Transcript Translation Studies

Translation Studies
7. Cohesion in translation
Krisztina Károly, Spring, 2006
Source: Klaudy & Károly, 2000
Introduction
Aim of any aspiring translator: to reflect
faithfully the global meaning
communicated by the source text
Motivation for this investigation: a remark
by Neubert and Shreve (1992):
”the argument for a textual approach to
translation rests to a great degree on the
notion of global textual meaning. It is the
global meaning of translation,
recontextualized as an L2 text, that must
be matched to the original global meaning
of the source text” (p. 139)
This study
will argue that one of the means by which
this ”match” may be realized is through
concrete markers of cohesion identifiable
on the textual surface (lexical repetition)
aims to demonstrate that the partly revised
version of Hoey’s (1991) repetition model,
which, via the systematic analysis of lexical
repetition can capture the
macropropositions of texts, is capable of
indicating the quality difference between
translations.
The analytical tool
Starting point = Hoey’s (1991) repetition
model
the greater part of cohesion is the product
of lexical rather than grammatical relations
perceives lexical relations as various forms
of lexical repetition, serving to show the
relatedness of sentences, which produce
elaborate patternings in texts
sentences are connected if they share at
least three points of reference, i.e. three
repetition links
can distinguish between ”central and
marginal sentences”
Types of repetition
2 main types of repetition:
(1) lexical repetition (simple and complex)
(2) paraphrase (simple and complex)
”lexical items form links, and sentences
sharing three or more links form bonds”
bonding is a useful tool because it helps
identify adjacent or non-adjacent related
sentences in texts, and the nets they
combine can reflect the organization of the
text
Revised taxonomy of repetitions
(Károly, 1998, 2002)
exempt from the weaknesses of the
original model and has been shown to
be able to predict quality differences
in English written discourse
basic unit of analysis = the ”lexical
unit” (= a unit whose meaning cannot
be compositionally derived from the
meaning of its constituent elements)
Lexical unit:
(a) one-word units, such as dog, invite,
happy, including compounds such as
outnumber, teapot, blackbird, darkroom,
and lazy-bones,
(b) idioms (e.g., a bitter pill, hit and miss)
including idiomatic and phrasal verbs
(e.g., let down, do sth up),
(c) phrasal compounds: words often used
together to refer to a unique concept
composable from the meaning of the
individual words in the expression.
Examples of this are National Theater,
black box, electrical engineer, bank
holiday, high winds, conscientious
objector, dark brown, and burning hot.
Categories of repetition
See handout
Method
Texts submitted to analysis
Procedures of analysis
Texts submitted to analysis: 3 types
(1) an original English newspaper
article (i.e. ST) of approximately 250
words
(2) its 10 Hungarian translations made
by professional translators and
(3) its 10 Hungarian translations written
by trainee translators
Procedures of data analysis
(1) the texts were segmented into sentences and
sentences were numbered,
(2) the structural components of the text were identified to
be able to investigate whether sentences with special
discourse function (e.g., the one which states the
"problem") participate in bonding or not:
- situation (introduces background material)
- problem (the statement of the undesirable condition of
things: claim, justification)
- solution (statement of the desirable condition,
induction)
- evaluation
(3) the repetition links between each and every sentence
were identified and classified,
(4) repetition bonds between sentences were identified,
(5) repetition links and bonds within the texts were
counted.
+ inter-coder reliability checked + t-tests
Sample analysis
See handout
Results
Quantity of various types of repetition
The repetition use of professional
translators resembles that of the ST
more than the novice translators' use
(especially simple repetition)
Reason: ST is a highly factual, informative
type of text, to reflect faithfully its global
meaning, the translator cannot avoid
the verbatim repetition of particular
lexical units, the same way as it is done
in the original English text
Results cont.
The combination of repetition links and
bonds
(1) professional translations' mean values are
closer to the ST's values, and the novice
translators differ more considerably 
professional translators "weave" the text via
the use of repetitions and bonding in a more
similar way to the ST than novice translators
do
(2) t-tests: the two groups of translators differ in
their strategies of using intersentential links
and bonding  the number of links and
bonds + the number of central sentences are
significantly higher in the professional
translations than in the work of novice
translators
“Repetition matrices”
density of bonds: professional
translations (similarly to the ST) 
novice translations
amount bonds among key sentences:
professional translations (similarly to
the ST)  novice translations
title: professional translators seem to
integrate the title more heavily into the
text via bonding (as done in the ST)
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