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A top-down approach to identifying Distinctive lexis in translation

A top-down approach to identifying Distinctive lexis in translation. Ana Frankenberg-Garcia ISLA,Lisbon. Traditional view of translations. Inferior Contaminated by source text Severe contamination = translationese “odd, unnatural language which only appears in translations”.

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A top-down approach to identifying Distinctive lexis in translation

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  1. A top-down approach to identifyingDistinctive lexis in translation Ana Frankenberg-Garcia ISLA,Lisbon

  2. Traditional view of translations • Inferior • Contaminated by source text • Severe contamination = translationese “odd, unnatural language which only appears in translations”

  3. Translation scholars differ • Translations are not automatically inferior • Constraints of source-text language inevitable but not necessarily negative • Frawley’s third code (1984) • translations different from source texts • also different from non-translated texts • deserve being studied in their own right

  4. A less well-known third-code feature • Distinctive distribution of lexis • Shama’a (1978) • day & say in English translated from Arabic: twice as frequent than in non-translated English • Tirkkonnen-Condit (2004) • Finnish verbs of sufficiency: less frequent in translations than in non-translated Finnish

  5. Distinctive distribution of lexis • Over-represented lexis • words markedly more frequent in translations than in non-translated texts • Under-represented lexis • words noticeably less frequent in translations than in non-translated texts

  6. How to identify distinctive lexis? Bottom-up approach • start with a lexical item • frequency in translated and non-translated text • Shama’a’s (1978) day & say • Tirkkonen-Condit’s (2004) Finnish verbs of sufficiency • But which lexical items are worthy of this comparison? • Informed decisions needed at the outset • Bilinguals • Translators • Foreign language teachers

  7. Intuitions regarding Portuguese translated from English • Adverbs ending in mente (Bastos 2008) • simplesmente [simply] • exatamente [exactly] • perfeitamente [perfectly] • absolutamente [absolutely] • Verbs (Tagnin 2008) • poder[can/may] • Adjectives • diferente[different] • possível[possible]

  8. Bottom-up approach can have limitations • Under-represented words escaped perception • Over-represented words can be missed too This study: Exploratory, top-down approach • Confirm existing bottom-up intuitions • Find out about distinctive lexis not visible to the naked eye

  9. Method • Bottom-up approach • start with a lexical item (informed decisions) • compare frequency in translated and non-translated texts • This top-down approach • start with comparable corpus of translated & non-translated texts • identify over and under-represented words

  10. Method Corpus • COMPARA 10.0 (Frankenberg-Garcia & Santos 2003) • Parallel, bi-directional corpus of English and Portuguese literary texts (3 million words) • www.linguateca.pt/COMPARA EN-ST PT-TT PT-ST EN-TT Comparable corpus of original & translated Portuguese

  11. Method Corpus • 39 Portuguese originals (635 K words) • 32 Portuguese translations (733 K words) • No distinction between different varieties of Portuguese • may have affected some of the results

  12. Method Portuguese part of COMPARA annotated with PALAVRAS parser (Bick 2000) • Distribution of lemmas • Conjunctions, prepositions • Broader POS categories for • Nouns (excluding proper nouns) • Adjectives • Verbs • Adverbs

  13. Method • Noun lemmas (excluding proper nouns) • Adjective lemmas • Verb lemmas • Adverb lemmas Translated-PT 733K words Original-PT 635K words Threshold over 10 hits per 100K words in at least one sub-corpus 482 nouns 113 adjectives 309 verbs 99 adverbs

  14. Method 482 nouns 113 adjectives 309 verbs 99 adverbs • Alternate spellings counted as one e.g. direção/direcção [direction] • Loan words excluded e.g. sir • Lemmas with over 1/3 hits from single author excluded e.g. cego [blind] (in Saramago’s Blindness)

  15. Method 482 nouns 113 adjectives 309 verbs 99 adverbs Criteria At least 2X more frequent in translated-PT = over-represented in translations At least 2X more frequent in original-PT = under-represented in translations Distribution in Translated-PT Distribution Original-PT Frequencies per 100 K words compared

