Keyness, Context, and Cultural Specificity in Indirect Translation
The translation of references specific to a given source culture has long been a prominent, and often problematic aspect of translation practice and research. In indirect translation, or the translation of already translated material, linguistic and cultural differences accumulate, meaning that the...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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transLogos: Translation Studies Journal
2022-06-01
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| Series: | transLogos: Translation Studies Journal |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/2518536 |
| _version_ | 1828031749482872832 |
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| author | Jan BUTS James HADLEY Mohammad ABOOMAR |
| author_facet | Jan BUTS James HADLEY Mohammad ABOOMAR |
| author_sort | Jan BUTS |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The translation of references specific to a given source culture has long been a prominent, and often problematic aspect of translation practice and research. In indirect translation, or the translation of already translated material, linguistic and cultural differences accumulate, meaning that the omission of cultural references (CRs) or culture-specific items (CSIs) might be a generally expected outcome. Yet before such hypotheses can be tested, research methods are needed that can account for broad patterns across whole texts, and preferably, across semantic categories, genres, time periods, and languages. A ‘textual’ approach, focused on the linguistic context in which CRs are likely to occur, should complement the currently dominant ‘cultural’ approach, which mainly relies on predefined categories and intuition for the selection of objects of study. This article illustrates that corpus research, and particularly keyness analysis, can aid in uncovering recurrent structural patterns and textual functions in which CRs are expected to pose translation difficulties. In this regard, it focuses on expressions of enumeration, or lists, and indicators of identification, or voice. Based on a trilingual (English, French, and Italian) corpus-assisted study of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and John Cary’s An Essay on the State of England (1695), the article accentuates the productive complementarity of numerical operations and context-sensitive readings. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T14:52:55Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-04b82339f38a4221910a3dce40218398 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2667-4629 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-10T14:52:55Z |
| publishDate | 2022-06-01 |
| publisher | transLogos: Translation Studies Journal |
| record_format | Article |
| series | transLogos: Translation Studies Journal |
| spelling | doaj.art-04b82339f38a4221910a3dce402183982023-02-15T16:07:30ZengtransLogos: Translation Studies JournaltransLogos: Translation Studies Journal2667-46292022-06-0151121https://doi.org/10.29228/transLogos.40Keyness, Context, and Cultural Specificity in Indirect TranslationJan BUTS0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7657-804XJames HADLEY1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1950-2679Mohammad ABOOMAR2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1391-5061Boğaziçi UniversityTrinity College DublinDublin City UniversityThe translation of references specific to a given source culture has long been a prominent, and often problematic aspect of translation practice and research. In indirect translation, or the translation of already translated material, linguistic and cultural differences accumulate, meaning that the omission of cultural references (CRs) or culture-specific items (CSIs) might be a generally expected outcome. Yet before such hypotheses can be tested, research methods are needed that can account for broad patterns across whole texts, and preferably, across semantic categories, genres, time periods, and languages. A ‘textual’ approach, focused on the linguistic context in which CRs are likely to occur, should complement the currently dominant ‘cultural’ approach, which mainly relies on predefined categories and intuition for the selection of objects of study. This article illustrates that corpus research, and particularly keyness analysis, can aid in uncovering recurrent structural patterns and textual functions in which CRs are expected to pose translation difficulties. In this regard, it focuses on expressions of enumeration, or lists, and indicators of identification, or voice. Based on a trilingual (English, French, and Italian) corpus-assisted study of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and John Cary’s An Essay on the State of England (1695), the article accentuates the productive complementarity of numerical operations and context-sensitive readings.https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/2518536culture-specific itemscultural referencesindirect translationcorpus linguisticsgulliver’s travels |
| spellingShingle | Jan BUTS James HADLEY Mohammad ABOOMAR Keyness, Context, and Cultural Specificity in Indirect Translation transLogos: Translation Studies Journal culture-specific items cultural references indirect translation corpus linguistics gulliver’s travels |
| title | Keyness, Context, and Cultural Specificity in Indirect Translation |
| title_full | Keyness, Context, and Cultural Specificity in Indirect Translation |
| title_fullStr | Keyness, Context, and Cultural Specificity in Indirect Translation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Keyness, Context, and Cultural Specificity in Indirect Translation |
| title_short | Keyness, Context, and Cultural Specificity in Indirect Translation |
| title_sort | keyness context and cultural specificity in indirect translation |
| topic | culture-specific items cultural references indirect translation corpus linguistics gulliver’s travels |
| url | https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/2518536 |
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