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- Volume 64, Issue 4, 2018
Babel - Volume 64, Issue 4, 2018
Volume 64, Issue 4, 2018
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Contrasting elegant variation in English- and Spanish-language dailies and novels
Author(s): Travis Sorensonpp.: 505–527 (23)More LessAbstractAnyone who learns a second language realizes that beyond phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon, there are variations of style between different tongues. One notable manifestation is word choice, particularly in writing. Writers may repeat vocabulary for efficiency and clarity, or they may choose synonyms to promote variety and creativity. When the latter practice is carried to extremes, it is known as elegant variation and is largely stigmatized in English, whereas such flexibility is widely valued among writers of Romance languages such as Spanish. While this phenomenon has been noted anecdotally, the present study explores it empirically. The main focus is journalistic prose in two U.S. and two Mexican newspapers, followed by a briefer examination of English and Spanish literature. Although elegant variation occurs in various word classes, this study centers on specific nouns and verbs. While the results demonstrating the vast difference between English and Spanish are interesting in their own right, there follows a discussion of their practical impact on translation, including the preservation of idiomaticity. This is especially relevant in light of the vastly improved capabilities of Google Translate, a development that calls for a reevaluation of the role of both humans and machines in the translation process.
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Effects of the interpreter’s political awareness on pronoun shifts in political interviews
Author(s): Yijun Guopp.: 528–547 (20)More LessAbstractThis paper investigates the critical role of the interpreter’s political awareness in interpreting high-level political interviews in China, and its effects on pronoun shifts. Using former Chinese Premier Zhu’s debut press conference in 1998 as a case study, the study examines in detail the pronoun shifts of a China’s Foreign Ministry senior interpreter prompted by her political awareness. It identifies four types of pronoun shifts: (1) from first-person singular pronoun (“I”) to first-person plural pronoun (“we”); (2) from active voice with first-person plural pronoun as subject to passive voice; (3) from pronoun to a third-party noun; and (4) replacement of a noun with an interactant pronoun. The paper considers implications of these findings in relation to relevant studies and to the macro-social institutional context in which the political interpreting is conducted. The paper argues that this type of political awareness is a form of socio-institutional cognition inculcated and developed through the interpreter’s diplomatic identity, their understanding of socio-institutional requirements, strict training and a large quantity of supervised practice.
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Translation quality research
Author(s): Alireza Akbaripp.: 548–578 (31)More LessAbstractRecently, there is a growing interest in the development of translation quality research programmes at different stages worldwide. Scholars and researchers have paid much attention to the quality of translation; however, there is a dearth of meta-analyses of studies and research in the field of translation quality research. In fact there has been no systematic review since 2000. The purpose of the current research paper is to design translation quality research through the construction of a database of 14 peer-reviewed journal publications during the period 2000 to 2017. A combination of thematic and methodological analyses, scientometric methods, and corpus tool were applied to analyse the extracted database. Also, top-down and bottom-up procedures were conducted to minimise the subjectivity of thematic analysis. The present research scrutinised the extracted database on the basis of four main criteria, namely theoretical importance, pertinence to empirical and non-empirical research, the size of readership, and geographical coverage including institutions and countries. Finally, this database aims at serving as a resource for researchers and scholars to become familiar with the most cutting edge information on developments in translation quality research, challenges within this field, and the possible trajectories for future research.
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Multiplicity in lieu of authority
Author(s): Josh Stenbergpp.: 579–593 (15)More LessAbstractOver the past two decades, internet users have been the prolific producers of online English translations of Chinese classical poetry, resulting in multiple variant translations of the same short originals. This essay gives reasons for the popularity of such translations before examining how this corpus can be approached through ‘near-simultaneous reading.’ A case study of ten amateur internet translations of a line from a well-known Tang poem shows how, regardless of the deficiencies or limits of any single internet translation, a richer and more accurate understanding of the original can be achieved through reading several in succession. Insofar as it refrains from privileging any given translation, near-simultaneous reading allows the polysemy of the original to be respected by encounters with multiple versions, and puts the onus of meaning-creation on the reader. Reading in this fashion opens new avenues for imagining the multiple meanings of an original text via variants experienced in quick succession and assembled uniquely.
