FROM GENERAL ENGLISH TO LANGUAGE(S) FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES, OR SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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FROM GENERAL ENGLISH TO LANGUAGE(S) FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES, OR SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE

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Title: FROM GENERAL ENGLISH TO LANGUAGE(S) FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES, OR SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE


1
FROM GENERAL ENGLISH TO LANGUAGE(S) FOR SPECIAL
PURPOSES, OR SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE
  • Language for general purposes (LGP) is the
    language that we use every day to talk and write
    about ordinary events in a variety of common
    situations (e.g. asking for instructions,
    ordering a meal, writing a letter to a friend)?
  • Language(s) for special purposes (LSP) is used to
    talk and write about specialized fields of
    knowledge ( e.g. marketing, computing,
    linguistics, tourism, psychology)?

2
SPECIALIZED DISCOURSE A DIACHRONIC
PERSPECTIVEIN LINGUISTICS
  • Some major 20th century linguistic models have
    described language as a system (De Saussure) or
    as an abstract mental model (Chomsky), often not
    paying attention to its social and functional
    varieties
  • 1920s and 30s a group of linguists known as
    The Prague School payed attention to the
    functional style of scientific and technical
    texts, often seen as restricted and inferior
    to literary language or language for general
    purposes
  • After the Second World War stress on the
    linguistic features that diverge from the
    default level of general language

3
SINCE THE 1960s THERE HAS BEEN GROWING ATTENTION
  • to the study of variation according to the USER
    (geographical and social) and to USE (who
    speaks/writes to whom, about what and through
    what medium, M.A.K. Hallidays tenor, field,
    mode). A language consists of different
    registers that realize its potential in
    different ways
  • from focus on terminology to the
    morpho-syntactic, textual and contextual levels,
    from a microlinguistic to a macrolinguistic
    approach terminological proliferation, e.g. ESP,
    ESL, ESD, microlanguages, special languages,
    specialized discourse, language of the
    professions, legal English, business English,
    English for tourism
  • Development of corpus-based methodology, which
    allows the study of authentic texts in electronic
    form

4
The Italian tradition in the study of specialized
discourse
  • DIFFERENT LABELS e.g.linguaggi settoriali,
    microlingue, sottocodici, lingue speciali,
    linguaggi specialisti, le lingue delle
    professioni)?
  • CERLIS (Centro di Ricerca sui Linguaggi
    Specialistici), Universita di Bergamo
    http//www.unibg.it/cerlis/home.htm

5
The complexity of specialized discourse
  • HORIZONTAL DIMENSION DIFFERENT FIELDS, OR
    DOMAINS, AND SUB-FIELDS (e.g. business,
    economics, new economy, finance, marketing,
    e-commerce, franchising)
  • VERTICAL DIMENSION
  • a) specialist to specialist (exposition)?
  • b) specialist to specialist-to-be
  • (instruction)?
  • c) specialist to layperson (journalism)?

6
Specialized discourse
  • What parts/features appear to be typical of
    specialized discourse and make its comprehension
    and translation difficult ?

7
LEXICAL CHARACTERISTICS
  • SPECIALIZED TERMS (simple or compound) referring
    to precise scientific concepts e.g. behaviour,
    chronic, psychoactive, addiction
  • COLLOCATIONS REFERRING TO ACADEMIC RESEARCH. e.g.
    estimates vary, factors explain, show evidence,
    apply criteria, classify
  • LACK OF EMOTION e.g. the words risk,
    threatened and are used in a
    technical/descriptive sense
  • REPETITION OF TERMS
  • PRECISION is favoured over lexical richness
  • CONCISENESS
  • LEARNED WORDS OF CLASSICAL ORIGIN criteria,
    phenomenon

