A corpus-based study of loan words

in original and translated texts

Ana Frankenberg-Garcia

ISLA - Lisbon a n a . f r a n k e n b e r g @ s a p o . p t

Loan words in monolingual settings

1. When people fail to retrieve equivalent words in the language they are speaking

2. To evoke meanings that go beyond the propositional meaning of the words used

language loss

language enrichment

Loan words in translation

1. Culturally-bound concepts difficult to translate

2. Conveying source-text culture

last resort for want of a better solution

intentional translation strategy

Loan words in translation• Vinay & Darbelnet (1958): emprunts To fill in semantic gaps or add local colourEasy way out

• Newmark (1988): transference To use with moderation Translator’s job is to translate, to explain

• Venuti (1995)Option to domesticate or foreignize Translators should keep foreign texts foreign

• Toury (1995)Relative status of source-text language and cultureAffects the extent to which it interferes in the translation

Motivation

• The use of loans is not a prerogative of translations

• When looking at loan words in translation, it makes sense to look at how loans are used in texts that are not translations

Loan words in original and translated texts

• Are there more loans in translations than in source texts?

• Is the superimpostion of languages in source texts effaced by translation?

• Does the relative status of the ST language and culture affect the use of loans in translation?

Questions such as these are much easier to tackle with the help of corpora

Method

Original Portuguese

TranslatedEnglish

Original English

TranslatedPortuguese

COMPARA 6.0www.linguateca.pt/COMPARA

[Dec 2004 – Mar 2005]

Bidirectional parallel corpus of English and Portuguese(published fiction)

Focus on frequency and language distribution of loans

Method sub-corpus

COMPARA contains over 2 million words, with texts published between 1837 and 2000

Sub-corpus of texts published in the last 30 years:

• 15 original Portuguese fiction extracts (277,243 words)

• 13 original English fiction extracts (191,913 words)

• 15 extracts of Portuguese fiction in English translation (312,322 words)

• 15 extracts of English fiction in Portuguese translation (415,690 words)

1,197,168 words

Method sub-corpus: note 1

• Not all stories set exclusively in English or Portuguese speaking worlds

• Not all stories take place in the last thirty years

May affect how loans are used, but typical of fiction!

• What matters is:– Stories written by modern English and Portuguese-speaking

writers

– Stories read by English and Portuguese-speaking readers of today

Method sub-corpus: note 2English (28 texts)

5 authorsDavid Lodge, Joanna Trollope, Julian Barnes, Nadine Gordimer, Richard Zimler

10 translatorsAlan Clarke, Cliff Landers, David Brookshaw, Ellen Watson, Giovanni Pontiero,

Gregory Rabassa, John Byrne, John Parker, Mary Fitton, Richard Zenith

Portuguese (30 texts) 12 authorsAutran Dourado, Cardoso Pires, Chico Buarque, Jorge de Sena, José E.

Agualusa, José Saramago, Marcos Rey, Mário de Carvalho, Mia Couto, Patrícia Melo, Paulo Coelho, Rubem Fonseca

10 translators Ana M. Amador, Carlos G. Babo, Geraldo G. Ferraz, Helena Cardoso, J. Teixeira

Aguilar, José Lima, Lídia C-Luther, M. Carlota Pracana, M. Carmo Figueira, Paula Reis

more individual author differences in Portuguese

Method sub-corpus: note 3

Different varieties of English and Portuguese not taken into account

English Portuguese

Method

What was considered a loan

How loans were counted

How loans were sorted by language

Defining loans

Disagreement among individuals and within language communities

Loans:words in a language other than the main language of the text that authors and translators (or publishers) chose to set off by highlighting

- criterion used in COMPARA to mark foreign words- can be retrieved automatically

Note 1readers (and corpus makers & users) may have different perceptions

Note 2 same word can be a loan in some texts but not in others

Defining loanssame word classified differently in different languages

EBDL5 (262):`What d'you take me for, a robot?´

EBDL5 (262): -- O que é que você pensa que eu sou? Algum robot?

Defining loanssame word classified differently in same language

PBRF1 (318): Usava jeans apertados, suas pernas eram grossas e os braços finos.

PBPC2 (934): A única coisa que mantinha o sentido de reali-dade eram nossos trajes, jeans e camisetas com vieiras costuradas.

EBDL3T1(1279): Boon tinha realmente chegado, provocante-mente vestido com camiseta e jeans e acompanhado duma bela e altiva Pantera Negra, que ia entrar no programa dessa noite.

EBJT1 (1962): Era um rapaz, um rapaz magro de jeans e com um blusão de cabedal.

Instead of external parameters, definition reflects opinions of authors and translators (and editorial policies)

Defining loanstitles and named entities marked foreign not included

EBJB1(64): Besides, I remember the end of L'Education Sentimentale.

PBRF1(560): Até que o Fleming escolheu um bom título, Diamonds are Forever, pensei, mas o filme de Guy Hamilton era medíocre.

PBAA2(603): It looks like a ship is arriving, and it's the Cruzeiro.´

EBDL3T2 (1153): Teve uma lua-de-mel de curta duração com a Radio One, que se transformou numa espécie de casamento sadomasoquista.

