Translation Studies (New Accents)
By Susan Bassnett, Susan Bassnett
* Publisher:Routledge
* Number Of Pages:192
* Publication Date:2002-07
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0415280133
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780415280136
* Binding:Hardcover
Product Description:
Susan Bassnett tackles the crucial problems of translation and offers a history of translation theory, beginning with the ancient Romans and encompassing key twentieth-century structuralist work.
Summary: Susan Bassnett
Rating: 3
This is a great book for those who have read several theory books and authors as: Cicero, Dryden, Nida, Baker, Snell-Hornby... Otherwise you will not understand anything, like I did or didn't... Too much information crammed together, to many names and numbers for my taste.
Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications
by: Jeremy Munday
en
0415229278 9780415229272
description
By
* Publisher:Routledge
* Number Of Pages:224
* Publication Date:2001-05-29
* Sales Rank:179883
* ISBN / ASIN:0415229278
* EAN:9780415229272
* Binding:Paperback
* Manufacturer:Routledge
* Studio:Routledge
* Average Rating:
* Total Reviews:
Book Description:
Introducing Translation Studies is an introductory textbook providing an accessible overview of the key contributions to translation theory. A very wide variety of text types is analyzed, including a tourist brochure, a children's cookery book, a Harry Potter novel, the Bible, literary reviews, a technical text, and a football report.
Translation Universals: Do They Exist? (Benjamins Translation Library, 48)
By Anna Mauranen, Pekka Kujamaki
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:221
* Publication Date:2004-04
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1588114686
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588114686
Table of contents
Introduction 1
I. Conceptualising universals
Probabilistic explanations in translation studies:Welcome as they
are, would they qualify as universals? 15
Gideon Toury
Beyond the particular 33
Andrew Chesterman
When is a universal not a universal? Some limits of current
corpus-based methodologies for the investigation
of translation universals 51
Silvia Bernardini and Federico Zanettin
II. Large-scale tendencies in translated language
Corpora, universals and interference 65
AnnaMauranen
Untypical frequencies in translated language: A corpus-based study
on a literary corpus of translated and non-translated Finnish 83
Sari Eskola
Untypical patterns in translations: Issues on corpus methodology
and synonymity 101
Jarmo Harri Jantunen
III. Testing the basics
Translation-specific lexicogrammar? Characteristic lexical and
collocational patterning in Swedish texts translated from English 129
Per-Ola Nilsson
Explicitation: A universal of translated text? 143
Vilma Pápai
Explicitation of clausal relations: A corpus-based analysis of clause
connectives in translated and non-translated Finnish children’s literature 165
Tiina Puurtinen
Unique items – over- or under-represented in translated language? 177
Sonja Tirkkonen-Condit
IV. Universals in the translation class
What happens to “unique items” in learners’ translations?
“Theories” and “concepts” as a challenge for novices’ views
on “good translation” 187
Pekka Kujam鋕i
The fate of “The Families of Medellín”: Tampering with a potential
translation universal in the translation class 205
Riitta J滗skel鋓nen
Author index 215
Subject index 219
Introduction
The search for universals of translation has experienced a surge of research interest
since the mid-nineties, in particular since the advent of electronic corpora
as research tools in translation studies. The seminal paper was Mona
Baker’s (1993) article where she suggested that large electronic corpora might
be the ideal tool for investigating the linguistic nature of translations: either
in contrast to their source texts or in contrast to untranslated target language
texts. Baker saw in electronic corpora a useful testbed for a series of hypotheses
on universal features of translation that had been put forward by other
scholars on the basis of small-scale, manually conducted contrastive studies
only. Included in her list were features such as a tendency towards explicitation
(Blum-Kulka 1986; Toury 1991a), disambiguation and simplification (Blum-
Kulka & Levenston 1983; Vanderauwera 1985), growing grammatical conventionality
and a tendency to overrepresent typical features of the target language
(Toury 1980; Vanderauwera 1985; Shlesinger 1991) as well as the feature of
cleaning away repetitions from translations (Shlesinger 1991; Toury 1991b).
Since this article, the idea of linguistic translation universals has found a place
at the centre of discussion in translation studies.
