Tasks for today

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Tasks for todays lesson

• Check Exs. 5
• Chapter 6 Context and wording in Translation (I)

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Chapter 6

• Context and wording in Translation (I)

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6.1 Towards Context

• The concept of context was raised by the Polish
  anthropologist B. Malinowski in 1923. It has
  drawn wide attention in many fields such as
  pragmatics, semantics, logics, anthropological
  linguistics, socio-linguistics,
  psycholinguistics, applied linguistics, etc.
• Scholars have raised various theories concerning
  the definition, constitution, classification and
  functions of context.

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6.1.1 What is Context

• Hu Zhuanglin (2001 405-406) introduces Firths
  theory as follows
• 1 The internal relations of the text
  (linguistic context)
• a. the syntagmatic relations between the elements
  in the structure (???????????)
• b. the paradigmatic relations between units in
  the system (???????????)

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6.1.1 What is Context

• 2 The internal relations of the context of
  situation
• a. the relations between text and non-linguistic
  element, and their general effects ()
• b. the analytical relations between bits and
  pieces of the text (words, parts of words,
  phrases) and the special elements within the
  situation (items, objects, persons,
  personalities, events).

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6.1.1 What is Context

• A more dynamic view of context by Mey (in
  Pragmatics)
• Context is a dynamic, not a static concept it
  is to be understood as the continually changing
  surroundings, in the widest sense, that enable
  the participants in the communication process to
  interact, and in which the linguistic expressions
  of their interaction become intelligible.

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6.1.1 What is Context

• Wang Jianpings definition of context (1989)
• Context comprises those factors manifested as
  linguistic forms before or after a linguistic
  expression and those subjective or objective
  environmental factors on both of which a good
  grasp of the definite meaning of the linguistic
  expression depends during the process of
  communication.

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6.1.2 Classification of Context

• According to the scope of study, context can be
  divided into context in its narrow sense and
  context in its broad sense.
• Context in its narrow sense just means linguistic
  context. It can be further divided into phrase
  context, sentence (utterance) context, paragraph
  context and text context.
• Context in its broad sense refers to the whole
  natural, social and cultural environment related
  to the speech communication.

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6.1.2 Classification of Context

• According to whether the contextual factors are
  tangible
• Transparent context linguistic forms or
  manifested as non-linguistic substances, such as
  time, place, participants, or means of
  communication.
• Opaque context inferences, conversational
  implicatures and some encyclopedic knowledge.

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6.1.2 Classification of Context

• According to whether the contextual factors are
  abstract or concrete
• Abstract context refers to those contextual
  features abstracted from real communication
  events.
• Concrete context refers to the realization or
  instantiation of those abstract contextual
  features in real communication activities.

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6.1.2 Classification of Context

• Niu Qiangs classification of context (1999)
• Linguistic context phonemic context (stress,
  tone, intonation), grammatical context
  (morphemic, phrasal and syntactic context) and
  semantic context (phrasal, sentential, paragraph
  and discourse context).
• Non-linguistic context context of situation
  (time, occasion and participants) and background
  context (common knowledge and context of
  culture).

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6.1.2 Classification of Context

• Pei Wens classification of context (2000)
• Linguistic context phrasal context and
  sentential context.
• Paralinguistic context subjective factors and
  objective factors. Subjective factors can be
  subdivided into phonemic factors (intonation,
  stress, pause and length and kinemic(??) factors
  (gestures, facial expressions, eye contact etc.
• Context of culture three sub-branches context
  of social life (politics, culture, and sociality
  culture), folk-custom, ethno psychology
  religious beliefs.

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6.1.2 Classification of Context

• Wang Jianhuas classification of context (2002)
• intra-lingual context (?????)
• para-lingual context (?????)
• extra-lingual context (?????)

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6.1.2 Classification of Context

• intra-lingual context
• discourse context
• paragraph, text, inter-text
• Sentential context
• the sentences before or after the sentence in
  question
• lexical context
• collocation, choice of words

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6.1.2 Classification of Context

• Para-lingual context
• by-language context
• psychology, phonemic, kinemic and other
  temporary factors
• on-spot context
• time, place setting, event, participants, etc.

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6.1.2 Classification of Context

• Extra-lingual context
• cognitive background context
• personal experiences, cognition of real and
  unreal world knowledge
• socio-cultural context
• Social custom, thought pattern, ethno-psychology,
  religious beliefs, etc.

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6.1.3 Functions of Context

• ????s 8 functions of context
• 1. absolute function
• 2. restrictive function
• 3. interpretive function
• 4. design function
• 5. filtering function
• 6. generative function
• 7. transformative function
• 8. acquisitive function

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6.1.3 Functions of Context

• Pei Wens six functions of context (2000)
• 1. demonstrative function
• 2. extensive function
• 3. acceptive and rejective function
• 4. restrictive function
• 5. absolute function
• 6. interpretive function

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6.1.3.1 Restrictive Function

• Context restricts the way people use language.
  When people speak or write, they must follow
  certain rules, in other words, they must talk or
  write in an appropriate way.

