Linking Words - Riassunto Lingua e Traduzione - Lingua inglese  PDF

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linguistica generale inglese e strategie di traduzione...

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STRUCTURE OF WORDS The vocabulary or lexis of a language is made up of all the words in that language. Words can stand alone as a complete unit of meaning and they can be built up out of smaller units of meaning called morphemes. Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of words in terms of morphemes. The morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language and the smallest unit of analysis of sentence and word structure. Morphemes can be free or bound: a free morpheme can occur on its own as a word without any additional element, whereas a bound morpheme can occur only with one or more other morphemes. Most bound morphemes are affixes: prefixes when they precede a free morpheme and suffixes when they follow the free morpheme. For example discontent, intolerable, uncommon. Most English affixes are of two types: inflectional affixes (-s,-ed,-ing,…) that are always suffixes and signal grammatical relationship or category for example the number, case, person, aspect; derivational affixes (un-,in-,-ty,-aholic,…) can be either prefixes or suffixes and may signal a different meaning of the free morpheme, its opposite or can imply a change of class of the word. The three main process of word formation in English are: -

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Inflection that involves the use of inflectional suffixes and gives rise to inflected words such as plural nous, nouns in the Saxon genitive form expressing possession or origin, verbs in the past tense, in the present or past participle forms and in the present third person singular form as well as comparative and superlative adjectives. Derivation involves the use of derivational prefixes or/and suffixes and gives rise to derived words. Examples are grammatical conversion such as abstract nouns derived from concrete nouns (pilgrimpilgrimage), adverbs derived from adjectives (essential-essentially), verbs derived from adjectives (realty-realize), concrete nouns from abstract nouns (art-artist), nouns derived from verbs (playplayer), adjectives from nouns (glory-glorious), adjectives from verbs (love-lovable). Compounding involves combining two or more free morphemes and gives rise to compound words such as playwriter, work of art, football field, audiovisual…

Morphemic analysis is the analysis of words into morphemes that can be represented within curly brackets using descriptive designation for inflections and capital letters for free morpheme and derivational affixes. The most common translation procedure adopted to overcome such differences is a paraphrase, because sometimes there are no direct equivalents of some of the words or expressions that are created using a particular derivational affix that exists in both source and target language. The Italian equivalents of the English suffix {-ER} are {-TORE} and {-TRICE}, but the English {EURO} is translated in Italian exactly in the same way. Lack of equivalence often occurs with compounds, for example buzzword (“a word that has become very popular”) has no direct equivalent in Italian, therefore it can be translated with a paraphrase such as espressione tecnica di moda, slogan del momento. Finally, in Italian adverbs derived from adjectives by adding the suffix {MENTE} correspond to those in English created by adding {-LY}. However there are syntactic rules which are different from one language to another, in English it is possible to find two adverbs ending with the suffix {-LY}, but in Italian it is not possible to find two adverbs in {MENTE}.

LEXICAL AND SENSE RELATIONS In the vocabulary of any language words are linked together by lexical or syntagmatic relations and sense or paradigmatic relations. Lexical relations concern the co-occurrence of words that may be semantically unrelated, sense relations are concerned with how words relate to each other in terms of their meaning. Collocation is the tendency of certain words to occur together regularly in a given language and for this reason they are called collocates. With collocational range we refer to the set of collocates that usually accompany a given word called node. For example the word spend strongly collocates with money and time, there are some collocation that are stronger than others. When a word is polysemic, each meaning will have its own collocational range. It is associated with language variety since the different collocates depend on that. Collocation plays an important role in the study of English lexis because it is present in almost every spoken or written utterance. Synonymy is the relationship that links words that have the same or almost the same meaning in a particular context. Words that are synonymous with one another are called synonyms. Synonyms are made up of several components: -

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The propositional meaning of a word relates to what a word refers to in a concrete or abstract world. The expressive meaning of a word relates to the speaker’s feelings and attitudes. An interjection such as yuck is used for saying that “you think someone or something is unpleasant” (Oh, yuck!), or oops, bloody. Evoked meaning arises from variation in dialect and register. Dialect is a variety of language that is used only in a particular geographical area, in different periods in the history of a language or by a particular social group.

Register is a variety of language that a speaker or writer considers appropriate in a particular situational context, whose relevant components are field of discourse (refers to what is going on in the situational context), tenor of discourse (refers to the interpersonal and social relationships between the people taking part in the situational context) and mode of discourse (refers to the role the language is playing and medium of transmission). All of these affect the lexical and grammatical features of the language used. Words that are synonyms not always can be substituted. For example yes, yeah, yep they all convey the same meaning , but yes is neutral with regard to expressive meaning and tenor of discourse and is not associated with a particular mode of discourse, while yeah and yep are used informally and in the spoken mode. Usually yeah can be also found collocated with other words to express irony: yeah right means “for saying that you do not believe what someone has just told you”. Polysemic words express more than one propositional meaning. Antonymy is the relationship that links antonyms, that is words that are opposite in meaning in a particular context. There are different types of anonymy: -

Gradable anonymys that are opposites that can be graded such as large, small, happy, sad, wet. Ungradable antonyms (or complementary anonyms) are opposites that cannot be graded such as dead, alive, single and married.

