Appraisal Emotional Adjectives in English/Arabic Translation:
A Corpus Linguistic Approach
Salma MansourLeeds University
OverviewDictionaries: a serious problemPowerful/less adjectives in English and ArabicCorpus analysisResults
Dictionaries Vs. CorporaPrinted dictionaries
limited by space information is always partial interpreted (sometimes wrongly) internally inconsistent and contradict each other out of date
There are many facts about language that cannot be discovered by just thinking about it, or even reading and listening very intently (Sinclair, 1995) As language teachers and professionals, we often have strong intuitions about language usecorpus-based research, however, shows us that our intuitions are often completely wrong (Biber, 2005)
Emotions:In/security (the boy was anxious/confident)Dis/satisfaction (the boy was fed up/ absorbed)Un/happiness (the boy was sad/happy)(Martin and White, 2005: 46-9; Bednarek 2008:15)
Powerful/less adjectives in English and ArabicStrong qawi
Powerful jabar
Tough qas Weak daif
Powerless wahin
Tender raqiq
Examples: weak
AMMD 2007EMD2008LASD1994COED2010WCD2002 daif alaql(mentally weak) (weak, not strong)Not strong in characterLacking physical strength and energyLacking power or strength
BNCLLSI-ENLLSphysically weak18.18hand13.80heart 15.81pulse12.99stomach11.71stomach11.79chest8.97muscle11.70muscle8.90leg8.20ankle7.09knee7.39chin6.95heart7.30Leg4.40body3.02eye1.12
/daif/ weak
I-ARLLS al-shakhsyah the personality150 al-qalb the heart140 al-saqayn the legs 75.35al-basar the eyesight22.44 al-aql the mind1.89
Top 10 collocates of weak in BNC and I-EN
BNCLLSI-ENLLSsyllable 87.51spot133.28spot86.21link107.04link80.91point99.54point57.05economy58.50interaction56.71signal 47.15position39.28tie40.82overlap36.62acid33.38smile34.19argument30.72nuclear30.81immune23.11form28.07position18.65
Examples: strong
AMMD 2007EMD2008LASD1994COED2010WCD2002 Having a degree of power, esp. of the bodyPhysically powerfulPhysically or mentally powerful
Strong
LLS of mental, physical, behavioral collocates of strong
Appraised/Thing evaluatedBNCI-ENMind3.100.47Arm93.6655.75Character44.1334.84Personality34.8858.54
Collocation: a mode of expressing meaningYou shall know a word by the company it keeps (Firth, 1957: 12).Looking at lexicographic work on Arabic collocation, a rather bleak picture emerges. There is an extremely limited amount of information on collocation in both monolingual (Arabic) and bilingual (Arabic-English/English-Arabic dictionaries. Besides, no monolingual (Arabic) or bilingual (Arabic-English/English-Arabic) collocational dictionary has been compiled as yet (Bahumaid, 2006:137).
Dictionaries and semantic prosodies
Lexicographers in the past have not been fully aware of the extent of semantic prosody []modern corpora provide new opportunities of studying the phenomenon (Partington, 1998: 68).
Semantic prosodiesPositive Favorable (pleasant)
Neutral Neutral (No evidence)
Negative Unfavorable (unpleasant)
Strong smellAMMD / I-ARBNC
Node: powerful
BNCLLSI-ENLLStool143.09tool814.27influence136.16force207.16force103.39nation186.20man 90.58weapon136.33weapon83.64man86.53argument57.96influence77.79body55.52incentive76.15position45.45message63.50voice44.83computer57.08personality24.13way54.29
Node: strong
BNCLLSI-ENLLSwind433.66feeling372.52feeling352:24support355.22sense326.05sense349.23support178.31evidence338.85position163.77emphasis305.34emphasis151.91wind266.76evidence129.73leadership258.30link125.36commitment241.05opposition122.81supporter230.46argument108.53leader215.36
Halliday (1976: 73):
Strong (not powerful) tea
Powerful (not strong) car
powerful vs. strong
Powerless vs. weakPowerless collocates with:helplesspassivedo nothingtotally dependenthanging
Weak collocates with:syllablespotlinkpointeconomysmile
Collocation Joint FreqLL score powerless to1762466407187.92powerless against125475918.16powerless .63472209316.85powerless group6535167.10Powerless in101851850.20powerless position4274425.24powerless people61154764.92powerless and2226150802.43powerless ;52039522.43powerless as75215221.77powerless when42075661.55powerless by45049640.37
tender & tough(a) tender
Thing evaluatedEnglishArabicyearinexperienced people, behaviorgentle, nice - foodeasy to chew part of the bodysensitiveoffergenerousfeeling, emotions, loveromantic
(b) tough
Thing evaluatedEnglishArabictimehard peoplerough, stiff - decision, choice, question, competitiondifficultopponentstubborn, obstinate
Same but different!
jabar powerful vs. qawi strong vs. qas tough Positive jabar (great)juhd /effort/, mal /work/, mashru /project/ God
(2) Negative jabar (stubborn, unfair/unjust)malik /king/, hakim /judge, commander, leader/
(3) Neutral jabar (No indication)
(1) Positive qawi (strong)fariq /team/, jaysh /army/, iqtisad /economy/e.g. iqtisad qawi /strong economy/ (not jabar/ not qas)
(2) Negative qawi (destructive)zilzal /earthquake/
(3) Neutral qawi tathir /influence/, shakl /form/
Negative qas (difficult)rajul /man/, waqi /reality/, shay /something/
(2) Positive qas (No indication)
(3) Neutral qas (No indication)
raqiq /tender/Negative raqiq(weak)ghisha /membrane/, jild /skin/
Positive raqiq (nice)uslub /style/, shakhs /person/, sawt /voice/, ihsas /feelings/, thawb /garment/shakhs raqiq (nice person)shakhs daif/wahin (weak person)
Thank you for your attention
The LL score of 'mentally weak' in BNC is (0.64) and in I-EN is (0.49). Similarly, the LLS of weak mind in BNC is (1.58) and in I-EN is (4.37).*LLS of weak syllable in I-EN is (1.87)*If the other two near synonyms /wahin/ and /daif/can be roughly used as a synonym of negative /raqiq/, they can NEVER be used with the positive /raqiq/ because the meaning will be entirely different, if not contradicting!*
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