The idea of translation studies searching for general laws and regularities
is not new; the best-known advocate for general laws of translation has been
Gideon Toury (1980, 1995), who proposed this as a fundamental task of
descriptive translation studies. Similarly, more recently Andrew Chesterman
(e.g. 1998, 2000) has wished to see translation studies as a rigorously scientific
pursuit, seeking generalisations like any other science. A clearly linguistic
flavour to the issue has been added by those who have suggested that translated
language is a kind of ‘hybrid language’ (see e.g. Trosborg 1996 and 1997;
Sch鋐fner & Adab 2001), or a ‘third code’ (Frawley 1984).
The issue remains highly controversial: while some scholars (e.g. Laviosa-
Braithwaite 1996) claim that they have found clear support for hypotheses concerning
general linguistic properties of translated language such as simplification,
others (e.g. Tymoczko 1998; Paloposki 2002) maintain that the very
idea of making claims about universals in translation is inconceivable since we
have no way of capturing translations from all times and all languages. Others,
again, are proposing new subtypes of universals (Chesterman 2001), questioning
or further developing already established concepts, (e.g. Toury 2001,
Klaudy 2001) or wondering if the term was felicitous after all (Baker 2001).
The discussion is very much alive, and to fuel it further, we are now rapidly
accumulating evidence from actual data which demands interpretation.
In linguistics, universals have been discussed for quite a while, and it
has become clear that a fruitful study of language universals needs to take
into account several different kinds, including important tendencies shared
by many languages, not only ‘absolute’ universals, or, as Greenberg et al.
(1966) put it in their classic ‘Memorandum concerning language universals’:
“Language universals are by their very nature summary statements about
characteristics or tendencies shared by all human speakers.” Such an extended
view – which includes tendencies – also seems to suit translation studies.
Moreover, distinctions between universals which can be traced back to general
cognitive capacities in humans, and those which relate linguistic structures
and the functional uses of languages (see, Comrie 2003) provide food for
thought for the study of translations and characteristics of translated language
as well. We may want to differentiate our search for that which is most
general first of all in cognitive translation processes, secondly, the social
and historical determinants of translation, and finally, the typical linguistic
features of translations. However, the greatest part of empirical investigation
into translation universals has so far focused on linguistic characteristics –
while theoretical discussion has concerned the plausibility, kinds and possible
determinants of universal tendencies. There is a need to clarify the issues and
also to bring together these angles, to the extent that it is possible.
Clearly, the quest for translation universals is meaningful only if the
data and methods we employ are adequate for the purpose. The value of
universals in deepening our understanding of translation lies in developing
theory and accumulating evidence from all the three main domains that
are relevant to universals: cognitive, social, and linguistic. There is therefore
no reason to subscribe to any methodological monism, even though the
impetus for systematic linguistic research of translation universals originated
in corpus studies. There are good reasons to expect corpusmethods to make an
important contribution to the field in that they allow comparisons of linguistic
features on a large scale; this goes both for the more traditional approach
of comparing translations with their source texts (parallel corpora) and the
more recent discovery of the potential in comparing translations to similar
texts written originally in the target language (comparable corpora). One of
the main methodological principles in an ambitious domain like this is to keep
in mind the diversity of languages, and not draw excessively hasty conclusions
on the basis of comparing typologically very close languages only, or a very
small range of languages.
The present volume is a selection of articles from an international conferencewith
the same topic as the book, “TranslationUniversals – Do They Exist?”
held in Savonlinna, October 2001, on questions relating to translation universals.
Despite the uniformfocus on the topic, it comprises a number of different
approaches from theoretical discussion of the issues to empirical studies testing
some of the main hypotheses put forth so far. The research field is still
very new, as empirical work only seriously began in the late nineties. Several
papers discuss the established hypotheses on universals in the light of recent
work in different languages, and some move on to test new hypotheses that
have emerged out of the research carried out in the last two or three years.
One of the central issues is the role of interference in relation to translation
universals, and a number of suggestions are made as to its position, based on
various empirical approaches. Most studies report work based on large translational
corpora, which have begun to appear in many languages now, with
applications to translator education also included. The papers cover a number
of source and target languages, which makes a welcome change in the heavily
English-dominated field.
