealogically distant- with closer typological fitDifferent kinds of corporaSlide10
Corpus types
Bi- /multilingual corporaParallel corpus Comparable corpus Texts Matched texts in the and their translations same language:
(one or multiple) translated and ‘original’/‘spontaneous’
Matched L1 and L2 texts
(no translation) Slide11
Hypotheses on Translation Universals
Early hypotheses based on small-scale studies, more recent on large-scale corpus studiesMost studied ‘explicitation’,‘
simplification’,‘conventionalization
/normalization’;
‘source language interference’
More recent
‘underrepresentation of unique target language items’, ‘untypical collocations’Slide12
Explicitation
The most widely accepted hypothesis, much support, little counterevidence
Translations more explicit than source texts,
i.e. the translation process tends to add information and linguistic
elements –
verbalise
more
Observed at different
levels
(syntax
, lexis, text)Slide13
Finnish > English
(Parallel corpus, FECCS)
Puolueen johto
oli sopinut
Kekkosen miehenä tunnetun entisen ulko- ja pääministerin
tohtori
Ahti Karjalaisen
ehdokkuudesta
ja puolueen eduskuntaryhmän enemmistö tuki häntä.
’
had
agreed
on
...
Karjalainen’s
candidacy
’
The
party
leadership
had
already
agreed
among
themselves
that
a
known
Kekkonen
follower
,
former
foreign
minister
and
prime
minister
Ahti Karjalainen,
should
be
their
candidate
.
Syntactic explicitness, e.g. degree of ‘
sentence-likeness’
increases (non-finite>finite
constructions)
(cf. also
Eskola
2004)Slide14
Explicitation
found also in other kinds of language contact, e.g
. lingua franca useSlide15
Simplification
Controversial; findings conflictingSimplification at one level may increase complexity at another.
E.g. simple main clauses
may cause complexity at text level,
reducing coherent textual flow,
making it fragmented and hard to follow.
Slide16
Studies on comparable corpora
The first corpus study supported lexical simplification (Laviosa-Braithwaite 1996): Most frequent lexis even more frequent in translations, [But no less lexical variation (type/token ratio)]
Studies on
CTF
(comparable Corpus of Translational Finnish, 10 million
wds
)
Support
Nevalainen (2005)
(CTF)
Tirkkonen-Condit
(2005)
(CTF)
translations
have
more
repeated
n-grams
:
ihan niin kuin, aivan niin kuin; samalta kuin ennenkin…
No support
Jantunen
(2004, 2005) - lexis
(CTF)
Eskola
(2004) – syntax
(CTF)Slide17
Example: degree modifiers
Jantunen (2004) : synonymous degree modifiers (
hyvin, oikein, kovin
)
E.g
.
major
collocates
of
hyvin
(Comparable corpus, CTF)
1.
Original
Finnish
adjectives
:
väsynyt, pieni
adverbs
:
hiljaa, hyvin, hitaasti, pian, varovasti
2. Translated Finnish
adjectives
:
erikoinen, hieno, kaunis, lyhyt, nuori, pieni, sairas, suuri, tyytyväinen, tärkeä, vaalea, vaarallinen, vaatimaton, vahva, vaikea, vakava, väsynyt, yksinkertainen, ylpeä
adverbs
:
harvoin, hitaasti, hyvin, kauas, korkealla, lähellä, nopeasti, pian, pitkään, selvästi, vakavasti, varhain, varovasti
more variation in translations
Slide18
Simultaneous
simplification of lexis as overall frequenciesproliferation of variety Slide19
Example: verb frequencies
Mauranen 2000 (CTF) e.g. Finnish verb HALUTA
HALUTA
,
academic
texts
Original
Finnish
46 /
mio
w
Transl
from
English
101 /
mio
w
Transl
from
other
lgs
110 /
mio
w
HALUTA
,
popular
non-fiction
Original
Finnish
19 /
mio
w
Transl
from
English
31 /
mio
wSlide20
Example: verb collocations
HALUTA Original Finnish: commonest collocate
KOROSTAA
(
‘
emphasise
’)
nearly
40% of
all
collocations
...
