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Translation Studies

7. Cohesion in translation

Krisztina Kroly, Spring, 2006Source: Klaudy & Kroly, 2000

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Introduction

Aim of any aspiring translator: to reflectfaithfully the global meaningcommunicated by the source text

Motivation for this investigation: a remarkby Neubert and Shreve (1992):

the argument for a textual approach totranslation rests to a great degree on the

notion of global textual meaning. It is theglobal meaning of translation,recontextualized as an L2 text, that mustbe matched to the original global meaningof the source text (p. 139)

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This study

will argue that one of the means by which

this match may be realized is through

concrete markers of cohesion identifiable

on the textual surface (lexical repetition)aims to demonstrate that the partly revised

version of Hoeys (1991) repetition model,

which, via the systematic analysis of lexical

repetition can capture themacropropositions of texts, is capable of

indicating the quality differencebetween

translations.

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The analytical tool

Starting point = Hoeys (1991) repetitionmodel

the greater part of cohesion is the productof lexical rather than grammatical relations

perceives lexical relations as various formsof lexical repetition, serving to show therelatedness of sentences, which produceelaborate patternings in texts

sentences are connected if they share atleast three points of reference, i.e. threerepetition links

can distinguish between central andmarginal sentences

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Types of repetition

2 main types of repetition:

(1) lexical repetition (simple and complex)

(2) paraphrase (simple and complex)

lexical items form links, and sentences

sharing three or more links form bonds

bonding is a useful tool because it helps

identify adjacent or non-adjacent relatedsentences in texts, and the netsthey

combine can reflect the organization of the

text

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Revised taxonomy of repetitions

(Kroly, 1998, 2002)

exempt from the weaknesses of the

original model and has been shown to

be able to predict quality differencesin English written discourse

basic unit of analysis = the lexical

unit(= a unit whose meaning cannotbe compositionally derived from the

meaning of its constituent elements)

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Lexical unit:

(a) one-word units, such as dog, invite,

happy, including compounds such asoutnumber, teapot, blackbird, darkroom,andlazy-bones,

(b) idioms (e.g., a bitter pill, hit and miss)

including idiomatic and phrasal verbs(e.g., let down, do sth up),

(c) phrasal compounds:words often usedtogether to refer to a unique conceptcomposable from the meaning of theindividual words in the expression.Examples of this are National Theater,black box, electrical engineer, bankholiday, high winds,conscientious

objector, dark brown, andburning hot.

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Categories of repetition

See handout

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Method

Texts submitted to analysis

Procedures of analysis

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Texts submitted to analysis: 3 types

(1) an original English newspaper

article (i.e. ST) of approximately 250

words

(2) its 10 Hungarian translations made

by professional translators and

(3) its 10 Hungarian translations written

by trainee translators

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Procedures of data analysis(1) the texts were segmented into sentences and

sentences were numbered,(2) the structural components of the text were identified tobe able to investigate whether sentences with specialdiscourse function (e.g., the one which states the"problem") participate in bonding or not:

- situation (introduces background material)

- problem (the statement of the undesirable condition ofthings: claim, justification)

- solution (statement of the desirable condition,induction)

- evaluation

(3) the repetition links between each and every sentencewere identified and classified,

(4) repetition bonds between sentences were identified,

(5) repetition links and bonds within the texts werecounted.

+ inter-coder reliability checked + t-tests

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Sample analysis

See handout

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Results

Quantity of various types of repetitionThe repetition use of professional

translators resembles that of the ST

more than the novice translators' use

(especially simple repetition)

Reason: ST is a highly factual, informative

type of text, to reflect faithfully its global

meaning, the translator cannot avoidthe verbatim repetition of particular

lexical units, the same way as it is done

in the original English text

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Results cont.

The combination of repetition links and

bonds(1) professional translations' mean values are

closer to the ST's values, and the novicetranslators differ more considerablyprofessional translators "weave" the text viathe use of repetitions and bonding in a moresimilar way to the ST than novice translatorsdo

(2) t-tests: the two groups of translators differ in

their strategies of using intersentential linksand bonding the number of links andbonds + the number of central sentences aresignificantly higher in the professionaltranslations than in the work of novice

translators

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Repetition matrices

density of bonds: professional

translations (similarly to the ST)

novice translations

amount bonds among key sentences:

professional translations (similarly to

the ST) novice translations

title: professional translators seem to

integrate the title more heavily into the

text via bonding (as done in the ST)

***