International Journal of Corpus Linguistics - Volume 25, Issue 3, 2020

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of reporting verbs in the Harry Potter series and their translation in Italian. It offers quantitative and qualitative perspectives on how the English verbs have been translated by two Italian translators, who worked on different books of the series. This study first analyses verb usage across the three protagonists of the series (Harry, Ron, and Hermione) in English and Italian; then, it employs Caldas-Coulthard’s (1987) taxonomy of reporting verbs and compares verb categories between source and target texts to identify tendencies in the translation of this textual feature. It finally discusses the stylistic implications of translation alterations and their potential effect on character development. As such, this paper contributes not only to the limited literature on reporting verbs in translation (especially in Italian), but it also furthers the understanding of the role of reporting verbs as a characterisation device.

Abstract

This study offers a unique contribution through the construction of an annotated text-based sign language interpreting corpus and its application in analyzing shifts (defined as deviations from source semantic content), which in turn enables researchers to identify and categorize interpreter strategies and norms. The corpus comprises ten half-hour news broadcasts in English and their simultaneously signed interpretations into South African Sign Language. The analysis of shifts shows that interpreters mainly strive to produce a fluent output, combatting cognitive overload through condensation, use of synonyms and omission. However, they also cater for target language norms through attention to discourse features and syntactic reformulation and by addressing perceived target audience knowledge gaps through explanations. Time constraints limit full deverbalization and repair strategies, and Deaf communicative norms occasionally conflict with interpreting norms. Although most shifts could be related to interpreter strategies and norms, the interpreters occasionally made syntactic errors, hindering comprehension.

Abstract

This paper studies the English too ADJ to V construction. It starts with a (multiple) distinctive collexeme analysis (as one of the subtypes of collostructional analysis) of the ADJ-V pairs appearing in the given construction in three regional varieties of English (American, British and Indian English) based on the GloWbE corpus. This analysis establishes the most distinctive and most strongly repelled ADJ-V pairs in the respective varieties. These results are then interpreted from the perspective of three models of inter-cultural and cross-cultural communication styles. The paper demonstrates that the most distinctive and the most repelled ADJ-V pairs do differ across the three varieties and that this may reflect subtle differences in the underlying cultural conceptualizations. The paper also introduces the notion of ‘(multiple) distinctive collexeme analysis of co-varying collexemes’, as an extension of the existing notion of the given type of collostructional analysis.

Abstract

This paper aims to assist future organizers of international online conferences with designing and realizing these events. On the basis of the authors’ experience of having to move a corpus linguistics conference – originally planned as a physical event – into the digital space, this paper describes the conference’s organization and management structure, outlines the software and communication tools used and sketches what is important to foster interaction and discourse among participants. The paper contains a manual and a checklist for preparing an online conference, and a discussion of the chances of online and hybrid conferences in terms of outreach, Open Access and co-creation. It ends with an appeal to colleagues to devise conferences with courage, develop new ways of transferring linguistic research findings (to the public) and to move out of their comfort zones to sustainably use the digital transformation for innovative paths of exchanging research findings.

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic may be the largest crisis the world has had to face since World War II. It does not come as a surprise that it is also having an impact on language as our primary communication tool. In this short paper, we present three inter-connected resources that are designed to capture and illustrate these effects on a subset of the German language: An RSS corpus of German-language newsfeeds (with freely available untruncated frequency lists), a continuously updated HTML page tracking the diversity of the vocabulary in the RSS corpus and a Shiny web application that enables other researchers and the broader public to explore the corpus in terms of basic frequencies.

This article reviews War and its Ideologies

This article reviews Corpus Linguistics for Online Communication: A Guide for Research