An Introduction to the English Language System

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An Introduction to the EnglishLanguage System
Lingua e Traduzione Inglese I

• Dott. M. Gatto
• Lingue e Culture per il Turismo

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• ?Riflessione teorica
• sul sistema linguistico gt per conoscere la
  materia prima con cui da linguisti e, più in
  specifico, da traduttori, ci troviamo ad operare.
• ?Pratica traduttiva
• per riempire di contenuto esperienziale la
  riflessione teorica gt per aumentare la domanda
  di teoria (gtgt divenire più ricettivi!)

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• Nel primo semestre avvieremo due moduli
  paralleli
•  
• I . An introduction to the English language
  system
•  
• II. Lexis and grammar for translation
•  

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CIAO!
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Arriva il Re!
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HE KICKED THE BUCKET

• Farmer Brown was milking his cow and when he
  stood up to leave, he kicked the bucket and
  spilled all of the milk.

• Edward showed Tom a list he made of things he
  wanted to do before he kicked the bucket
  visiting Rome, dining with Diana, etc.

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• Primarily degenerative dementia is a disorder
  whose essential feature is the presence of
  insidious onset and gradually progressive course.
  
• La demenza degenerativa primaria è un disturbo
  la cui caratteristica essenziale è la presenza di
  una demenza ad insorgenza subdola e a decorso
  gradualmente progressivo

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GENTLE
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• Before my finger and my thumb
• the squat pen rests, as snug as a gun.
• (da S.Heaney,Digging)
• Tra lindice ed il pollice
• la penna riposa chiatta, quatta come un fucile

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• Gloria al Padre, al Figlio e allo Spirito Santo.
  Come era nel principio ora e sempre, nei secoli
  dei secoli.
• Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to
  the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is
  now, and ever shall be, world without end.

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KEYWORDS
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SYSTEM

• system a group or set of related or associated
  material or immaterial things forming a unity or
  complex whole (Oxford English Dictionary)
•  
• system (-atic ic) In its most general sense,
  the term refers to a network of patterned
  relationships constituting the organization of
  language. Language as a whole is then
  characterized as a system and often as a
  hierarchically ordered system of systems.
  (D.Cristal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and
  Phonetics)

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LANGUAGE SYSTEM
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STRUCTURES?LEVELS
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Structures ?Levels

• e.g. th (?) gt these gt these old books
• gt My grandfather gave me these old books
• gt My grandfather gave me these old books but I
  never read them

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STRUCTURES

• phonology/graphology (sound/sign)
• morphology (word)
• syntax (phrase/clause/clause complex)

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Structure ? Use

• SHE LOVES YOU

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Structures

• ? gt phonology
• SH gt graphology
• SHE - LOVE gt lexis
• -S gt morphology
• YOU direct object gt syntax

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and use!

• SHE LOVES YOU
• Who? When? Why?

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Use ?Variation

• Spatial
• Temporal
• Personal
• Social
• Cultural
• Contextual

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SHE LOVES YOU

• This sentence can be perfectly described with
  reference to structure, as a sequence of sounds
  (phonology/phonetics), rendered as sign on a page
  (graphology), which combine to form words and
  sentences (morphology and syntax) with specific
  lexical meaning (semantics).
• But what do we know about it in terms of use?
  what kind of text is it?

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MEANING
FORM
FUNCTION
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Form ? Meaning

• He might have been being eaten by a pub
• BUT
• ...the progress which might have been being made
  in these areas...

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Form ? Function

• Dove vuoi che vada?
• Where do you want me to go?
• Where should I go?
• Where do you think Im going?

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• Widdowson (2001 41-68) refers to form and
  meaning as complementary areas of linguistic
  enquiry
• form gt grammar (morphology syntax)
• meaning gt in languagegt semantics
• meaning gt in context gt pragmatics

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Ho freddo!
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Ho freddo!

• This sentence can be described in terms of the
  structural relations among its parts (form gt
  grammar), considering the lexical meaning of its
  words (meaning gt semantics), and the effect it is
  meant to have in the interaction between
  addresser and addressee (meaning gt pragmatics).

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GRAMMARSEMANTICSPRAGMATICS?TEXT
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And now

• you wont believe your eyes!

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To sum up

• People use words for a purpose they do things
  with words, in a particular context and a
  specific culture.
• COMMUNICATION takes place successfully when the
  purpose of the message is encoded effectively in
  the SOURCE LANGUAGE, and decoded appropriately.

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As a consequence... 

• Cross-linguistic communication (i.e.
  translation) is successful when the translator
  identifies the function of the SOURCE TEXT and
  conveys it appropriately in the TARGET LANGUAGE
  to the TARGET TEXT readers.
•  

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Therefore...

• The translator has to interpret the meaning in
  the ST in its linguistic and extralinguistic
  context and relay it across language boundaries
  into the TT.
• To be able to do this effectively, the
  translator needs to have a working knowledge of
  how sentences are organised together into larger
  units in both the SL and the TL.

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• In other words, the translator should be aware
  of how formal and functional levels interact both
  within the same language and between languages.
•  

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• To be able to do this effectively, the
  translator needs to have a working knowledge of
  how sentences are organised together into larger
  units in both the SL and the TL. In other words,
  the translator should be aware of how formal and
  functional levels interact both within the same
  language and between languages.
•