The volume is divided into four main sections, according to the main foci
of the papers. Those in the first section, Conceptualising Universals, address
issues concerning the notion of universals and universality, and the extent to
which this is appropriate or fruitful as an avenue for translation studies to take.
The first two articles, by Gideon Toury and Andrew Chesterman, discuss the
concept of universals, reflecting upon the possibility, and indeed desirability,
of discovering them in translations. Both stress the demanding nature of the
enterprise, and the methodological difficulties involved. Nevertheless, both
also see the search for universals as an important step forward for translation
studies, particularly as regards the character and credibility of translation
studies as a ‘science’. Moreover, both welcome corpus-based work as a major
road towards progress in the field, while neither is actively personally involved
in corpus-based studies. Gideon Toury’s opening article discusses the roles of
different levels of abstraction in discovering regularity, and posits probabilistic
statements at the highest level of generality.He then raises the questionwhether
probabilistic propositions, or conditioned regularities, are the best we can hope
for in descriptive translation studies, and if this is so, are these the universals we
have been looking for. The value of the concept of universals for Toury lies not
in the possible existence of such laws, but in their explanatory power, which, at
least for the time being, shows great promise. Toury prefers the term ‘laws’
to ‘universals’, but concedes to talk about universals in the present context,
without too much concern.
Andrew Chesterman continues the thread of thought stemming from the
quest for generalities which characterises all science. He considers the different
ways in which translation studies have sought the general, distinguishing what
he calls the prescriptive route, the pejorative route, and the descriptive route.
The contributions and problems of each are discussed, with the main focus
on the currently prevailing descriptive study of translation, where further
distinctions are made, such as the very useful one between universals which
relate to the process from the source to the target text (what he calls Suniversals),
and those which compare translations to other target language
texts (T-universals). He raises many other fundamental questions, relating to
the nature of evidence, the concept of tendency, and the problem of testing
very high-level hypotheses, questioning for each the current conceptualisation
and terminology, which, not surprisingly, tend to vary widely and often suffer
from vagueness. Finally, Chesterman invites us to go beyond descriptions,
to explanations, and consider questions of causes as well as effects. He calls
for wider testing of hypotheses, standardisation and operationalisation of
concepts, and generation of new hypotheses.
The final paper in this section, by Silvia Bernardini and Federico Zanettin,
assesses the appropriateness of corpus-based approaches to the search for universals.
Terminologically, they share Toury’s preference for ‘law’ over ‘universal’,
although for different reasons (its better fit into the framework of Firthian
linguistics). They address the issue of corpus design in view of the claims that
have been made for their ability to offer a testbed for translational hypotheses
at the highest levels of generalisation. The discussion is filtered through
an illustrative case, the compilation of an English-Italian translational corpus,
which is of the parallel corpus type, and bidirectional. The organising concept
is Toury’s “preliminary norms”, that is, the translation policies which largely
determine things like the selection of texts for translation. A survey of texts
that are available in translation quickly reveals that a considerable asymmetry
prevails between languages as regards the proportions of genres. Sheer overall
numbers show that for a given language pair, more gets translated in one direction
than the other. In addition, translations in one direction are likely to be
differently biased for prestige, date of original, and other social determinants.
The dilemma that follows is that comparability of the texts conflicts with the
objective of reflecting the prevailing preliminary norms, although an ambi
tious corpus would wish to incorporate both criteria. The suggested solution is
a broad-based methodological approach to translational corpus compilation,
which gives due recognition to the social contexts that translations reside in.
The second section, Large-Scale Tendencies in Translated Language, is
methodologically fairly uniform in that each paper reports a corpus-based
study, and addresses questions of capturing universals with this approach.
Moreover, they all make use of the same corpus, the Corpus of Translated
Finnish, a comparable corpus which consists of 10 million words altogether,
consisting of both translations into Finnish in several genres, and comparable
texts originally written in Finnish. The texts are contemporary, and include
translations from a number of different source languages. The corpus, which
is one of the largest comparable corpora in existence, was compiled at the
Savonlinna School of Translation Studies in the last five years of the 1990s. The
first of the papers, by AnnaMauranen,who was the initiator and director of the
Savonlinna project, gives an account of the structure and origins of the corpus.
