Translating accurately or sounding natural? The interpreters’ challenges due to semantic typology and the interpreting process

Police interview interpreting is a complex task, as interpreters make difficult choices under pressure and time constraints. The main dilemma of the interpreter is whether to remain faithful to the original text, with the risk of rendering non-idiomatic translations, or to give preference to more idiomatic versions that may entail an addition or an omission from the original text. This article presents an analysis of Spanish-English bilingual police interviews in California. The analysis is based on the discrepancies found between an interpreter present in the interrogation and a control interpreter who translates the whole interview post-hoc. This is an original methodology that can be used for future research in this and other contexts. The results show different types of inaccuracies in the interpretation, which can be attributed to contextual pressures and overall challenges of interpreting and to challenges related to typological differences between the two languages involved

Variation in motion events: Theory and applications

This chapter analyses the role of intratypological and dialectal variation in the lexicalisation of motion events (Talmy 1991, 2000) and its application to second language acquisition. The first part discusses intratypological variation with respect to the semantic component of Path and proposes a cline of Path salience on the basis of twenty-one languages. Then, it describes dialectal variation in Spanish and Aragonese. Results show that dialects within these two Romance languages differ in the type of linguistic resources they use as well as in their quality and quantity. The second part briefly reviews some L2 problematic areas that can benefit from these approaches such as conceptual transfer, deixis, and idiomaticity. Examples are drawn from L2 Spanish and L2 Basque

The role of force dynamics and intentionality in the reconstruction of L2 verb meanings:A Danish-Spanish bidirectional study

This paper examines the role of force dynamics and intentionality in the description of placement events by two groups of native speakers of typologically and genetically different languages, Danish and Spanish, and by two groups of intermediate adult learners, Danish learners of L2 Spanish and Spanish learners of L2 Danish. The results of the study showed that (a) force dynamics and intentionality are important semantic components in both languages, but their distribution and relative focus differed crosslinguistically, and (b) the two learner groups had difficulties in reconstructing the meanings of the L2 verbs involving these two semantic components. Learning difficulties were observed when moving from a less to a more complex L2 system, when moving in the opposite direction, i.e., from a more to a less complex L2 system and when moving to an L2 system that is as complex as the learners native one

Aspectos básicos de las preposiciones, las partículas del movimiento y el estilo retórico en ELE: un análisis desde la lingüística cognitiva

Este artículo presenta dos estudios sobre el espacio y el movimiento desde la perspectiva de la Lingüística Cognitiva y su aplicación al Español como Lengua Extranjera. El primer estudio se centra en la polisemia de las preposiciones con especial atención a las preposiciones por y para. Se muestra cómo a partir de conceptos básicos como la corporeización, la categorización prototípica y las redes semánticas, se puede ofrecer a los aprendientes una organización motivada de los usos preposicionales que favorezca su adquisición. El segundo estudio se ocupa de explicar el concepto de estilo retórico, es decir, el conjunto de estructuras lingüísticas características que los hablantes nativos utilizan en una narración discursiva. Se analizan los estilos retóricos de hablantes nativos de español y de italiano a la hora de describir los eventos de movimiento y se comparan con el de los hablantes italianos de español como segunda lengua. Se muestra cómo, a pesar de ser dos lenguas románicas, los recursos lingüísticos de estas lenguas son diferentes, lo cual repercute en sus respectivos estilos retóricos y en la adquisición de los mismos por parte de los aprendientes. This paper presents two studies on space and motion from the viewpoint of Cognitive Linguistics and its application to Spanish as a Second Language. The first study discusses the polysemy of prepositions with a special focus on por and para. It is argued that basic cognitive linguistics concepts such as embodiment, prototype-based categorisation and radial networks could facilitate the learners’ task by offering them a motivated structure for prepositional usages. The second study develops the concept of rhetorical style, i.e., the characteristic group of linguistic structures that native speakers typically use in a narrative. The rhetorical styles of Spanish and Italian native speakers for the description of motion events are analysed and discussed in comparison with that of Italian speakers of Spanish as a Second Language. Spanish and Italian, despite both being Romance languages, possess different linguistic resources that can arguably explained the differences found in the rhetorical styles of their respective native speakers and second language learners

Aspectos básicos de las preposiciones, las partículas del movimiento y el estilo retórico en ELE: un análisis desde la lingüística cognitiva

Este artículo presenta dos estudios sobre el espacio y el movimiento desde la perspectiva de la Lingüística Cognitiva y su aplicación al Español como Lengua Extranjera. El primer estudio se centra en la polisemia de las preposiciones con especial atención a las preposiciones por y para. Se muestra cómo a partir de conceptos básicos como la corporeización, la categorización prototípica y las redes semánticas, se puede ofrecer a los aprendientes una organización motivada de los usos preposicionales que favorezca su adquisición. El segundo estudio se ocupa de explicar el concepto de estilo retórico, es decir, el conjunto de estructuras lingüísticas características que los hablantes nativos utilizan en una narración discursiva. Se analizan los estilos retóricos de hablantes nativos de español y de italiano a la hora de describir los eventos de movimiento y se comparan con el de los hablantes italianos de español como segunda lengua. Se muestra cómo, a pesar de ser dos lenguas románicas, los recursos lingüísticos de estas lenguas son diferentes, lo cual repercute en sus respectivos estilos retóricos y en la adquisición de los mismos por parte de los aprendientes. This paper presents two studies on space and motion from the viewpoint of Cognitive Linguistics and its application to Spanish as a Second Language. The first study discusses the polysemy of prepositions with a special focus on por and para. It is argued that basic cognitive linguistics concepts such as embodiment, prototype-based categorisation and radial networks could facilitate the learners’ task by offering them a motivated structure for prepositional usages. The second study develops the concept of rhetorical style, i.e., the characteristic group of linguistic structures that native speakers typically use in a narrative. The rhetorical styles of Spanish and Italian native speakers for the description of motion events are analysed and discussed in comparison with that of Italian speakers of Spanish as a Second Language. Spanish and Italian, despite both being Romance languages, possess different linguistic resources that can arguably explained the differences found in the rhetorical styles of their respective native speakers and second language learners

Moving Across Languages:Motion Events in Spanish as a Foreign Language

The book analyzes the complex relationship between languages in the bilingual mind with a focus on motion event typology and the acquisition of Spanish as a second language (L2)