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Formal ontology for discourse analysis of a corpus of court interpreting
Author(s): Adam Pease, Jennifer Cheung Pease and Andrew K. F. Cheungpp.: 594–618 (25)More LessAbstractWe develop a new method of discourse analysis using speech act theory and formal ontology. The method constitutes an attempt to make discourse analysis more formal and repeatable. We apply the method to a corpus of bi-lingual, interpreted legal dialogue, focusing on the speech act of clarification and its component acts. While discourse analysis is primarily a qualitative tool, it can be applied quantitatively by counting certain types of discourse, such as clarification speech acts. Dialogues are still analysed, utterances are classified as speech acts and their semantic relationships are qualitatively assessed. Subjectivity of human analysis is minimised using a new method of discourse analysis that employs a formal ontology. The ontology is stated in higher-order logic making the annotation of the corpus more objective, formal and repeatable than prior research.
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Mustapha Taibi (ed.). Translating for the Community
Author(s): Tian Luopp.: 619–625 (7)More LessThis article reviews Translating for the Community
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Cecilia Alvstad, Annjo K. Greenall, Hanne Jansen, Kristiina Taivalkoski-Shilov. Textual and Contextual Voices of Translation
Author(s): John Qiong Wangpp.: 626–632 (7)More LessThis article reviews Textual and Contextual Voices of Translation
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Hu, Kaibao, Tao Li, and Lingzi Meng. Introducing Corpus-based Critical Translation Studies
pp.: 633–639 (7)More LessThis article reviews Introducing Corpus-based Critical Translation Studies
Volumes & issues
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Volume 71 (2025)
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Volume 70 (2024)
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Volume 69 (2023)
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Volume 68 (2022)
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Volume 67 (2021)
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Volume 66 (2020)
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Volume 65 (2019)
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Volume 64 (2018)
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Volume 63 (2017)
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Volume 62 (2016)
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Volume 61 (2015)
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Volume 60 (2014)
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Volume 59 (2013)
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Volume 58 (2012)
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Volume 57 (2011)
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Volume 56 (2010)
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Volume 55 (2009)
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Volume 54 (2008)
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Volume 53 (2007)
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Volume 52 (2006)
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Volume 51 (2005)
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Volume 50 (2004)
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Volume 49 (2003)
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Volume 48 (2002)
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Volume 47 (2001)
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Volume 46 (2000)
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Volume 45 (1999)
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Volume 44 (1998)
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Volume 43 (1997)
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Volume 42 (1996)
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Volume 41 (1995)
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Volume 40 (1994)
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Volume 39 (1993)
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Volume 38 (1992)
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Volume 37 (1991)
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Volume 36 (1990)
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Volume 35 (1989)
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Volume 34 (1988)
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Volume 33 (1987)
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Volume 32 (1986)
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Volume 31 (1985)
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Volume 30 (1984)
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Volume 29 (1983)
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Volume 28 (1982)
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Volume 27 (1981)
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Volume 26 (1980)
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Volume 25 (1979)
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Volume 24 (1978)
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Volume 23 (1977)
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Volume 22 (1976)
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Volume 21 (1975)
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Volume 20 (1974)
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Volume 19 (1973)
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Volume 18 (1972)
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Volume 17 (1971)
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Volume 16 (1970)
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Volume 15 (1969)
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Volume 14 (1968)
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Volume 13 (1967)
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Volume 12 (1966)
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Volume 11 (1965)
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Volume 10 (1964)
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Volume 9 (1963)
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Volume 8 (1962)
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Volume 7 (1961)
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Volume 6 (1960)
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Volume 5 (1959)
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Volume 4 (1958)
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Volume 3 (1957)
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Volume 2 (1956)
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Volume 1 (1955)
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