Her paper sets out by considering the problem of interference in translation,
which has been used rather carelessly and given diverse interpretations, and
then moves on to explaining and trying out a procedure for comparing
different corpora in search for evidence on the role of interference and transfer.
A corpus comparison on an overall basis is problematic; the present solution is
based on lexis and rank order, and it obviously needs other types of evidence
to support or refute the findings.Nevertheless, the method yields results which
suggest that translations are more similar to one another than to originals
in the target language, but that translations from particular source languages
and cultures differ from each other in their distance from the target language
texts. This suggests that interference is a fundamental property of translations,
but that not all linguistic features specific to translations are reducible to
interference – other sources are required to explain the rest of the distance
between translations and non-translations on the one hand, and the proximity
of translations to one another.
The topic of interference is followed on by Sari Eskola, who advocates a new
reading to the concept of interference as a neutral, non-pejorative term. Her
theoretical interest is also in clarifying the concepts of ‘norm’ and ‘universal’
with respect to regularities, and she suggests the common term for observed
regularities should be Toury’s ‘law’, with a distinction being made between
local and global laws, the latter representing universals. She has investigated the
syntax of texts translated into Finnish in comparison with originally Finnish
texts, with Russian and English as source languages, both typologically very
distant from Finnish. Her particular focus is on non-finite constructions,
which, on the face of it, could be assumed to be typical of translations in that
they offer convenient ways of overcoming syntactic differences in the source
and target languages. Her findings indicate that translations, compared with
original TL texts, overrepresented those SL features which had straightforward
translation equivalents in the TL, but, conversely, underrepresented features
which were specific to the TL. This supports Tirkkonen-Condit’s (2000, this
volume) hypothesis on the relative underrepresentation of unique items, and
alsoMauranen’s (2000) findings on word combinations. Since the latter studies
were based on lexis, Eskola’s syntactic results provide an important support.
Eskola’s finding that the differences between translations from Russian and
Finnish originals are greater than between translations from English vis-a-vis
Finnish originals are in line with Mauranen’s lexical results (this volume).
Jarmo Harri Jantunen takes up the methodological issues involved in the
quest for universals with the help of comparable target-language corpora.
His study is also based on a subsection of the Corpus of Translated Finnish
(CTF). His particular focus is on lexical patterning, more specifically nearsynonymous
frequent intensifiers, but the main objective of the paper is to
present a quantitative methodological solution for investigating the influence
of the SL on translations. The three-phase method of comparisons is enabled
by the compilation principles of the CTF, and Jantunen takes pains to explore
the suitability of various statistical measures for discovering meaningful
regularities in the data in a reliable way. His findings are interestingly complex
in that the very small selection of near-synonyms showed different patterning
both in terms of collocations and colligations, and the main conclusion is that
it is imperative to continue fine-tuned research into specific cases to be able to
appreciate the extension of SL influence and other determinants of difference
and similarity in translated and untranslated language.
The third section, Testing the basics, is devoted to papers in which some
basic assumptions on the specificity of translated language are tested with
different parallel and comparable corpora. The section is opened by Per-Ola
Nilsson, who reports on a methodologically rigorous corpus-driven study
of translation-specific lexicogrammar in texts translated from English into
Swedish. The quantitative comparison of original and translated Swedish reveals
that in the translated text corpus, the grammatical word av as well as many
collocational patterns and frameworks including av were significantly overrepresented.
Nilsson uses the fiction part of the English-Swedish Parallel Corpus
(ESPC), which with its aligned subcorpus enables himto move on to the search
for causes for this overrepresentation. The analysis shows a strong structural
correspondence between English sources and Swedish translations: the transfer
of several frequent SL patterns give rise to these frequency differences between
translated and non-translated Swedish................................................................
