corpus-based contrastive analysis of english adjectives in

CORPUS-BASED CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH ADJECTIVES IN SPANISH TRANSLATIONS: A TYPOLOGICAL ISSUE Noelia Ramón University of León, Spain

ICLC 6 - International Contrastive Linguistics Conference Berlin, 30 Sept. – 2 Oct. 2010

ICLC 6 - International Contrastive Linguistics Conference

INTRODUCTION • Germanic vs. Romance languages • Unmarked adjective position in the NP: ▫ Pre-modifying position in English ▫ Post-modifying position in Spanish

• However, the pre-modifying position is possible too in Spanish. • Consequence: more pre-modifying adjectives in translations (Rabadán et al. 2009)

CORPUS-BASED STUDY • Analysis of the most frequent Spanish adjectives in original and translated texts ▫ Monolingual corpus: CREA ▫ Parallel corpus: P-ACTRES

• Analysis & results: 1. Quantitative study 2. Qualitative study

• Aim: improve translator training & translation quality assessment

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TYPOLOGY • Word order as a major issue. • Greenberg (1963): universal 17

▫ “Languages with a dominant VSO word order most often present the adjective after the noun.”

• English vs. Spanish

▫ Strict word order vs. rich inflectional morphology ▫ adjective morphology: invariable vs. variable in number (and gender) ▫ pre-modifying position vs. post-modifying position ▫ poor man vs. un hombre pobre / un pobre hombre ▫ Descriptive adjectives only have the double option ▫ Classifying adjectives may occur only in post-modifying positions.

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METHODOLOGY • Corpora: empirical data vs. intuition • Monolingual corpus: CREA (Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual) ▫ 18,500,104 words (Spain, from 2000, written texts only, all registers)

• English-Spanish parallel corpus: P-ACTRES (Parallel-Contrastive Analysis and Translation English-Spanish)

▫ 1,287,349 words (translations from English originals from 2000, written texts only, all registers)

CREA INTERFACE

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P-ACTRES INTERFACE

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METHODOLOGY • Stages: 1. Quantitative analysis of the most frequent Spanish adjectives in original and translated texts. 2. Qualitative analysis of representative numbers of the most frequent Spanish adjectives in original and translated texts.

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DATA • The 25 most frequent adjectives in Spanish: gran, general, mayor, nacional, mejor, nuevo, pasado, nueva, social, grandes, posible, importante,final, unidos, cierto, largo, claro, español, buena, internacional, igual, española, interior, buen, especial. • The 25 most frequent adjectives in English: new, good, old, long, little, great, high, best, big, national, small, full, young, free, public, important, white, local, black, able, early, political, real, hard, available.

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DATA • Adjectives not included in the qualitative section of the study:

1. Morphologically reduced forms for the premodifying position: ▫

Gran (from grande) / buen (from bueno)

2. Classifying adjectives limited to the postmodifying position: ▫ nacional, social, internacional

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DATA • Final selection: ▫ grande, bueno, nuevo, importante, largo (with all their morphological forms)

• Issues to be compared in the quantitative analysis: ▫ a) overall frequency of use in original texts and in translations, ▫ b) statistical significance of the differences identified using chi-square test

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RESULTS: STAGE 1

GRAN - GRANDE/S - MAYOR/ES Original Spanish 900

Translated Spanish

813.29

800 700

632.26

591.4

600

553.07

500

370.52 331.61

400

300 200

146.03

135.56 125.84

90.48

100 0

gran

grande

Statistically significant overuse

grandes

mayor

mayores

Fig. 1. Number of cases per million words.

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BUEN - BUENO/A/OS/AS - MEJOR/ES Original Spanish

Translated Spanish

600

494.1 504.91

500

400

300

206.43 200

205.07

219.35 212.84

153.8 91.94

100

82.33 60.37

83.89 51.99

buenos

buenas

104.81 110.3

0

buen

bueno

buena

Statistically significant overuse

mejor

mejores

Statistically significant overuse Fig. 2. Number of cases per million words.

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NUEVO/A - NUEVOS/AS Original Spanish

Translated Spanish

600

500

479.07

400

326.32312.26 300

279.64 199.07

194.7

200

137.49

144.48

100

0

nuevo

nueva

Statistically significant underuse

nuevos

nuevas

Statistically significant underuse Fig. 3. Number of cases per million words.

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IMPORTANTE - IMPORTANTES 400 350 300

339.02 285.85

250

Original Spanish

200

137.83

150

131.27

Translated Spanish

100 50 0

importante

Statistically significant underuse

importantes

Fig. 4. Number of cases per million words.

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LARGO/A - LARGOS/AS Original Spanish 300 250

Translated Spanish

280.75 249.34

200 150 100

77.62

97.87 27.35 37.28

50

25.51

38.06

0

largo

larga

largos

largas

Statistically significant overuse Fig. 5. Number of cases per million words.