moniaineksisuus
ei
ole
ainoa
asia
jota
haluan
korostaa
,
‘
heterogeneity is not the only thing
I want to emphasise’
Tra
nslated
Finnish
:
KOROSTAA
less
than
8% of
all
collocations
even
though
HALUTA
itself
was
more
than
twice
as
frequent
Slide21
Instead, strongest collocate of HALUTA in translations: OSOITTAA
(
‘
show,
prove
’),
Tämän ainakin
halusin
tässä varsin luonnosmaisessa todistelussani
osoittaa
‘this at least I
wanted
to
show
in this very sketchy proof’.Slide22
But
OSOITTAA never co-occurred with HALUTA in Finnish originals where OSOITTAA collocates with PYRKIÄ
(’try’)
Koko järjestelmä on turha, kuten
olen pyrkinyt osoittamaan
.
’the whole system is unnecessary, as
I have tried to show
’Slide23
Are these findings incompatible with the “overrepresentation” of the most frequent words?
Not necessarily: items participating in the collocations may be very frequent if considered individuallySimplification more complex than first meets the eye
Postulate
untypical collocations
as a hypothetical universal
(also supported by
Jantunen
2004 and
Kemppanen
2008)Slide24
Untypical collocations and unusually high proportion of very common words also found
in
learner
language
and
lingua
franca
speech
Simultaneous
simplification of lexis (as overall frequencies)
and proliferation of variety
also in lingua franca speechSlide25
Transfer /Interference
Baker’s definition excluded interference Earlier, Toury had formulated a “law of interference” : “in translation, phenomena pertaining to the make-up of the source text tend to be transferred to the target text.” (Toury 1995)Slide26
More recently, transfer has resurfaced as a potential translation universal
E.g. Eskola (2004) on the basis of syntactic research (comparable corpus, CTF) Mauranen (2004) on the basis of lexis
(comparable corpus, CTF
)
Also
Teich
(2003) “shining-through” (?)Slide27
English and Russian Translations compared to Mixed Source Languages and Original Finnish (Mauranen 2004)Frequency bands based on rank order
(
C
omparable
Corpus of Translational Finnish, 10 million
wds
)
Difference from the reference database:
Vs.
Mixed-source Translations
vs.
Finnish
Originals
Freq. Eng Russ
S
Eng Russ
S
Band
1-30 63 71 134 75 96 171
50-79 190 115 305 87 178 265
100-129 104 51 155 167 77 244
S
357 237
594
329 351
680Slide28
Translations from different source languages had different profiles
butTranslations differed from originals more than from other translationsTransfer looks plausiblebut the remaining variation must have other explanations
Slide29
What Transfer?
SLA research: transfer from L1 affects L2 Translation studies: transfer from L2 affects L1 Recent
SLA research
: L2 influences
L1 (Cook 2003);
L2 learners have better L1 skills than monolinguals (
Kecskes
&
Papp 2000)
Transfer ubiquitous (Jarvis &
Pavlenko
2007)
Translation studies
: SL / ST influences TL /TT?Slide30
Optional vs. obligatory: personal pronouns to and from Finnish
In Finnish person referenceeither by verb inflection alone or by a combination of pronoun and inflected verbVerb inflection obligatory, pronoun optional.
Slide31
Translators often use inflected verb alone
(i.e. ‘drop pronouns’)“ I was going to wait until another time we met, but I may as well tell you now. I've decided to marry you.”
(EO)
–
Ajatteli
n
säästää
sen
johonkin
myöhempään
kertaan
,
mutta
voin
yhtä
hyvin
kertoa
sen
nytkin
. Ole
n
päättänyt
mennä
naimisiin
sinun
kanssasi
.
