Transparency of style – an impossible goal ?

The aim of this article is to reflect on what exactly is meant by transparency of style. After examining the notion of transparency and how it relates to style in general, the specific linguistic markers that are associated with such a style are analysed. Finally, the basic philosophy which underpins the concept of a transparent style is called into question.L’objet de cet article est de réfléchir au terme « style transparent ». Après quelques réflexions générales relatives à la notion de transparence, les procédés langagiers employés pour obtenir ce style sont analysés. On examine ensuite les limites d’une telle philosophie du style

Mind Style: Deviance from the Norm?

Cet article revient sur l’interprétation courante du terme « mind style », pour démontrer que d’autres facteurs, l’importance du contexte socio-culturel et le rôle du destinataire, jouent un rôle fondamental dans la mise en place du « mind style ».The paper seeks to demonstrate that the manner in which the concept of “mind-style” has been used by critics tends to focus too heavily on abnormal individual mind-styles, thereby neglecting other important factors, such as authorial mind-style and the socio-cultural context

Alice Munro’s Conversational Style

The aim of this article is to explore the conversational style of Alice Munro in the collection of short stories Dance of the Happy Shades. While several critics have commented upon this characteristic trait of her style, especially in her first-person narratives, few have analysed how it is actually achieved. Using recent research on the conversational genre, Biber (1988, 2004), Chafe (1982) and Tannen (1982, 1989), I investigate which elements of the spoken mode are to be found in Munro’s writing, and how they are used in her fiction. Finally, I address the question of why Munro may have chosen to write in such a way, and the light that it may shed on her narrative technique in general

Crossing New Frontiers? Investigating style from a multimodal perspective

The last twenty years or so have seen a growing interest in the role of multimodal stylistics. This article seeks to analyze and place in perspective some of the recent approaches to multimodality. If we are to consider that “the body of the text is not exclusively linguistic” (McGann 1991, 13), but rather a “laced network of linguistic and bibliographical codes”, what exactly is the role played by these non-verbal features and how exactly should we analyse them? In order to address these questions, I shall analyse a number of multimodal features (layout, illustrations and typography) to be found in a corpus of contemporary fiction. After investigating various ways in which the verbal and nonverbal modes may combine, using Halliday and Hasan’s concepts of textual cohesion, I will suggest that other factors need also to be taken into account, notably sociocultural factors.Cet article examine l’évolution de l’analyse multimodale des textes ces dernières années, et propose une mise en perspective de certaines approches. Si nous adoptons le point de vue de McGann (1991) qui affirme que le texte n’est pas exclusivement linguistique mais un tissage de réseaux formé de « codes bibliographiques » et linguistiques, quel est le rôle exact de ces aspects non-linguistiques, et comment faut-il les analyser? Pour répondre à ces questions, nous procédons à l’analyse multimodale des images, des mises en page et de la typographie d’un corpus de romans contemporains. Après avoir examiné comment les deux modes – verbal et non-verbal – se combinent en s’appuyant sur la théorie de cohésion textuelle développée par Halliday et Hasan, nous essayons de démontrer que d’autres facteurs doivent aussi être pris en compte, notamment le contexte socioculturel

Style and Voice: Lost in Translation?

La traductologie a souvent insisté sur la maîtrise des langues au détriment du style du texte à traduire. Cet article vise à démontrer dans un premier temps l’utilité pour le traducteur de repérer et analyser les procédés stylistiques qui créent les différentes « voix » textuelles et qui sont propres à un auteur. Dans un deuxième temps, nous montrerons que le style d’un texte ne saurait se limiter à un faisceau de procédés langagiers mais nécessite également une prise en compte du contexte et du lecteur.Style has often been neglected in translation studies which prefer to concentrate on teaching language skills. In this article, I will first examine how a stylistic toolkit can help a translator identify and translate the different voices present in a text, before showing that translating a text’s style also involves analysing the context and the target readership

