Translation and contact languages: the case of motion events
Translation and contact languages: the case of motion events
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翻译和联系语言：运动事件案例
DOI：
10.1075/babel.63.4.04rot
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发表时间：
2017
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
K. Rottet
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
K. Rottet
在这项研究中，我们使用了被翻译成两种密切相关的凯尔特语言威尔士语和布雷顿语的英语小说翻译语料库，作为揭示语言随着时间的推移相互影响的程度的一种方式：威尔士语与英语接触的历史悠久，布雷顿语与法语接触的历史悠久。自从Leonard Talmy(1991,2000等)的工作以来，语言学家们已经认识到，语言在谈论运动事件方面可以分为几种类型。英语是卫星框架式的典范，而法语是动词框架式的典范。翻译学者已经注意到，在两种不同类型的语言之间进行翻译会引发有趣的问题(Slobin 2005；Cappelle 2012)，从语言接触的角度来看，这个话题也很有趣：一种类型的语言在与另一种类型的语言长期而激烈的双语情况下，是否有可能受到影响，甚至改变自己的修辞偏好？翻译语料库提供了一个保持起点不变的数据体--每种情况下的线索都是原文中的英语动作事件。我们确实发现威尔士语和布雷顿语在编码运动事件的偏好方面存在重要差异：布雷顿语在这些偏好方面明显地朝着法语的方向发展。
In this study we use a translation corpus of English novels translated into two closely related Celtic languages, Welsh and Breton, as one way of shedding light on the extent to which languages can influence each other over time: Welsh has a long history of contact with English, and Breton with French. Ever since the work of Leonard Talmy (1991, 2000 etc.), linguists have recognized that languages fall into a small number of types with respect to how they prefer to talk about motion events. English is a good exemplar of the satellite-framed type, whereas French exemplifies the verb-framed type. Translation scholars have observed that translating between languages of two different types raises interesting questions ( Slobin 2005 ; Cappelle 2012 ), and the topic is also of interest from the perspective of language contact: is it possible for a language of one type, in a situation of prolonged and intense bilingualism with a language of another type, to be influenced or perhaps even to change its own rhetorical preferences? The translation corpus provides a body of data which holds constant the starting point – the cue in each case was an English motion event in the source text. We do indeed find that Welsh and Breton have diverged in important ways in terms of their preferences for encoding motion events: Breton is revealed to have moved significantly in the direction of French with respect to these preferences.