8
SYNTACTIC CHARACTERISTICS
  • PREMODIFIED NOUN PHRASES a small car-factory
    a small-car factory
  • SIMPLE SENTENCE STRUCTURE. Out of 9 sentences,
    only 3 of them have finite subordinate clauses
  • USE OF VERB TENSES frequent use of the simple
    present tense, few present perfect forms, several
    non-finite verb forms, both ing-forms and past
    participle
  • FREQUENT USE OF PASSIVE AND INANIMATE SUBJECTS
    e.g. languages have been classified , the
    factors do not explain. There is only one
    first person verb form here I show to
    highlight the authors voice

9
TEXTUAL FEATURES
  • TEXT GENRE it is the introduction to a fairly
    specialized contribution (the subgenre of
    letter) published in the authoritative
    scientific journal Nature. EXPERT-TO-EXPERT
  • COHESION is obtained through LEXICAL REPETITION
    more than through anaphoric reference, use of
    GENERAL WORDS (criteria, factors) and FEW
    CONJUNCTIONS (also, however, for example)?
  • TEXTUAL STRUCTURE The text establishes the
    field of investigation and the key research
    questions. It is both informative and
    argumentative.
  • Sentence 1 general statement
  • Sentence 2 identifying a niche for research
  • Sentence 3/4 acknowledging difficulties and
    giving an example
  • Sentence 5 making the research claim explicit
  • Sentences 6-9 expanding on the research
  • The text is CONCISE AND SKILFULLY BUILT

10
Lexical features of specialized discourse
  • MONOREFERENTIALITY and PRECISION
  • OBJECTIVITY and LACK OF EMOTION
  • TRANSPARENCY, STANDARDISATION, TERMS OF CLASSICAL
    ORIGIN
  • CONCISENESS
  • LEXICAL PRODUCTIVITY, e.g. computing e.g. mouse,
    emotycon, netiquette

11
and some exceptions
  • SEMANTIC INSTABILITY e.g. noun phrase/noun
    group/syntagm
  • Use of METAPHORS and IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS e.g.
    bulls bears/ a sperm bank / spam/ to launch a
    hostile bid
  • CLASSIC versus GERMANIC SYNONYMS, e.g.
    thoracic versus chest
  • REDUNDANCY in legal language e.g. last will an
    testament
  • CONSERVATISM e.g. henceforth in legal language

12
Some frequent syntactic phenomena in specialized
discourse
  • PREMODIFICATION (e.g. a water-cooled engine/ the
    inflation growth rate/ a small car factory)?
  • NOMINALIZATION (e.g. A day and night weather
    observation station a station in which people
    observe the weather both by day and by night))?
  • LEXICAL DENSITY (e.g. high percentage of content
    words versus function words in a text)?
  • Relatively SIMPLE SENTENCE STRUCTURE e.g. fewer
    subordinate clauses/more non-finite clauses
    The proton is the opposite of the electron, being
    a particle of positive electricity. Longer and
    more complex structure in legal English
  • USE OF VERB TENSES AND MODALITY, linked to the
    type of text, higher number of non-finite forms
  • Use of PASSIVE FORMS and DEPERSONALISATION e.g.
    This hypothesis is confirmed by. Rare
    languages are more likely

13
TEXTUAL GENRE
  • A relatively stable form of communication that
    answers a specific function and is recognised
    within a discourse community at a given period of
    time
  • e.g. A business letter, a business e-mail, a fax,
    an executive summary, a first degree or second
    degree dissertation, an abstract, a press
    release, an editorial, a death notice, an ad, a
    tourist brochure, a booking form

14
Translating texts ( or dire quasi la stessa
cosa as U. Eco says)?
  • Is translation still needed, since English has
    become the lingua franca of the world?
  • What is the difference between the translation of
    literary texts and specialized texts?
  • What are the elements in the process of
    translation?
  • What are the best translation strategies?
  • What makes a translation good?
  • What are the most important types of competence
    and knowledge a translator should have, and the
    resources he/she should be familiar with?