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RESULTS: STAGE 2 • Statistical formula to ensure the analysis of a sufficiently representative number of instances: • n= N _ • (N-1) E2 + 1 CREA

P-ACTRES

Total Selected Total selected nuevo

8,863

383

360

190

importante 6,272

376

368

192

largo

371

321

178

5,194

The case of nuevo Position in context

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Number of cases in Number of cases in CREA

P-ACTRES

Pre- + post-modification

170 – 44.3%

75 – 39.4%

Single pre-modifier

122 – 31.8%

65 – 34.2%

Fixed expression ‘de nuevo’

63 – 16.4%

14 – 7.3%

Single post-modifier

21 – 5.4%

19 – 10%

Adjective used as noun

4 – 1.04%

-

Predicative position

2 – 0.5%

5 – 2.6%

Multiple pre-modification

1 – 0.2%

5 – 2.6%

Multiple post-modification

-

7 – 3.6%

383

190

Total

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The case of nuevo • Pre- & post-modification

▫ other adjectives, especially of the classifying type (el nuevo planeamiento urbanístico consistiría en …) ▫ participle clauses (un nuevo caso revelado ayer) ▫ relative clauses (un nuevo movimiento, que sorteaba la censura)

• Single pre-modification

▫ el nuevo sistema debe compensar a los ayuntamientos, el nuevo servicio se ubicaría en el recinto …, Kurtz había encontrado un nuevo conductor, no le gusta nada mi nuevo trabajo.

The case of nuevo Original Spanish 45 40

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Translated Spanish

44.3 39.4

35

31.8

34.2

30 25 20

16.4

15

10

10

7.3

5.4

5

0

pre & postmodif.

single pre-modif.

fixed expr. 'de nuevo'

single post-modif.

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The case of importante Position in context

Number of cases in Number of cases in CREA

PACTRES

Single post-modification

112 – 29.7%

59 – 30.7%

Predicative adjective

95 – 25.2%

78 – 40.6%

94 – 25%

27 – 14.06%

Pre- + post-modification

50 – 13.2%

24 – 12.5%

Single pre-modification

24 – 6.3%

3 – 1.5%

Adjective used as noun

1 – 0.2%

-

-

1 – 0.5%

376

192

Multiple postmodification

Multiple pre-modification Total

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The case of importante • Single post-modification: ▫ fue una decisión importante, ▫ poseía una experiencia importante

• Predicative position: • le afectan numerosos factores y es importante analizarlos

• Multiple post-modification: ▫ información estadística importante ▫ un salto cualitativo importante.

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The case of importante Original Spanish

Translated Spanish

45

40.6 40 35 30

29.7 30.7 25.2

25

25

20

14.06

15

13.2 12.5

10 5 0

single post-modif.

predicative

multiple post-modif.

pre & post-modif.

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The case of largo Position in context

Number of cases Number of cases in CREA

In PACTRES

Fixed expression ‘a lo largo de …’

195 – 52.5%

8 – 4.4%

Single pre-modification

85 – 22.9%

74 – 41.5%

Pre- & post-modification

35 – 9.4%

29 – 16.2%

Noun

26 – 7%

24 – 13.4%

Single post-modification

8 – 2.1%

21 – 11.7%

Predicative

8 – 2.1%

6 – 3.3%

Multiple post-modification

7 – 1.8%

14 – 7.8%

Multiple pre-modification

5 – 1.3%

2 – 1.1%

Numeral

2 – 0.5%

-

371

178

TOTAL

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The case of largo • Fixed expression a lo largo de … • a lo largo de la historia

• Single pre-modification: ▫ su largo cuerpo, recogió un largo aplauso, el largo verano

• Pre- & post-modification: ▫ el largo enfrentamiento que mantienen ambas administraciones, ▫ iniciar un largo proceso evolutivo ▫ un largo camino que desciende hacia el río

• Noun (in expressions of measure): • tiene más de 4.500 kilómetros de largo

• Single post-modification: ▫ memorizar un poema largo ▫ tenían el morro largo

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The case of largo Original Spanish 55

Translated Spanish

52.5

45

41.5

35

22.9

25

16.2

13.4

15

9.4 5

-5

4.4

fixed expr. a lo largo de single premodif.

11.7

7 2.1

pre & post-modif.

noun

single post-modif.

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CONCLUSIONS • Initial hypothesis: generalized overuse of the pre-modifying position. • Not proven in the case of the 3 adjectives analyzed, as they are already frequent in the premodifying position in original Spanish. • Further studies are needed focusing on other (perhaps less frequent) adjectives.

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CONCLUSIONS • However, other interesting data have been revealed: • From the quantitative perspective:

▫ Several adjectives presented overuse in translations (bueno, grande, largo), but others were actually underused (nuevo & importante)

• From the qualitative perspective:

▫ Some of the most common adjectives present different usage patterns in originals and translations:  Fewer fixed expressions (de nuevo, a lo largo de) (lower degree of typicality of translated language).  More predicative uses than in original texts

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REFERENCES • • • • • • • • • •

Baker, M. 1993: “Corpus Linguistics and Translation Studies.” In Baker et al. (eds.) Text and Technology. In Honour of John Sinclair. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 233-250. Comrie, B. 1981: Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Croft, W. 1990: Typology and Universals. Cambridge: CUP. Greenberg, J.H. 1963: Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In: Greenberg, J.H. (ed.) Universals of Language. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 73-113. Laviosa, S. 1996: “Comparable corpora: Towards a corpus linguistic methodology for the empirical study of translation.” In Thelen, M. and Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. (eds.) Translation and Meaning, Part 3. Maastricht: Hogeschool Maastricht. 153-163. Mallinson, G. & Blake, B.J. 1981: Language Typology. Amsterdam: North Holland. Rabadán, R., B. Labrador & N. Ramón. 2009: Corpus-based contrastive analysis and translation universals: a tool for translation quality assessment English-Spanish? Babel 55: 4, 303-328. Ramón, N. 2009: Translating Epistemic Adverbs from English into Spanish: Evidence from a Parallel Corpus. Meta 54: 1, 73-96. Ramón, N. & B. Labrador. 2009: Translations of –ly Adverbs of Degree in an English-Spanish Parallel Corpus. Target 20: 2, 275-296. Toury, G. 1995: Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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