Multiple translations as evidence for cognitive and linguistic factors influencing the French translation of English [N+N(+N)…] constructions
(2023) PLIN Day 2023 — Location: UCLouvain (27.April.2023)
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- Research in Translation Studies naturally relies on constructs and methods from various subfields of linguistics. Still, there remains a need for a unified theoretical framework and especially for improved interaction with cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics (De Sutter & Lefer, 2020; Halverson & Kotze, 2021). In this context, Halverson’s (2017) revised “gravitational pull” (RGP) model aims to explain translators’ behavior in terms of usage-based factors such as the salience of source and target items and the entrenchment of translation pairs. However, issues regarding how these factors are best operationalized remain unresolved (e.g. Boswijk & Coler, 2020; Schmid & Günther, 2016; Gilquin, 2008; see also Hartsuiker et al., 2016). Previous RGP studies have explored the under- or overuse of particular lexical or grammatical forms in translation. Here, I propose a complementary approach to elucidate the cognitive and linguistic factors underlying translator decisions, namely based on the variability of multiple translations, i.e., the number of different solutions for a given source instance. This approach, already championed by Malmkjær (1998) and Campbell (2000), has remained underexplored for lack of data (but see Castagnoli, 2020). Recent compilation of the Multilingual Student Translation corpus (MUST; Granger & Lefer, 2020) now provides the necessary access to multiple translators’ interpretations and realizations. As a test case, I present a study of multiple French translations of English texts in MUST, focusing on decisions made for noun sequences (e.g., disaster relief program coordinator). The bare juxtaposition of nouns in these [N+N(+N)…] constructions provides efficient information packing in English but poses specific challenges for translation into French (Lefer & De Clerck, 2021). At the formal level, French tends to use prepositional post-modification [N+Prep+N(+Prep+N)…], which can impose a significant cognitive load for longer sequences (e.g., disaster relief program coordinator → coordinateur du programme d'aide en cas de catastrophe). At the semantic level, potentially ambiguous relationships between constituents, left implicit in English, often need to be stated explicitly in French. An additional motivation to study these constructions is that they represent an extension of the case of noun compounds, whose processing and linguistic representation have been investigated by psycholinguists (Baayen et al., 2010; Gagné, 2011) and in NLP (Nakov, 2013; Dima, 2016). The nature of these noun sequence constructions requires analysis of factors and translator decisions at multiple hierarchical levels. This appears to be both a methodological challenge and an opportunity for fresh insights. I present results from two analyses: (1) a qualitative description of how translation solutions vary at three structural levels (main constituents, linking prepositions, and surface grammar), which can reveal different aspects of how translators interpret source ambiguity; and (2) quantitative multifactorial models of translation variability as a function of sequence length, lexicalization, frequency of use, and structural ambiguity. References Baayen, H. R., Kuperman, V. & Bertram, R. 2010. Frequency effects in compound processing. In S. Scalise & I. Vogel (eds.), Cross-disciplinary issues in compounding. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 257-270. Boswijk, V., & Coler, M. 2020. What is salience? Open Linguistics, 6(1). 713-722. Campbell, S. 2000. Choice Network Analysis in Translation Studies. In: Olahan, M. (ed.) Intercultural Faultlines. Research Models in Translation Studies 1. Textual and Cognitive Aspects. Manchester: St. Jerome. 29–42. Castagnoli, S. 2020. Translation choices compared: Investigating variation in a learner translation corpus. In Granger, S. & Lefer, M.-A. (eds.). Translating and comparing languages: Corpus-based insights. Selected Proceedings of the Fifth Using Corpora in Contrastive and Translation Studies Conference. Louvain-la-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain. 25-44. De Sutter, G., & Lefer, M.-A. 2020. On the need for a new research agenda for corpus-based translation studies: A multi-methodological, multifactorial and interdisciplinary approach. Perspectives, 28(1). 1-23. Dima, C. 2016. On the compositionality and semantic interpretation of English noun compounds. Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Representation Learning for NLP. 27-39. Gagné, C. L. 2011. Psycholinguistic perspectives. In Lieber, R., & Štekauer, P. (eds.). The Oxford handbook of compounding. Oxford University Press. 255-271. Gilquin, G. 2008. What you think ain’t what you get: Highly polysemous verbs in mind and language. Du fait grammatical au fait cognitif. From gram to mind: Grammar as cognition, 2. 235-255. Granger, S., & Lefer, M.-A. 2020. The Multilingual Student Translation corpus: A resource for translation teaching and research. Language Resources and Evaluation, 54(4). 1183-1199. Halverson, S. L. & Kotze, H. 2021. Sociocognitive constructs in Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS): Do we really need concepts like norms and risk when we have a comprehensive usage-based theory of language? In S. L. Halverson & Á. Marín García (eds.). Contesting epistemologies in Translation and Interpreting Studies. London: Routledge. 51-79. Halverson, S. L. 2017. Gravitational pull in translation: Testing a revised model. In De Sutter, G., Lefer, M. A., & Delaere, I. (eds.). Empirical translation studies: New methodological and theoretical traditions. Walter de Gruyter. 9-46. Hartsuiker, R. J., Beerts, S., Loncke, M., Desmet, T., & Bernolet, S. 2016. Cross-linguistic structural priming in multilinguals: Further evidence for shared syntax. Journal of Memory and Language, 90. 14-30. Lefer, M.-A. & De Clerck, M. 2021. L’apport des corpus intermodaux en lexicologie contrastive: Étude comparative de la traduction écrite et de l’interprétation simultanée des séquences de noms. In S. Hanote & R. Nita (eds.). Morphophonologie, lexicologie et langue de spécialité. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. 145-162. Malmkjær, K. 1998. Love thy neighbour: Will parallel corpora endear linguists to translators? Meta: Translators' Journal, 43(4). 534-541. Nakov, P. 2013. On the interpretation of noun compounds: Syntax, semantics, and entailment. Natural Language Engineering, 19(3). 291-330. Schmid, H. J., & Günther, F. 2016. Toward a unified socio-cognitive framework for salience in language. Frontiers in psychology, 7. 1110.
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Prinzie, T. (2023). Multiple translations as evidence for cognitive and linguistic factors influencing the French translation of English [N+N(+N)…] constructions. PLIN Day 2023, UCLouvain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/238347