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6.1.3.1 Restrictive Function

• Examples of extra-lingual context
• Chinese collocations with ?
• ???(a hired thug)???? (a person who offers bad
  advice)?? (horseshit)
• English collocations with dog
• a lucky dog love me, love my dog every dog has
  its day
• causes cultural differences

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6.1.3.1 Restrictive Function

• Examples of para-lingual context
• the famous poem by ??? (????)
• ???????,????????
• ???????,????????
• The author tried ?,?,? and ? before he finally
  found ?. No other verb has the powerful
  expressive force to match the poets overwhelming
  feeling stimulated by the para-lingual context.

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6.1.3.1 Restrictive Function

• Examples of on-the-spot context
• The following sentences are all used to ask
  about the time
• Excuse me, could you tell me the right time,
  please? (between strangers)
• What time is it, please? (between acquaintances)
• How goes the enemy? (between intimate friends)

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6.1.3.2 Interpersonal Function

• It solely concerns the recipient of the language
  message, be it readers or listeners.
• Context helps the reader or hearer to understand
  the language phenomenon, to narrow down the
  possible interpretation and get the exact
  meaning.
• Mey says An utterance...doesnt make any sense
  until we place it in its human context .

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6.2 Context for Translation

• Since context has a very close relationship with
  communication, translation, as a kind of
  cross-language and cross-culture communication,
  must be accounted for in terms of this
  perspective.

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6.2.1 A Working Definition of Translation Context

• Translation context (TC) involves various factors
  manifested as linguistic forms and subjective and
  objective factors in both the source language
  society and culture and target language society
  and culture that affect the translators
  comprehension of the SLT and reproduction of the
  SLT in the TLT.

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6.2.2 Exploration of Translation Context

• Translation context (TC) involves various factors
  manifested as linguistic forms and subjective and
  objective factors in both the source language
  society and culture and target language society
  and culture that affect the translator?s
  comprehension of the SLT and reproduction of the
  SLT in the TLT.

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6.3 Wording in Translation

• Wording is defined as exact choice and meaning
  of words used (Cambridge International Dictionary
  of English)
• wording refers to a form of words used the way
  in which something is expressed. (Oxford
  Dictionary)
• We prefer to define wording as ? selected words
  in texts ? exact choice and meaning of words
  used in texts.

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6.3 Wording in Translation

• The importance of wording
• Halliday A text is a semantic unit, not a
  grammatical one. Meanings are realized through
  wordings (2000).
• Mona Baker Text is a meaning unit, not a form
  unit, but meaning is realized through form and
  without understanding the meanings of individual
  forms one cannot interpret the meaning of the
  text as a whole (1992).
• Peter Newmark The chief difficulties in
  translating are lexical, not grammatical(1988).

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6.3.1 Classification of Word Meaning

• Leech and Cruses classification
• 1. Conceptual meaning
• also called denotative meaning or cognitive
  meaning
• 2. Connotative meaning
• 3. Social meaning
• 4. Affective meaning
• 5. Reflected meaning
• 6. Collocative meaning
• 7. Thematic meaning

Associative meaning
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6.3.2 Wording Across Languages

• English and Chinese belong to different language
  families English is a branch of Indo-European
  family while Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan
  family, and the two families sharing very little
  in word forms.
• Based on structural typology in terms of word
  structure, the grammatical relations of Chinese
  are indicated by invariable roots or stems and
  word order while English is an agglutinative
  language in which words are composed by adding
  affixes to the roots.

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6.3.2 Wording Across Languages

• Baker lists eleven kinds of disparities between
  word meanings among languages (1) cultural
  specific concepts (2) the source?language
  concept is not lexicalized in the target
  language (3) the source?language word is
  semantically complex (4) the source and target
  language make different distinctions in meaning
  (5) the target language lacks a
  super-ordinate(???) (6) the target language
  lacks a specific term (hyponym???) (7)
  difference in physical or interpersonal
  perspective (8) differences in expressive
  meaning (9) differences in form (10)
  differences in frequency and purpose of using
  specific forms (11) the use of loan words in the
  source text.

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6.3.2 Wording Across Languages

• Three kinds of discrepancies between English and
  Chinese words (???,1980)
• 1. Partial correspondence
• 2. No corresponding words can be found between
  English and Chinese.
• 3. Polysemous words in English, each sense
  matching a corresponding word in Chinese.

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6.3.2 Wording Across Languages

• Examples of Partial correspondence

??
aunt
??
??
??
??
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6.3.2 Wording Across Languages

• Examples of Partial correspondence

look
?
see
read
take care of
guard
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6.3.2 Wording Across Languages

• Examples of empty correspondence

English
Chinese
Mascon (mass concentration)
?????????????????????
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6.3.2 Wording Across Languages

• Examples of Polysemous words in both languages

English
Chinese
story
??
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• Homework Exercise 6

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• Lu Xun made such remarks simply for the motif of
  A Dream of Red Mansions, there are different
  opinions depending on the readers standards
  Confucians see The Book of Changes,
  neo-Confucians see lewdness, talented scholars
  see pathos, revolutionists see excluding the
  Manchus, and gossipmongers see palace secrets.
  (????????, ???????, ???? ??,????????,
  ?????????? ?)

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6.3.2 Wording Across Languages

• Examples of Polysemous words in both languages

English
Chinese
story
??