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Research Methods
in T&I Studies I
Grammatical Level
(Categories and Syntax)
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax
Syntagmatic
Paradigmatic
Grammar
(syntax)
Structure
(e.g. SVO, dhq,
SPOCA)
System
(e.g. pronoun
system; active
vs. passive)
Lexis
(vocabulary)
Collocation
(e.g. rancid butter,
addled eggs, stale
bread)
Sets
(e.g. lexical field
of vehicles,
flowers, etc.)
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Grammar
 “The
set of rules which determine the way in
which units such as words and phrases can
be combined in a language and the kind of
information which has to be made regularly
explicit in utterances” (Baker 1992:83)
Grammatical Level (Categories and
Syntax)

Grammatical notions
 Time
 Number
 Shape
 Visibility
 Person
 Proximity
 Animacy
 Etc.
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

However….
 Grammar
is not a uniform and objective way
of reporting events in all their detail
 It
is difficult to find a notional category which is
regularly and uniformly expressed in all
languages
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Grammatical categories

Morphology



“Structure of words, the way in which the form of a word changes to
indicate specific contrasts in the grammatical system” (Baker
1992:83)
E.g. singular/plural
Syntax


“Grammatical structure of groups, clauses and sentences: the linear
sequence of classes of words such as noun, verb, adjective, and
functional elements such as subject, predicator, and object, which
are allowed in a given language” (Baker 1992:83)
E.g. SVO structure
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Example from Raymond Chandler’s
Trouble is my Business
 “Anna
Halsey was about two hundred and
forty pounds of middle-aged putty-faced
woman in a black tailor-made suit” (cited in
Antonopoulou 2002:204)
 Manipulation of count and non-count nouns
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Translation Strategies:
 Addition
(when the TL has a grammatical
category that the SL lacks, e.g. shape,
dead/alive distinction)
 Omission (when the TL lacks a grammatical
category that the SL has)

Optionality
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Number
 Singular/Plural
 None
 One/two/more
than two (iglu, igluk, iglut)
 Singular, dual, trial and plural

Choices in translation:
 Omission
 Lexical

encoding
Difficulty of overspecification
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Gender
 “A grammatical
distinction according to which a noun
or pronoun is classified as either masculine or
feminine in some languages” (Baker 1992:90).
 Indicated by





Two different nouns (cow/bull)
Gendered nouns (German Institution (f))
Gendered determiners (the, this, some)
Gendered adjectives
Gendered verbs
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Person
 Pronoun
use
 Tu/vous
 Modes

of address
Tense and Aspect
 Time
relations (past/present/future)
 Aspectual relations (temporal distribution)
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Voice
 “A grammatical
category which defines the
relationship between a verb and its subject”
(Baker 1992:102)
Active (the subject performs the action)
 Passive (the subject is the affected entity)

 Passive
voice associated with
Scientific and technical writing (English)
 Adversity (Japanese, Chinese)

Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Translation issues
 Functional

load
the functional load of tu could be communicated in
English through the use of intimate forms of
address such as darling, sweetheart
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Case marking
 Nominative, Accusative,
Genitive, Dative,
Instrumental, Locative, ….
Ivan videl Borisa
 Borisa videl Ivan


Syntax proper
 How
various grammatical elements are
typically or permissibly strung together in any
language
 See SPOCA handout on Intranet
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Sentence
 Consists
of one or more clauses
 Clause basic unit of grammatical description
(with finite, full verb)
Major sentence
 Minor sentence


Problematic in translation (e.g. Fire!)
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

Text
 “a
verbal record of a communicative event”
(Brown & Yule 1983:6)
 Consider this statement:

“The nearest we get to non-text in actual life,
leaving aside the works of those poets and prosewriters who deliberately set out to create non-text,
is probably in the speech of young children and in
bad translations” (Halliday & Hasan 1976:24).
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

References
Antonopoulou, Eleni (2002) ‘A Cognitive Approach to Literary Humour
Devices: Translating Raymond Chandler’, The Translator 8(2):195220.
Baker, Mona (1992) In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation,
London & New York: Routledge. (Chapter 4: Grammatical
Equivalence and Chapter 5: Textual Equivalence, Thematic and
Information Structures).
Calvo, Juan José (2003) ‘By default or excess: Gender mismatches in
translation’, in José Santaemilia (ed.) Género, lenguaje y
traducción, València: Universitat de València, 406-419.
Campbell, Stuart (2000) ‘Critical Structures in the Evaluation of
Translations from Arabic into English as a Second Language’, The
Translator 6(2):211-229.
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

References (cont.)
Campbell, Stuart (2000) ‘Choice Network Analysis in Translation
Research’, in Maeve Olohan (ed.) Intercultural Faultlines. Research
Models in Translation Studies 1: Textual and Cognitive Aspects,
Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, pp.29-42.
Collins Cobuild English Grammar (1990), London & Glasgow: Collins.
Crystal, David (1988) Rediscover Grammar, London: Longman.
García Izquierdo, Isabel and Josep Marco Borillo (2000) ‘The Degree of
Grammatical Complexity in Literary Texts as a Translation Problem’, in
Allison Beeby, Doris Ensinger and Marisa Presas (eds) Investigating
Translation: Selected Papers from the 4th International Congress on
Translation, Barcelona 1998, Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John
Benjamins, pp.65-74.
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

References (cont.)
Kashkin, Vyacheslav B. (1998) ‘Choice Factors in
Translation’, Target 10(1):95-111.
Puurtinen, Tiina (1989) ‘Assessing Acceptability in
Translated Children’s Books’, Target 1(2):201-213.
Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech, and J. Svartvik
(1972) A Grammar of Contemporary English, London:
Longman.
Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech, and J. Svartvik
(1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English
Language, London & New York: Longman.
Grammatical Level –
Categories and Syntax

References (cont.)
Riddle, Elizabeth (1986) ‘The Meaning and Discourse
Function of the Past Tense in English’, TESOL
Quarterly 20(2):267-286.
Rush, Susan (1998) ‘The noun phrase in advertising
English’, Journal of Pragmatics 29:155-171.
Trask, R. L. (1993) A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms,
London & New York: Routledge.
Young, David (1980) The Structure of English Clauses,
London: Hutchinson.