Thinking-for-translating. Spanish>German/English analysis with students, professionals and automatic translation

doi: https://doi.org/10.31810/rsel.53.1.12

Authors

Keywords:

motion events; translation; Manner; German; English; Spanish

Abstract

The present paper analyses the translation of motion events from Spanish novels into German and English. More precisely, it focuses on three translation agents: translation students, professional translators and the neural machine translation tool DeepL. The study, contextualised in the Thinking-for-translating hypothesis (Slobin, 1997, 2000, 2003), aims at investigating whether all the information about the motion events in Spanish novels is transferred or otherwise Manner information is added, as might be expected due to intertypological differences (German and English languages are satellite-framed languages and Spanish is a verb-framed language, Talmy, 1985, 2000) and the data obtained from studies based on professional translation (cf. Slobin, 1996; Cifuentes-Férez, 2013; Molés-Cases, 2019). Overall, the results show that the way students and professionals deal with the translation of motion events is influenced by their mother tongues. However, it seems that, in general, students are more reluctant to add information about Manner in motion events than professional translators. Besides, the most observed translation technique in the case of DeepL corresponds to literal translation.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Alonso Alonso, R. (2011). The translation of motion events from Spanish into English: a cross-linguistic perspective. Perspectives 19(4), 353-366.

Alonso Alonso, R. (2016). Cross-linguistic influence in the interpretation of

boundary-crossing events in L2 acquisition. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 14(1), 161-182.

Alonso Alonso, R. (2018). Translating motion events into typologically distinct languages. Perspectives 26(3), 357-376.

Aske, J. (1989). Path predicates in English and Spanish: A closer look, en K. Hall, M- Meacham y R. Shapiro (eds.), Proceedings of the fifteenth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 1-14. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

Berman, R- A. y Slobin, D. (1994). Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic

developmental study. Hillsdale, Nueva Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Cappelle, B. (2012). English is less rich in Manner-of-motion verbs when translated, from French. Across Languages and Cultures 13(2), 173-195.

Cerda, J. P. (2010). Estrategias utilizadas en la traducción inversa español-inglés de verbos de movimiento: un estudio en lingüística cognitiva. Trabajo Fin de Máster. Universidad de Concepción, Chile.

Cifuentes-Férez, P. (2006). La expresión de los dominios de movimiento y visión en inglés y en español desde la perspectiva de la lingüística cognitiva. Trabajo Fin de Máster. Universidad de Murcia.

Cifuentes-Férez, P. (2013). El tratamiento de los verbos de manera de movimiento y de los caminos en la traducción inglés-español de textos narrativos. Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies 47, 53-80.

Cifuentes-Férez, P. (2015). Thinking-for-translating: Acquisition of English

physical motion constructions by Spanish translators in training. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 2(2), 302-329.

Cifuentes-Férez, P. (2017). The impact of typological differences on the perceived degree of dynamicity in motion events. Trans, 21, 169-185.

Cifuentes-Férez, P. y Rojo López, A. (2015). Thinking for translating: A think-aloud protocol on the translation of manner-of-motion verbs. Target 27(2), 273-300.

Cifuentes-Férez, P. y Molés-Cases, T. (2020). On the translation of boundary-crossing events. Evidence from an experiment with German and Spanish translation students. VIAL- Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics 17, 87-111.

De Knop, S. y Gallez, F. (2011). Manner of motion: A privileged dimension of German expressions. International Journal of Cognitive Linguistics 2(1), 25-40.

Doval, I., Fernández Lanza, S., Jiménez Juliá, T., Liste Lamas, E. y Lübke, B. (2019). Corpus PaGeS: a multifunctional resource for language learning, translation and cross-linguistic research, en I. Doval y M. Sánchez Nieto (eds.), Parallel corpora for contrastive and translation studies: new resources and applications, pp. 103-121. Ámsterdam: John Benjamins.

Edwards, M. (2001). Making the implicit explicit for successful communication: pragmatic differences between English and Spanish observable in the translation of verbs of movement». Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 14, 21-35.

Filipović, L. (1999). Language-specific expression of motion and its use in narrative texts. Tesis doctoral. University of Cambridge.

Filipović, L. (2007). Talking about motion. Ámsterdam: John Benjamins.

Filipović, L. (2008). Typology in action: applying typological insights in the study of translation». International Journal of Applied Linguistics 18(1), 23-40.

Filipović, L. e Hijazo-Gascón, A. (2018). Interpreting meaning in police interviews: applied language typology in a forensic linguistics context. Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics 15, 67-104.

García Yebra, V. (1982). Teoría y práctica de la traducción. Madrid: Gredos.

Iacobini, C. y Fagard, B. (2011). A diachronic approach to variation and change in the typology of motion event expression. A case study: From Latin to Romance. Faits de langue-Les Cahiers 3, 152-171.

Iacobini, C. y Vergaro, C. (2012). Manner of motion verbs in Italian: semantic distinctions and interlingual comparisons, en Atti del XLII Congresso della Società di Linguistica Italiana, pp. 71-87. Roma: Bulzoni.