  16. Distinctive nouns Translated-PT 42 over-represented 49 under-represented 482 nouns • + abstract • gênero, fato, problema, possibilidade, discussão, dificuldade, procura, • oportunidade, questão • + manner • tom, modo, expressão, aspecto, atitude • + groups • bocado, membro, grupo, lista, maioria type, fact, problem, possibility, discussion, search, opportunity, question • - humans • sobrinho, moço, menino, velha, soldado, menina, velho, padre, senhora, dono, senhor, primo • - Portuguese psyche • saudade, lembrança, alma, tristeza nephew, young man, boy, old woman, soldier, girl, old man, priest, lady, owner, gentleman, cousin tone, manner, expression, aspect, atitude nostalgia, souvenir, soul, sadness bit, member, group, list, majority

  17. Distinctive adjectives Translated-PT 12 over-represented 11 under-represented 113 adjectives • + evaluative/abstract • calmo, maravilhoso, evidente, familiar, pessoal, especial, horrível, suficiente, principal • - visible/concrete • gordo, grosso, igual, nu, morto, rico calm, wonderful, obvious, familiar, personal, special, horrible, enough, main fat, thick, equal, naked, dead, rich - feelings triste, alegre unhappy, happy

  18. Distinctive verbs Translated-PT 32 over-represented 19 under-represented 309 verbs • - dramatic, literary verbs • vencer, fugir, beijar, cantar, quebrar, sonhar, amar, roubar, chorar, matar, morrer, nascer • + link verbs • encontrar-se, constituir, tornar-se, sentir-se, sentir-me, manter • + reporting verbs • revelar, exclamar, lamentar, sugerir, comentar, replicar • + movement verbs • inclinar-se, regressar, dirigir-se, baixar, virar-se, apanhar, apoiar, acenar, abanar • + verbs preceding other verbs • tentar, conseguir, permitir win, escape, kiss, sing, break, dream, love, steal, cry, kill, die, be born find oneself/be, constitute, become, feel, keep reveal, exclaim, regret, suggest, comment, reply bend, return, turn to, lower, turn, pick up, lean, wave, shake try, manage, allow

  19. Distinctive adverbs Translated-PT 13 over-represented 10 under-represented 99 adverbs • + adverbs of manner • (many ending in mente) • demasiado, profundamente, bastante, claro, absolutamente, completamente, simplesmente, perfeitamente, imediatamente, exatamente • + adverbs of time & frequency • enfim, logo, ora, ontem, jamais, amanhã, hoje too, deeply, rather/quite, clearly, absolutely, completely, simply, perfectly, immediately, exactly at last, soon, at times, yesterday, never, tomorrow, today

  20. Near synomyms with contrastive distributions Translated-PT Original-PT rapariga menina [girl] recordação lembrança [souvenir] escola colégio [school] compreender entender [understand] apanhar recolher [gather/catch] completamente todo/toda [completely] ------------------------------ 1.5 ------------------------------------------------------------ edifício prédio [building] enorme imenso [huge] recordar lembrar [remember] reparar notar [notice] observar examinar [observe] decidir resolver [decide] obrigar mandar [force/order] manter guardar [keep] finalmente enfim/afinal [finally]

  21. Were initial intuitions confirmed? • Adverbs ending in mente (Bastos 2008) • simplesmente [simply] 2.9 • exactamente [exactly] 2.3 • perfeitamente [perfectly] 2.7 • absolutamente [absolutely] 3.8 • Verbs (Tagnin 2008) • poder[can/may] 1.2 • conseguir [manage] 2.2 • permitir [allow] 2.1 • Adjectives • diferente[different] 1.7 • possível[possible] 1.9

  22. What else did I learn? • Translations had too many - Abstract nouns & abstract, evaluative adjectives - Nouns depicting manner & adverbs of manner - Nouns depicting groups or group membership - Reporting, movement & link verbs & verbs preceding other verbs • Translations did not have enough • Human nouns & concrete/visible adjectives • Dramatic verbs & adjectives depicting feelings • Words related to Portuguese psyche • Adverbs of time & frequency • Near synonyms with contrastive distributions • translated-PT seeming to prefer the more formal of the two

  23. Caveats • Analysis based on lemmas is very general • Word inflections? • Polysemous lemmas? • Lemmas do not tell the whole story e.g. acenar [wave] →acenar a cabeça [nod]

  24. Conclusion Top-down approach • generally confirmed existing bottom-up intuitions • disclosed novel, unexpected semantic & cultural contrasts Findings • may have an impact on • multilingual-text processing • machine translation • translation aids • translator education I hope the present methodology and findings will stimulate further research in the area 

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