Contrastive Linguistics, Translation, and Parallel Corpora

This paper regards parallel corpora as suitable sources of data for investigating the differences and similarities between languages, and adopts the notion of translation equivalence as a methodology for contrastive analysis. It uses a bidirectional parallel corpus of Norwegian and English texts to examine the behaviour of presentative English there-constructions as well as the Norwegian equivalent det-constructions in original and translated English, and original and translated Norwegian respectively.Cet article traite des corpus parallèles comme source utile de données pour l'étude des différences et similarités entre des langues. La notion d'équivalence traductionnelle sert de méthodologie pour l'analyse contrastive. À partir d'un corpus parallèle bidirectionnel de textes norvégiens et anglais, on examine le comportement des constructions présentatives anglaises (there) et celui des constructions équivalentes norvégiennes (det) dans des textes en anglais et en norvégien tant originaux que traduits

Comparing n-gram-based functional categories in original versus translated texts

This study outlines and tests a method for comparing the use of functional categories consisting of high-frequency 3-grams in original and translated texts. The 3-grams are extracted from a corpus of contemporary English fiction texts (EO) and a comparable corpus of fiction texts translated into English from Norwegian (ET). The two varieties contain the same number of texts, thirty-nine, and about the same number of words, 1.3 to 1.4 million. Several different baselines against which to normalise the 3-gram frequencies are tested and a way of evening out the initial differences between the token counts of EO and ET is proposed. These last two points have an impact on the extent to which some of the categories differ statistically. On the basis of the comparison of the token counts of the 3-grams extracted for the study, it seems that most differences are a matter of degree, rather than being systemic at the level of the functions investigated

Contrastive Analysis, Tertium Comparationis and Corpora

This paper highlights the importance of a common ground, or tertium comparationis, in order to establish unbiased cross-linguistic equivalence in contrastive studies. Following an outline of the two main types of corpora used in contrastive analysis—comparable and parallel bidirectional—a discussion of how they relate to different tertia comparationis is presented. This is further illustrated in a case study where the same phenomenon is investigated based on the two types of corpora. It is concluded that a bidirectional parallel corpus, relying on both comparable monolingual and bidirectional translation data, may yield more robust insights into cross-linguistic matters than either of the two on their own

A functional comparison of recurrent word-combinations in English original vs. translated texts

The study explores the potential of quantitative methods to shed light on how texts originally written in English (EO) and texts translated into English (ET) from Norwegian cluster in terms of functional classes. The object of study are sequences of three words (3-grams), classified into 15 functional categories. The investigation establishes that EO and ET do not differ significantly in half of the categories. As for the categories that do differ, two (Comparison and Spatial) are investigated in more detail, uncovering that the more frequent use of Comparison and Spatial 3-grams in ET is most likely a result of source language shining through. The findings are important in the context of both descriptive translation studies and translation-based contrastive studies. With regard to the former, the current study shows that, in many cases, ET does not seem to constitute a ‘third code’ at the level of 3-gram functions, since the same functions are equally attested in EO. As far as contrastive studies are concerned, the investigation reveals few, if any, lexico-grammatical differences between EO and ET that overturn the belief that translations are a good tertium comparationis when comparing and contrasting language systems

From Babylon to Bergen: On the usefulness of aligned texts

After outlining a short and select history of (the usefulness of) parallel texts and alignment, this paper presents a case study where the point of departure is a Norwegian text extract aligned against its translations into seven different target languages, using the Translation Corpus Aligner, originally developed by Knut Hofland. Our main concern is cases where there is not a one-to-one correspondence at sentence level between original (source) and translation (target) text. We seek to answer questions such as why a translator, translating into a specific language has chosen to split, or merge, a sentence in the source texts, while translators, translating into other languages have chosen not to do so. The study shows that a multitude of contributing factors seem to be involved , including author and translator style, target language constraints and preferences and perhaps even country- or language-specific translation guidelines. Keywords: alignment; parallel texts; contrastive analysis; corpora; translation strategie

On the transiation of Engush there-sentences into Norwegian and Portuguese. What does a translation corpus tell us?

The purpose of this article is to give examples of uses  of translation corpora. A translation corpus is an ideal  tool in  contrastive studies, in  translation studies, and  more  generally  in grammar teaching. We focus  here on the first of these  applications, and  study how English there-sentences are  translated into  Norwegian  and  Por­ tuguese. Our  findings  show  how  translators translating into different languages resort  to similar translation strat­egies. The differences  found  in the  translations are  partly due  to grammatical restrictions in  the  target languages, but  we cannot rule  out  that  there  may  be  different  approaches to the  translating process as well.Este artigo propõe-se oferecer ilustrações do uso de córpus de tradução. Um córpus de tradução constitui uma ferramenta ideal para estudos contrastivos, para estudos tradutológicos e, mais genericamente, para o ensino de gramática. No presente trabalho, a ênfase maior se dá sobre a primeira dessas vertentes, analisando de que modo as orações iniciadas por there em inglês se traduzem para o norueguês e para o português. As observações indicam de que  modo os tradutores que trabalham com idiomas diferentes recorrem a estratégias tradutórias similares. As diferenças observadas nas traduções devem-se em parte a restrições gramaticais da língua alvo, mas não se pode excluir a possibilidade de estarem sendo adotadas abordagens diferentes do processo tradutório

Patterns in contrast /

Met register en bibliografi

Patterns in Contrast

Combining the fields of phraseology and contrastive analysis, this book describes how patterns, defined as recurrent word-combinations with semantic unity, behave cross-linguistically. As the contrastive approach adopted in the book relies on translations and a bidirectional corpus model, the first part offers an in-depth discussion of contrastive linguistics, with special emphasis on using translations as tertium comparationis and a parallel corpus as the main source of material. Central to the contrastive analysis is the use of corpus-linguistic methods in the identification of patterns, while a deeper understanding of the phraseological nature of the patterns is closely related to the concept of extended units of meaning. The second part of the book presents five case studies, using an easy-to-follow step-by-step method to illustrate the phraseological-contrastive approach at work. The studies show that patterns weave an intricate web of meanings across languages and demonstrate the potential of exploring patterns in contrast