3D Imaging on heterogeneous surfaces on laterite drill core materials

The SOLSA project aims to construct an analytical expert system for on-line-on-mine-real-time mineralogical and geochemical analyses on sonic drilled cores. A profilometer is indispensable to obtain reliable and quantitative data from RGB and hyperspectral cameras, and to get 3D definition of close-to-surface objects such as rheology (grain shape, grain size, fractures and vein systems), material hardness and porosities. Optical properties of minerals can be analyzed by focusing on the reflectance. Preliminary analyses were performed with the commercial scan control profilometer MI-CRO-EPSILON equipped with a blue 405 nm laser on a conveyor belt (depth resolution: 10 μm; surface resolution: 30x30 μm2 (maximum resolution; 1m drill core/4 min). Drill core parts and rocks with 4 different surface roughness states: (1) sonic drilled, (2) diamond saw-cut, polished at (3) 6 mm and (4) 0.25 μm were measured (see also abstract Duée et al. this volume). The ΜICRO- EPSILON scanning does not detect such small differences of surface roughness states. Profilometer data can also be used to access rough mineralogical identification of some mineral groups like Fe-Mg silicates, quartz and feldspars). Drill core parts from a siliceous mineralized breccia and laterite with high and deep porosity and fractures were analyzed. The determination of holes’ convexity and fractures) is limited by the surface/depth ratio. Depending on end-user’s needs, parameters such as fracture densities and mineral content should be combined, and depth and surface resolutions should be optimized, to speed up “on-line-on-mine-real- time” mineral and chemical analyses in order to reach the target of about 80 m/day of drilled core

Efficient long-term open-access data archiving in mining industries

Efficient data collection, analysis and preservation are needed to accomplish adequate business decision making. Long-lasting and sustainable business operations, such as mining, add extra requirements to this process: data must be reliably preserved over periods that are longer than that of a typical software life-cycle. These concerns are of special importance for the combined on-line-on-mine-real-time expert system SOLSA (http://www.solsa-mining.eu/) that will produce data not only for immediate industrial utilization, but also for the possible scientific reuse. We thus applied the experience of scientific data publishing to provide efficient, reliable, long term archival data storage. Crystallography, a field covering one of the methods used in the SOLSA expert system, has long traditions of archiving and disseminating crystallographic data. To that end, the Crystallographic Interchange Framework (CIF, [1]) was developed and is maintained by the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr). This framework provides rich means for describing crystal structures and crystallographic experiments in an unambiguous, human- and machine- readable way, in a standard that is independent of the underlying data storage technology. The Crystallography Open Database (COD, [2]) has been successfully using the CIF framework to maintain its open-access crystallographic data collection for over a decade [3,4]. Since the CIF framework is extensible it is possible to use it for other branches of knowledge. The SOLSA system will generate data using different methods of material identification: XRF, XRD, Raman, IR and DRIFT spectroscopy. For XRD, the CIF is usable out-of-the-box, since we can rely on extensive data definition dictionaries (ontologies) developed by the IUCr and the crystallographic community. For spectroscopic techniques such dictionaries, to our best knowledge, do not exist; thus, the SOLSA team is developing CIF dictionaries for spectroscopic techniques to be used in the SOLSA expert system. All dictionaries will be published under liberal license and communities are encourage to join the development, reuse and extend the dictionaries where necessary. These dictionaries will enable access to open data generated by SOLSA by all interested parties. The use of the common CIF framework will ensure smooth data exchange among SOLSA partners and seamless data publication from the SOLSA project

Re-working translations for the American reader — or the domestication of British English translations

This article analyses the various changes made to the British translation of a novel when it is republished in the United States. Far from being limited to a simple Americanization of the spelling and lexis, these changes include alterations to the syntax and typography resulting in a homogenized and uniform text. Influenced by the advice offered in style guides, the publishing houses prefer to replace foregrounding structures with canonical word order or typography, thus destroying both the rhythm of the text and the diversity of points of view. Far from being of minor importance these changes affect both how we understand and how we read the text.Cet article examine les changements qui interviennent lors de la mise sur le marché américain d’un ouvrage déjà traduit en anglais britannique. On constate que les modifications textuelles concernent non seulement le lexique et l’orthographe, mais aussi la syntaxe et la typographie qui subissent toutes les deux une homogénéisation textuelle. Influencés par les manuels de style, les différents intervenants de l’édition favorisent un ordre plus canonique des constituants de la phrase, détruisant ainsi à la fois le rythme du texte et les jeux de points de vue. Loin d’être banales, ces modifications ont des répercussions sur l’interprétation du texte et sur l’expérience de lecture

Michael Cunningham’s The Hours : echoes of Virginia Woolf

Le roman The Hours de Michael Cunningham est une œuvre qui s’inspire directement de Mrs Dalloway et qui s’affiche comme telle. Cependant s’agit-il d’un simple pastiche ou d’une œuvre autonome, une création originale? Nous commencerons par relever les principaux thèmes repris et développés par Cunningham. Nous nous attacherons ensuite à analyser quelques procédés du style woolfien, notamment la syntaxe brisée et la répétition lexicale, pour voir si Cunningham se contente simplement de citer quelques passages de Mrs Dalloway ou si, au contraire, son écriture laisse transparaître ces traits spécifiques du style woolfien. Nous tenterons alors de déterminer si  ces procédés sont simplement pastichés par Cunningham ou si l’auteur américain parvient à créer sa propre voix