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Converse antonyms are opposites that are mutually dependent on one another such as buy, sell, over, under, brother, sister, give, receive.

A polysemic word may have a different antonym for each of its senses. Hyponymy is the relationship that links a specific to a general word when the specific word, called hyponym, is included in the general word, called hypernym or superordinate (American football, tennis, volleyball, cricket are all ball sport). The groups of words that are linked by a relationship of hyponymy form a semantic field such as the field of sports, plants, animals, vehicles, games and so on and the words at the same level of taxonomy are called co-hyponyms. Semantic fields are abstract concept, the actual words that make up a semantic field form a lexical set. Translators and learners during the process of translation or learning use the concept of semantic fields because it helps to organize the vocabulary. Languages may have collocations that convey the same or a similar meaning but are different in form. Some collocations are culture-specific or culture-bound that is they express ideas linked to cultural situations that may be unfamiliar to the speakers of another language, in this case the translator may increase the information conveyed in the target text or change the original meaning or omit the utterance altogether as a result of the inevitable tension between accuracy and fluency in translation. Examples: Agriturismo or Masseria (businesses offering farmhouse holidays). Many cases of non-equivalence at word level between source and target language concern a mismatch in propositional meaning. The concept may relate to a religious belief, a social custom, and a type of food, dwelling, dance and so on. Another way of dealing with this type on non-equivalence is the use of a loan word or borrowed term enclosed in single inverted commas. Another common translation procedure is the use of a loan word followed by an explanation. OTHER SENSE RELATIONS There are other sense relations that are fundamental to the organization of vocabulary, namely homonymy and polysemy. Homonymy is the relationship that links homonyms, words that have the same sound and spelling but different meanings. Polysemy is the term used to refer to the different meanings conveyed by the same word. Words that have more than one propositional meaning are called polysemous or polysemic word as opposed to monosemous or monosemic words. Metaphor is a figurative expression that enables us to talk of one thing in terms of another. A metaphor is different from a simile which is another figurative expression that makes an explicit comparison between two things. Thousands of words are used metaphorically in English, not only poetic language, but also in everyday language and specialized registers: he’s gone made for her, she drives me crazy so in this case LOVE is the topic and MADNESS is the vehicle. It is really important for learners and translators to learn how to interpret metaphors in one’s mother tongue since they are devised for creating and extending meaning. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson claim that our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature, the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. Wordplay cannot always be translated in the target language with an equivalent pun. There are some options: -

The source text pun is translated with a target language pun which may be more or less different from the original wordplay in form or meaning;

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The pun is rendered by a non-punning phrase which may relay the full meaning of the pun or part of it; The pun is replaced by a related rhetorical device, such as repetition, alliteration, rhyme, irony, paradox, which aims to recapture the effect of the source text pun; The part of the text containing the pun is omitted; The translator reproduces the source text pun in its original formulation, so without translating it at all; The translator introduces a pun in textual positions where the original text has no wordplay, by way of compensation to make up for source text puns elsewhere; Additional of totally new textual element; Explanatory footnotes or endnotes or comments in the preface.

These procedures are suggested by Dirk Delabastita and can be combined too. The main challenges for a translator are: -

Recognizing metaphors, Distinguishing creative and conventional metaphors, Identifying relevant features and interpret them correctly, Find a correct equivalent metaphor in the TL

Peter Newmark suggests 8 procedures for translating metaphors: -

Reproducing the same image in the TL in the appropriate register, Replacing the image in the SL with a standard TL image which does not clash with the TL culture, Translating metaphor by simile, Translating metaphor by simile plus literal sense by adding explanations, Conversion of metaphor in its literal sense, Modification of metaphor, Deletion, Same metaphor combined with literal sense.

MULTI-WORD UNITS In the vocabulary of a given language there are not only changing units, but also fixed or frozen expressions that are complete units of meaning made up of more than one word. They are known as multi-word units or chunks are semantically equivalent to single words and represent a single lexical item. There are namely two types of multi-word units: idioms and lexical phrases. An idiom is a multi-word unit whose meaning cannot be generally inferred from the meaning of the individual words this is why it is often difficult to understand the sense of an idiomatic expression. Unless the speaker is playing with words, he or she cannot change the order of the words, omit a word, replace a word with another or change the grammatical structure when it comes to an idiom. There are different types of idioms: -

Those which refer to unreal events or conditions (it’s raining cats and dogs, be in a strew) Those which do not follow the grammatical rules of the language (blow someone or something to kingdom come, the power that be) Those which have a simile-like structure (like water off a duck’s back, as thick as two short planks)

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Those that have a literal meaning and one or more idiomatic meanings (to pull somebody’s legs, to have cold feet, to go out with somebody, take someone for a ride). These idioms are often used in wordplay. Those that have an apparently direct equivalent in the learner’s or translator’s native language but have a different meaning (be out in the street)