(FT)
But even more often they opt for pronouns.Slide32
Translations of
I, ich and minäTwo-way parallel corpus Finnish – English English – Finnish
I
→
minä
10742
→
3763 (2.9 : 1)
I
←
minä
5518
←
1471 (4.1 : 1)
Two-way parallel corpus Finnish – German
German - Finnish
ich
→
minä
2315
→
1393 (1.7 : 1)
Ich
←
minä
3850
←
942 (4.1 : 1)
(
Mauranen
&
Tiittula
2005)Slide33
In sum,
translations tend to translate pronouns in the source textThis would support text interferenceTranslations also reduce or add pronouns depending on the target language
This would support working at the level of
languageSlide34
Unique items
Tirkkonen-Condit (2000, 2004): linguistic features unique to the target language (“untranslatables”) proportionally underrepresented in translations. Slide35
Verbs of sufficiency
Tirkkonen-Condit: Finnish verbs with the semantic feature ’sufficiency’ (Comparable corpus, CTF)EHTIÄ (‘have enough time’, ‘be early enough’), JAKSAA (‘be strong enough’),
MALTTAA
(‘be patient enough’),
USKALTAA
(‘have enough courage’),
VIITSIÄ
(‘have enough initiative or energy’)
and pragmatic
clitics
(
-kin/-
kaan
, -
han
/
hän
)
All proportionally more frequent in Finnish originals than in translations. Slide36
Generic person
Similarly the Finnish ‘zero person’, i.e. 3.person verb with no pronoun and generic meaning:Ei tarvitse
sanoa
.
(
FO)
You
don't have to
say it.
(ET
)
‘
there’s no need to say
it’
For generic meaning,
translators tend to use
more pronouns
where original Finnish employs the zero person (
Mauranen
&
Tiittula
2005)Slide37
Unique lexical items:
keli, kinos and hankiKujamäki (2004): text first translated into German and English, Then students translated into Finnish (experimental study)
…
lumi
muuttui
rännäksi
ja
keli
vain
paheni
…
tien
viereen
jäi
jo
matalia
kinoksia
.
…
pian
löysin
itseni
ja
autoni
hangesta
.
…conditions… / ..die
Strassenverhältnisse
…
…a low
snowbank
…/…
ansehnlichen
Häufchen
…
…in a
snowdrift… /
im
Schnee
…Slide38
keli
- die Strassenverhältnisse/ conditions 36
tie/
liikenne
/
ajo
-
olosuhteet
,
katujen
/
teiden
kunto
,
tiet
,
sääolot
…
25
keli
olosuhteet
,
ajo
keli
,
keli
11
kinos
-
den
Schnee
…
Häufchen
/
snowbank
36
(
lunta
)…
kasoiksi
/-
hin
,
töyräiksi
,
penkoiksi
,
tienreunaan
;
lumikasat
…
23
lumi
kinoksiksi
; (
lunta
)…
kinoksiksi
,
lumi
kinos
,
kinosti
lunta
13
hanki
-
...
im
Schnee
/ …stuck in a
snowdrift
36
lumen …
keskellä
,
saartamana
,
ympäröimänä
;
keskellä
…
lumipenkkaa
/-
kasaa
/-
sohjoa
/-
kinosta
;… 23
keskellä
lumi
hankea
;
lumi
hangessa
13Slide39
Underrepresentation of TL unique items – simplification or something else?
Would seem to suggest some sort of suppression of the TL – even though it’s the translator’s “best” languageSlide40
Conclusion
Three important things:
Data
Language
contact
Cross-linguistic influenceSlide41
Data
Different kinds of corpora and a broad range of languages (also non-IE)
bring out regularity and
variation in translation
Slide42
Language
ContactTranslation
universals
deepen
our
understanding
of
language
contact
Shared
features
:
Translation
, L2
learning
and L2
use
-
untypical
collocations
-
very
high
proportion of
commonest
words
Translation and lingua franca communication
-
enhanced explicitness
-
simultaneous
simplification and increased variety in lexis
Language
contact
leads
to
cross-linguistic
influenceSlide43
Cross-linguistic influence
Translation is bilingual processing;It seems to suppress some processes and activate others compared to monolingual processing
activates rare collocates
and
rare syntactic structures
suppresses TL-specific phenomena
(‘unique items’)Slide44
Transfer /interference /shining-through
highly plausible even if not the whole story
Cross-linguistic influence
takes many forms and is omnipresent (Jarvis
&
Pavlenko
2007)
Translation studies: SL / ST influences TL /TT
?Slide45
In all:
Translations share many typical features,but they are neither simple nor
pure
Much remains to be discovered about the product and
the processes