Counting loanssingle words and multi-word expressions counted as one loan

EBJB2 (500): …he was going to get the best quid pro quo out of God in the forthcoming negotiations. = 1 loan

EBJT2 (241): `I shall bring tapas also,´ José said, moving towards the door.= 1 loan

Counting loansquotations counted as one loan

EURZ1 (1275): …a weedy boy with pale-green eyes yells at her in a prideful voice, « Vai-te foder, vaca! , fuck off, cow!»= 1 loan

EBJB1(188): …he found himself constantly irritated by a parrot which screamed, `As-tu déjeuné, Jako? ´ and `Cocu, mon petit coco.´= 2 loans

Counting loans lists and repetitions counted as separate loans

PBPM1 (99): Urutus, jararacas, cascavéis, jararacuçus, surucutingas, cotiaras -- I saw these and many other serpents in the slides that Melissa projected during her talk. = 6 loans

EBJT2 (368):`The little eggs of the codoniz , what is the codoniz ?´ = 2 loans

Sorting loansco-text used to resolve ambiguity

EBDL5(1802): `Can I take this thing off?´ he said, plucking at his lei .

lei = Hawaiian, not Italian

EBJT2(95): `You must look after yourself, querida .´

querida = Spanish, not Portuguese

Sorting loansloans classified according to their origins

EBDL5(262): -- O que é que você pensa que eu sou? Algum robot ?

robot = Czech

EBDL1T2(889): a plastic container of frozen moussaka could be concealed without much difficulty.

moussaka = Greek

Results distribution of loans

Original Portuguese

Original English

9 (out of 15) texts had no loans at all

Just 1 (out of 13) texts did not have any loans

1.5 loans/ 10 K words

16.9 loans/ 10 K words

Original English fiction more permeable to loans than original Portuguese fiction

Results distribution of loans

Translated Portuguese

Translated English

All texts contained loans

One third of the texts contained no loans at all

24.3 loans/ 10 K words

4.1 loans/ 10 K words

When reading translated fiction, Portuguese readers more exposed to loans than English readers

Results distribution of loans

Original Portuguese

Translated Portuguese

More than half the texts contained no loans at all

All texts contained loans

1.5 loans/ 10 K words

24.3 loans/ 10 K words

Portuguese readers must notice a big difference….

Results distribution of loans

Original English

Translated English

All but one text contained loans

One third of the texts contained no loans at all

16.9 loans/ 10 K words

4.1 loans/ 10 K words

The number of loans in present in text shouldn’t add a particularly foreign ring to English translations….

Results (so far)

• Loan words seem to enter the Portuguese language more through fiction translated from English than through original fiction

• The opposite seems to occur in English

Do Portuguese translators tend to foreignize texts?

Do English translators tend to domesticate texts?

What happens to loans in the process of translation

Resultsnet difference in overall number of loans

ST(English)

TT(Portuguese)

ST(Portuguese)

TT(English)

3 X

Both Portuguese and English translations tripled the total number of loans present in source texts

English translators not really sheltering readers from loans

Few loans in Portuguese source texts makes loans in translated English seem scant by comparison

ResultsLoans in common, loans added and loans removed

ST(English)

TT(Portuguese)

ST(Portuguese)

TT(English)

Both PT and EN translators tend to:Preserve loans originally present in source textsAdd more loans of their ownRemove very few loans (except…)

Resultslanguage distribution of loans

Original Portuguese

Translated Portuguese

Loans from just 4 languages:

English(22 loans in 2 texts)Latin(15 loans in 2 texts)French (4 loans in 4 texts)German(1 loan in 1 text)

None prevails

Loans from 14 identified languages

English prevails (475 loans in 13 texts)

French noticeable(238 loans in 13 texts)

Resultslanguage distribution of loans

Original English

Translated English

Loans from 12 identified languages

French prevails(117 loans in 10 texts)

Portuguese is rare(14 loans but all in 1 text)

Loans from just 8 identified languages

French prevails(43 loans in 6 texts)

Portuguese is noticeable(35 loans in 7 texts)

Resultslanguage distribution of loans

ST (English)

TT (Portuguese)

More French: 117 → 238 (+121)More Latin: 21 → 34 (+15)More Italian: 11 → 20 (+9)

More loan languages: + 2

Lots of loans from source text language: + 475

Less Spanish: 25 → 22 (-3)

Portuguese effaced: -14 (no compensation)

Resultslanguage distribution of loans

ST (Portuguese)

TT (English)

More French: 4 → 43 (+39)More Latin: 15 → 19 (+4)

More loan languages: + 4

Few loans from source text language: + 35

Spanish introduced: 0 → 4 (+4)Italian introduced: 0 → 7 (+7)

English effaced: -22 (2 loans compensated by French)

Overall Results

Original PT Translated EN

Original EN Translated PT

More loans and more loan languages in original English fiction

Both PT and EN translation tripled the number of loans Increased the number of loan languagesDid not remove superimpostion of languages in ST (except when loans were from translation language)

Huge difference between Portuguese originals and translations Difference between number of loans in English originals and translations not as conspicuous, but…

Loans from ST abound in translated Portuguese, but used very sparingly in translated English

PT

EN

Toury (1995)Tolerance of interference is likely to be greater when translation

is carried out from ‘major’ to ‘minor’ language/culture

Conclusion

• Commentaries on use of loans often controversial and based on anectodal evidence

• This study examined some hard data on use of loans in original and translated texts

• Only possible thanks to a corpus and corpus techniques

• Future: more research using more texts, different genres & other language pairs

Obrigada!