In order to recognize these idioms the translator or learner can rely on their sets of collocates which are different for each set of words. A lexical phrase is a multi-word unit whose meaning can be generally inferred from the meaning of the individual words. Lexical phrases are chunks of language of varying length and complexity that are semantically transparent and perform functions such as expressing time, contrast, relationships between ideas. Polywords are short lexical phrases that allow no variability and are continuous. They are associated with a wide variety of functions such as expressing evaluation, relating one topic to another, summarizing and shifting topics. Institutionalized expressions are lexical phrases of sentence length, they are invariable and mostly continuous. They include proverbs and formulas for social interaction (nice meeting you). Phrasal constraints are short lexical phrases that allow variation and are mostly continuous (a month ago, good morning, your sincerely). Sentence builders are lexical phrases that provide framework for whole sentences. They allow considerable variation and are both continuous and discontinuous (not only…but also, that reminds me of…, in my opinion, my point is that…). Similarly to single words, idioms and lexical phrases may have no equivalents in the target language, particularly when they are culture-specific. The Italian common expression buon appetito is link to Italian habits at meal and in English there is not a direct equivalence. It can be formulated in other ways such as I hope it’s alright, I hope you like it, enjoy your meal. The same happens with the English pie. There are 5 common translation procedures used by professional translators when translating idioms: -

Using an idiom of similar meaning and form; Using an idiom of similar meaning, but dissimilar form, Translation by paraphrase, Translation by omission, Compensation that involves the omission of an idiom at the point where it occurs in the source text and introducing it somewhere else in the TT.

WORD CLASSES I In every language words can be classified in words classes or parts of speech on the basis of their semantic, morphological and syntactic features. These classes are namely five: nouns, adverbs, adjectives, verbs and pronouns. Nouns refer to concrete or abstract objects as well as people and animals. Most English nouns express the category of number with the inflectional suffix –(e)s and they can be followed also by the possessive case ‘s. The most common derivational suffixes are those that form a noun from an adjective such as –ness, -er,

-ty,-tion,-ment. There are different categories of nouns: common and proper nouns. Common nouns are further subdivided into countable and uncountable nouns. A common noun is the most typical noun and can always form a phrase with the definite article the. Proper nouns are names of persons, places and organizations, they are always spelt with a capital letter and do not form the plural except for family names (The Simpsons) and days of the week. Countable nouns have the plural form, whereas uncountable nouns do not have it and cannot be counted (furniture, people, information, business, bread). Collective nouns refer to group of people and can be followed by a verb in the singular form or in the plural form. Pronouns are words used to replace nouns to refer to a person, thing, situation, place or animal that has been mentioned earlier. There are different sub-classes of pronouns: personal, indefinite, reflexive, reciprocal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative and relative. Some indefinite pronouns are compounds consisting of some, any, every combining with thing, one, body. Other indefinite pronouns such as many, more, both, most, some, any, neither may be followed by the preposition of + a personal pronoun in the object case as in Peter reads several book, but he doesn’t like any of them. Relative pronouns are used to replace a noun or a pronoun mentioned in the main clause and usually is used for emphasis, there are also relative pronouns that do not refer to a specific nouns or pronoun within the same sentence but refer back to a whole idea or to an antecedent that is not expressed. Reciprocal pronouns express a two-way relationship and include pronouns such as one other, each other. Possessive pronouns show who something belongs to, they occur alone as full nouns phrases as in that book is mine. The English demonstrative pronouns are this and that, these and those. Interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions: who, what, where, why, when, which. Verbs are words referring to actions, processes, states or events. There are two main classes of verbs: lexical verbs and auxiliary verbs. Lexical verbs are those denoting a clear and independent meaning, where auxiliary verbs accompany a lexical verb and are of two types: modal verbs or primary verbs. Modal verbs express the speaker’s judgment about the likelihood of a given event, action, process or state. They are further subdivided into core modals: can-could, may-might, will-would, must and marginal modals dare, need, ought to, used to. Primary verbs can occur both as lexical or auxiliary verbs and are be, have, do. The base form of a lexical verb corresponds to its entry in a dictionary and it is used in the present tense except for the third person singular which is formed by adding the inflectional suffix –s. All regular verbs form the past simple tense and the past participle by adding the inflectional suffix –ed to the base form while the present participle is formed by adding the inflectional suffix –ing. The to-infinitive, the bare infinitive, the present participle and the past participle are non-finite verbs, while all other forms are called finite. There are irregular lexical verbs. Adjectives are words denoting qualities or states relating to things like shape, taste, colour, judgments or size. Typical adjectives are gradable and the inflectional suffixes –er,-est are added to the base form to express two higher degrees: comparative and superlative. Some one-syllable adjectives have irregular forms for the comparative and the superlative (good, better, best – much, many – old, elder, eldest). There are several suffixes that form adjectives from nouns –ful, -less,-y,-ish,-able,-al (childish, stressful, phenomenal, moody). Adjectives are used attributively when they precede a noun, predicatively when they follow a verb, postpositively when they follow a noun or an indefinite pronoun. Adverbs are words describing a verb, an adjective or another adverb. Adverbs of manner answer the question how?, they are the most common adverbs and can usually be recognized by their derivational suffix –ly which follows an adjective. Adverbs of degree answer the question to what extent?. Adverbs of time,...