Translation choices and their variability: The role of network structure and entrenchment
(2024) Multilingual Student Translation Corpus (MUST) Workshop — Location: Université catholique de Louvain (22.November.2024)
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- My research aims to test the Gravitational Pull hypothesis (GPH; Halverson 2017, 2024), a usage-based model for translational behavior that integrates insights from cognitive linguistics and bilingualism (Langacker 2008; Diessel 2019; De Groot 2011). Building on the notion that linguistic knowledge is organized in schematic networks, the model posits that entrenched nodes are more likely activated in a network and thus attract translators to particular linguistic choices. In particular, I am interested in translations of English noun sequences into French, e.g. research firm → entreprise de recherche, entreprise dédiée à la recherche, agence de notation (among other solutions). These items pose particular difficulties (Lefer & De Clerck 2021) due to cross-linguistic formal differences, potentially ambiguous semantic relationships (often requiring explicit expression in French), and the frequent availability of near-synonyms in French. The MUST corpus (Granger & Lefer 2020) is ideally suited for this project. Its multiple translations offer a unique opportunity to examine how linguistic and cognitive factors can explain translation choices and their variability (cf. Malmkjær 1998). In addition, the intermediate position of student translators between untrained bilinguals and professionals provides fresh insights on the nature of translational decisions. Finally, MUST contains rich metadata about the individual translators’ profile and experience, allowing me to examine their effect on translation choices. I present qualitative descriptions of different patterns of translation variability, based on ten MUST source texts in the specialized domain of sustainable finance, with 117 noun sequences and 4,445 French translations. I also discuss how I intend to examine the role of entrenchment posited in the GPH, by combining multiple operationalizations to obtain both collective and individual evidence (cf. Schmid 2015): frequency, association, and family size data from comparable reference corpora, and outcomes and reaction times from elicitation and decision experiments. References De Groot, Annette M. B. 2011. Language and Cognition in Bilinguals and Multilinguals: An Introduction. New York: Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203841228. Diessel, Holger. 2019. The Grammar Network. Cambridge University Press. Granger, Sylviane & Marie-Aude Lefer. 2020. The Multilingual Student Translation corpus: a resource for translation teaching and research. Language Resources and Evaluation 54(4). 1183–1199. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10579-020-09485-6. Halverson, Sandra L. 2017. Gravitational pull in translation: Testing a revised model. In Gert De Sutter, Marie-Aude Lefer & Isabelle Delaere (eds.), Empirical translation studies: New methodological and theoretical traditions, 9–45. De Gruyter Mouton. Halverson, Sandra L. 2019. ‘Default’ translation: A construct for cognitive translation and interpreting studies. Translation, Cognition & Behavior. John Benjamins 2(2). 187–210. https://doi.org/10.1075/tcb.00023.hal. Halverson, Sandra L. 2024. The gravitational pull hypothesis: Status and prospects. In Josep Marco & Isabel Tello (eds.), Towards an empirical verification of the gravitational pull hypothesis: evidence from the COVALT corpus, 21–52. Berlin: Peter Lang. https://www.peterlang.com/document/1340141. Heilmann, Arndt, Tatiana Serbina, Jonas Freiwald & Stella Neumann. 2022. Grammatical metaphor in translation: A corpus-based investigation of nominal of-constructions. In Sylviane Granger & Marie-Aude Lefer (eds.), Extending the scope of corpus-based translation studies, 158–181. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Langacker, Ronald W. 2008. Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lefer, Marie-Aude & Marie De Clerck. 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 Sylvie Hanote & Raluca Nita (eds.), Morphophonologie, lexicologie et langue de spécialité: hommage à Jean-Louis Duchet et à Michel Paillard, 145–162. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. Lefer, Marie-Aude & Gert De Sutter. 2022. Using the Gravitational Pull Hypothesis to explain patterns in interpreting and translation: The case of concatenated nouns in mediated European Parliament discourse. In Marta Kajzer-Wietrzny, Adriano Ferraresi, Ilmari Ivaska & Silvia Bernardini (eds.), Mediated discourse at the European Parliament: Empirical investigations, 133–159. Language Science Press. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6977046. Malmkjær, Kirsten. 1998. Love thy neighbour: Will parallel corpora endear linguists to translators? Meta 43(4). 534–541. https://doi.org/10.7202/003545ar. Schmid, Hans-Jörg. 2015. A blueprint of the Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization Model. Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association 3(1). 3–26. https://doi.org/10.1515/gcla-2015-0002.
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Prinzie, T. (2024). Translation choices and their variability: The role of network structure and entrenchment. Multilingual Student Translation Corpus (MUST) Workshop, Université catholique de Louvain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/269416