Iacobini, C. y Vergaro, C. (2014). The role of inference in motion event encoding/decoding: A cross-linguistic inquiry into English and Italian. Lingue e linguaggio, 13(2),. 211-240.

Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. (2003). What translation tells us about motion: A

contrastive study of typologically different languages. International Journal of English Studies 3(2), 151-166.

Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. y Filipović, L. (2013). Lexicalisation patterns and

translation, en A. Rojo López e I. Ibarretxe-Antuñano (eds.), Cognitive linguistics and translation, pp. 251-282. Berlín: Mouton de Gruyter.

Lewandowski, W. y Mateu, J. (2016). Thinking for translating and intratypological variation in satellite-framed languages. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 14(1), 185-208.

Lübke, B. y Vázquez Rozas. V. (2011). Construcciones de “entrar” y “salir” y sus equivalentes en alemán, en C. Sinner, E. Hernández Socas y Ch. Bahr (eds.), Tiempo, espacio y relaciones espacio-temporales, pp. 115-129. Fráncfort del Meno: Peter Lang.

Martínez-Vázquez, M. (2013). Intralinguistic variation in the expression of motion events in English and Spanish. Lingue e Linguaggi 9, 143-156.

Molés-Cases, T. (2016). La traducción de los eventos de movimiento en un corpus paralelo alemán-español de literatura infantil y juvenil. Fráncfort del Meno: Peter Lang.

Molés-Cases, T. (2018). Some advances in the study of the translation of manner

of motion events. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 16(1), 152-190

Molés-Cases, T. (2019). Der Ausdruck von Bewegungsereignissen in Übersetzungen vom Spanischen ins Deutsche, en B. Lübke y E. Liste Lamas (eds.), Raumrelationen im Deutschen: Kontrast, Erwerb und Übersetzung, pp. 143-162. Tubinga: Stauffenburg-Verlag.

Molés-Cases, T. y Cifuentes-Férez, P. (2021). Translating narrative style. How do translation students and professional translators deal with Manner and boundary-crossing?. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 19(2), 517-547.

Molina, L. y Hurtado Albir, A. (2002). Translation techniques revisited: A

dynamic and functionalist approach. Meta 47(4), 498-512.

Rojo López, A. y Cifuentes-Férez, P. (2017). On the reception of translations. Exploring the impact of typological differences on legal contexts, en I. Ibarretxe-Antuñano (ed.), Motion and space across languages: Theory and applications, pp. 367-398. Ámsterdam y Nueva York: John Benjamins.

Ross, D. (1997). Il ruolo della tipologia linguistic nello studio della traduzione, en Margherita Ulrich (ed.), Tradurre. Un approccio multidisciplinare, pp. 119-147. Turín: UTET Università.

Slobin, D. (1991). Learning to think for speaking: Native language, cognition, and rhetorical style. Pragmatics 1, 7-26.

Slobin, D. (1996). From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking”, en J. J. Gumperz y S. C. Levinson (eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity: Studies in the social and cultural foundations of language, Vol. 1, pp. 70-96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Slobin, D. (1997). Mind, code and text, en J. L. Bybee, J. Haiman y S. A. Thompson (eds.), Essays on language function and language type: Dedicated to T. Givón, pp. 437-467. Ámsterdam: John Benjamins.

Slobin, D. (2000). Verbalized events: A dynamic approach to linguistic relativity and determinism, en S. Niemeier y R. Dirven (eds.), Evidence for linguistic relativity, pp. 107-138. Berlín: Mouton de Gruyter.

Slobin, D. (2003). Language and Thought Online: Cognitive Consequences of Linguistic Relativity, en D. Gentner y S. Goldin-Meadow (eds.), Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and thought, pp 157-192. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Slobin, D. (2004). The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events, en S. Strömqvist y L. Verhoeven (eds.), Relating events in narrative. Typological and contextual perspectives, pp. 219-257. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Slobin, D- (2005). Relating narrative events in translation, en D.t Diskin Ravid y H. Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot (eds.), Perspectives on language and language development: Essays in honor of Ruth A. Berman, pp. 115-130. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Slobin, D. y Hoiting, N. (1994). Reference to movement in spoken and signed languages: Typological considerations. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 20, pp. 487-505.

Strömqvist, S. y Verhoeven, L. (eds.) (2004). Relating events in narrative: typological and contextual perspectives. Nueva Jersey: LawrenceErlbaum.

Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms, en T. Shopen (ed.), Language typology and lexical descriptions: Vol. 3. Grammatical categories and the lexicon, pp. 36-149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Talmy, L. (1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation». Proceedings of the 17th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 480-519. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics: Vol. II: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Vázquez Ayora, G. (1977). Introducción a la traductología. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

Published

2023-07-28

How to Cite

Cifuentes-Férez, P., & Molés-Cases, T. . (2023). Thinking-for-translating. Spanish>German/English analysis with students, professionals and automatic translation: doi: https://doi.org/10.31810/rsel.53.1.12. Revista Española De Lingüística, 53(1), 281-310. Retrieved from http://revista.sel.edu.es/index.php/revista/article/view/2165