The effect of schematic network structure on translation choices and their variability
(2024) Cog Ling Days (Benecla) — Location: University of Antwerp (Antwerp, Belgium) (12.December.2024)
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- My research aims to understand how translators arrive at translation choices and what determines their potential variability. I discuss a usage-based model that centers on the translators’ bilingual knowledge, conceived as the structure of schematic networks activated by source items. This structure is determined by the number of nodes and the strength (salience) of their connections, both within the source and target languages and between them. The model is based in large part on Halverson's (2003, 2017) “gravitational pull” hypothesis, one of the first attempts in the field of Translation Studies to develop a unified theoretical framework by combining insights from cognitive linguistics (e.g. Langacker 2008; Diessel 2019) and bilingualism research (e.g. De Groot 2011; Hartsuiker 2013; Brysbaert & Duyck 2010). Halverson (2017) considered how salient form-meaning pairs, operationalized using corpus frequencies, might attract translators to particular linguistic choices. (Note that the relation of salience to frequency is not straightforward; cf. Gilquin 2008; Divjak 2019). Subsequent work has considered aspects of salience besides entrenchment, including recency and source-target similarity (Halverson 2019; Lefer & De Sutter 2022; Heilmann et al. 2022). The present model addresses two further considerations. First, network structure depends not only on the salience of connections but also on semasiological and onomasiological patterns in the two languages, i.e. on the number of potentially available meaning interpretations or near-synonymous realizations. Second, as outlined in Schmid's (2015) entrenchment-and-conventionalization model, language usage is shaped by – and in turn influences – both cognitive and social processes; as a result, each aspect of the network can be conceived both at an individual and collective level. I apply this model to an analysis of multiple French translations of English noun sequences, e.g. research firm → entreprise de recherche, entreprise dédiée à la recherche, agence de notation (among other solutions). These items pose particular difficulties (Nakov 2013; Lefer & De Clerck 2021) due to cross-linguistic formal differences, potentially ambiguous semantic relationships (which often require explicit expression in French), and the frequent availability of near-synonyms in French. I present preliminary results, based primarily on data from the Multilingual Student Translation corpus (MUST; Granger & Lefer 2020). This recently compiled corpus provides access to multiple translations for a given source instance, thus offering a unique probabilistic overview of translator choices and their variability, in an approach that “might prove particularly fruitful” (Malmkjær 1998: 539). MUST also contains rich metadata about the linguistic profile of individual student translators, whose intermediate position between untrained bilinguals and professionals provides fresh insights on the nature of translational decisions. In addition to MUST and appropriate monolingual reference corpora, I am also performing acceptability and elicitation experiments. This combination of multiple methods – which reflects a growing trend both within TS (De Sutter & Lefer 2020; Serbina & Neumann 2021) and in linguistics (Gilquin & Gries 2009; Dąbrowska 2016; Gilquin 2020) – allows me to operationalize different factors related to network structure, including collective and individual evidence for entrenchment, recency, and cognate similarity effects. References Brysbaert, Marc & Wouter Duyck. 2010. Is it time to leave behind the Revised Hierarchical Model of bilingual language processing after fifteen years of service? 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Prinzie, T. (2024). The effect of schematic network structure on translation choices and their variability. Cog Ling Days (Benecla), University of Antwerp (Antwerp, Belgium). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/269417