15
Types of translation in the world (according to
Nida 1997)?
  • 1 literature
  • 30 institutional/international organizations
  • 50 industrial and business fields
  • 19 general, newspapers and essays
  • Dubbing and subtitling are not considered

16
The translation of literary versus specialized
texts
  • Completely different activities
  • or
  • the two ends of a continuum?
  • Literary texts more open texts translators
    can/have to be more creative but cannot rewrite
    the text and may have to deal with specialized
    language
  • Specialized texts more closed texts but also
    including highly sophisticated and rich
    linguistic choices translators should be
    faithful but also localize, that is adapt
    to the target audience

17
What are the elements in the process of
translation
  • The source text
  • The authors intention/context
  • The translator
  • The target audience
  • The purchasers needs

18
Translation of different text types, or genres
  • According to the domain (e.g. legal, economic,
    medical)?
  • According to the authors intention ( expressive,
    informative, vocative) or prevailing function
    (descriptive, narrative, expository,
    argumentative, and instructive)?
  • According to different genres, e.i. socially
    recognised text types

19
CORRESPONDING TEXTS IN THE TARGET CULTURE
  • EQUAL (e.g. the European legislation)?
  • PARALLEL ( e.g. a contract)?
  • WITH THE SAME FUNCTION (e.g. university handbook)
  • may be similar or culturally conditioned
  • DERIVED , e.g. summaries or abstract
  • AUTONOMOUS, e.g. an ad that is adapted to a
    different culture
  • but
  • Texts can either be adapted to the target
    culture and localized ( e.g. advertising and
    computing software) , or follow international
    models ( e.g. hard sciences)

20
What are the best translation strategies in
specialized discourse ?
  • Reading from global to intensive
  • to a reading geared to the awareness of
    translation difficulties at a both socio-cultural
    and linguistic level. Contrastive awareness of
    Source Language versus Target Language (e.g.
    false friends, different word order, cultural and
    conceptual differences)
  • 2. Translation several drafts, from literal to
    idiomatic. Use of different types of paraphrase.
    Awareness of options.
  • 3. Revision and final version

21
Some English-Italian differences which require
adaptation strategies(Scarpa, pp. 120-165)?
  • English specialized texts are more
    reader-oriented than Italian texts, e.g. more
    informal and redundant
  • English scientific and technical texts tend to be
    simpler and more direct than their Italian
    counterparts, e.g. computing style
  • English specialized texts favour lexical
    reiteration rather than a variety of lexical and
    grammatical patterns
  • English specialized texts use fewer connectors
    than Italian texts

22
Some English-Italian adaptation
micro-strategies
  • 5) From left-dislocation in English to
    right-dislocation in Italian , e.g. a
    slow-growing industry un settore industriale in
    lenta crescita
  • 6) More verbal forms in English than in Italian
    e.g. Opening a document apertura di un documento
  • 7) From simple clauses to coordination and
    subordination
  • 8) English passive and impersonal forms in
    English can also be rendered in Italian with si
    passivante e.g. Additional information can be
    obtained Si possono ottenere ulteriori
    informazioni
  • 9) Retention of anglicisms in Italian, e.g.
    scanner, non-profit organizations, RAM, turnover
  • 10) Calques e.g. randomizzare

23
What are the types of competence a translator
needs?
  • Linguistic/cultural competence in the source
    language and in the target language
  • General cultural competence
  • Competence in specialized domains (e.g. a
    specialist who is also a translator or a
    translator who is also a specialist?)?

24
What are the resources for a specialized
translator?
  • The Internet !!?
  • General and specialized dictionaries and
    glossaries (monolingual and bilingual)?
  • Encyclopaedias and expert literature
  • Terminological data banks
  • Software for machine-aided human translation e.g.
    Trados
  • Specialized monolingual and bilingual corpora

25
TEXT 2 (see Dossier)
  • Putting the boot in
  • From The Economist, 25h February 2006
  • In the Section entitled The World This
  • Week. A selection of political and
  • business news in brief
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