Safeguarding the lexicogrammatical environment: translating semantic prosody

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Safeguarding the lexicogrammatical environment
translating semantic prosody

• Dominic Stewart
• University of Bologna

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A consistent aura of meaning with which a form is
imbued by its collocates (Louw 1993157)
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• Semantic prosody in translation
• How corpus users convert data into evidence of
  semantic prosodies

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• a number of lessons devoted to textual analysis
  and discussion of the final passage of James
  Joyces The Dead
• students given a week to translate the passage
  into Italian
• submission of translations
• introduction to semantic prosody, and its
  possible relevance to the passage from Joyce,
  focusing in particular on three sentences / parts
  of sentences

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• Re-translation by the students of the three
  sentences in the light of discussions of semantic
  prosody
• comparison of the translations before and after
• discussion of the methods used to extract
  semantic prosodies from corpus data

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• THE AIR OF THE ROOM CHILLED HIS SHOULDERS
• OTHER FORMS WERE NEAR
• THE TIME HAD COME (FOR HIM TO SET OUT)

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chillVERB my your his her its
their
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• other forms
• other formSUBST
• formSUBST were
• formSUBST beVERB
• were near
• formSUBST near
• were near.
• beVERB near
• beVERB near.

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• BEFORE included
• Laria della stanza gli raffreddò le spalle
• Laria della stanza gli ghiacciò le spalle
• Laria della stanza gli infreddoliva le spalle
• Laria della stanza rinfrescò le sue spalle
• AFTER comprised almost exclusively
• Laria della stanza gli gelò/gelava le spalle
• Laria della stanza lo fece rabbrividire
• Laria della stanza gli raggelò le spalle

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• BEFORE included
• Cerano altre forme vicino
• Vicino cerano altre forme
• Altre forme erano lì vicino
• Altre forme erano presenti
• Altre figure erano nei paraggi
• AFTER comprised almost exclusively
• Altre forme/figure/sagome (gli) erano vicine
• Altre forme/figure/sagome gli erano accanto
• Accanto a lui vi erano altre forme

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• BEFORE included
• era arrivato il momento/il tempo
• era arrivata lora
• era venuto il tempo/momento
• AFTER comprised almost exclusively
• era giunto il momento/il tempo
• era giunta lora

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THE AIR OF THE ROOM CHILLED HIS SHOULDERS

• Specific intuition
• Intuition apparently confirmed by first search
• Investigation stopped
• Confirming concordance presented to class

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OTHER FORMS WERE NEAR

• Hunch
• No confirmation from initial search
• Numerous further searches
• Eureka! Hunch supported by a search
• Investigation stopped
• Confirming concordance presented to class

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THE TIME HAD COME

• Specific intuition
• No confirmation from (numerous) searches
• One concordance presented to class
• Corpus data overruled by intuition

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Having your cake and eating it

• Avere la moglie ubriaca e la botte piena
• No se puede estar en misa y repicando

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On the trail of semantic prosody

• I geared my searches...

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chilled his shoulderschilled his
shoulders.chilled his his shouldershis
shoulders.chilled shouldersshoulders.c
hillVERB chillVERB his shoulderschillVE
RB his CHILLverb his/her/your etc.
shoulderschillVERB his/her/your
etc.chillVERB his/her/your etc.
shoulderNOUNchillVERB his/her/your etc.
shoulderNOUN.
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On the trail of semantic prosody

• I geared my searches
• in order to find what I was looking for
• when I found it, I abandoned the search
• when I didnt find it, I overruled the corpus data

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• How do you begin a search (as objectively as
  possible)?
• With what criteria do you convert data into
  evidence?
• At what point do you terminate a search?

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• constant exposure, of the most humbling kind,
  to real examples (Louw 1993173)
• Semantic prosodies have, in large measure and
  for thousands of years, remained hidden from our
  perception and inaccessible to our intuition
  (ibid.)

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• If corpus data re SPs can help translators, are
  we actually willing to be helped by it, or will
  we do no more than select the data that best suit
  or confirm our own perceptions / preconceptions?
  (see Tymoczko 1998657-8)
• Will corpus evidence of semantic prosodies
  dishearten translators, inasmuch as it may simply
  lend weight to the notion of a supposed
  impossibility of translation?