Translation and Conflict
By Mona Baker
* Publisher:Routledge
* Number Of Pages:203
* Publication Date:2006-05-30
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0415383951
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780415383950
* Binding:Hardcover
Product Description:
As political conflict is increasingly played out in the international arena, the role of translators and interpreters, as participants in this environment, is a key concern for us all. Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account draws on narrative theory, and examples from historical as well as contemporary conflicts, to examine how translation functions in the context of conflict and violence.
Mona Baker argues that translators are placed in a complex position inside a multitude of narratives, and are not, and cannot possibly be, the 'honest brokers' we imagine, as illustrated by the increasing number of activist communities of translators. Presenting an original and coherent model of analysis which focuses on both translation and interpretation, Baker shows how the narrative location of the source text is maintained, undermined or adapted, and that far from being an adjunct to social and political developments, translation is a crucial component of the process that makes these developments possible in the first place.
Given an increased interest in the positioning of translators in politically sensitive situations, as in the case of Katharine Gunn at GCHQ, and in settings such as Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Kosovo, this book is a timely exploration of the importance of the role of translators and interpreters to the political process.
Including research questions and further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter, Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account will be of interest to students on courses in translation, intercultural studies and sociology as well as the reader interested in the study of social and political movements.
Mona Baker is Professor of Translation Studies and Director of the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester. She is author of In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation; Editor of The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, Founding Editor of The Translator, and Vice President of the International Association of Translation and Cultural Studies.
Expertise And Explicitation in the Translation Process (Benjamins Translation Library : Est)
By Birgitta Englund Dimitrova, Birgitta Englund Dimitrova
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:295
* Publication Date:2005-10-31
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:9027216703
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9789027216700
Product Description:
This book addresses the complexities of the translation process. Informed by theoretical and methodological advances in translation studies, research on writing and the expertise paradigm, it explores translation as a text reproduction task. With triangulation of data from Russian-Swedish translation--think-aloud-methodology and computer logging of the writing process--it makes a cross-sectional comparison of subjects with different amounts of translation experience, highlighting crucial aspects of professional competence and expertise in translation. The book also elaborates a method for a combined product and process analysis, applying it to the study of one type of explicitation: increased cohesive explicitness of the target text. The results have implications for translation theory and pedagogy. This volume will be of interest to translation scholars and translator trainers, irrespective of language combination, as well as to specialists in Russian and Swedish. It will also appeal to researchers on expertise in other domains.
Translation, Power, Subversion (Topics in Translation, 8)
By Roman Alvarez, M. Carmen Africa Vidal
* Publisher:Multilingual Matters Limited
* Number Of Pages:157
* Publication Date:1996-06
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1853593516
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781853593512
Summary: Traductology for the New Millenium
Rating: 4
Translation, Power, Subversion, an anthology of essays concerned with the political implications of translation and translation studies is an eye-opening and in many ways discombobulating array of research findings. While there were some theoretical writers that I was familiar with. Bhabha, Said and Bourdieu not being the least significant of them, it was invigorating to be surrounded by a theoretical and pragmatic framework that I was, for the most part, unfamiliar with. Javier Franco Aixelá's essay on Culture Specific Items was a particularly thorough analysis of those concerns and Bassnett and Carbonell's contributions went a great distance in exposing the colonizing and dominating influence of translation and traductology, though any easy solution to this tendency (or institutional imperative) was belied by André Lefevre's explication of the explicitly conservative nature of canonization in literature anthologies in the United States.
While the text would most likely not be particularly useful for a beginning student of translation theory and/or pragmatics, it provided me with a clear view of another aspect of translation and has started me off in another direction with my research in the seminar in which I am presently enrolled.
Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation (Topics in Translation, 11)
By Susan Bassnett, Andre Lefevere
* Publisher:Multilingual Matters Limited
* Number Of Pages:143
* Publication Date:1998-05
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1853593532
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781853593536
Product Description:
This collection of essays brings together the two leading international figures in the discipline of Translation Studies, Susan Bassnett and Andre Lefevere. The essays cover a wide range of fields, and combine theory with practical case studies involving the translation of literary texts.
Speech and Hearing in Communication
By Harvey Fletcher
* Publisher:D.Van Nostrand
* Number Of Pages:461
* Publication Date:1961
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:B000OBC6RA
* ISBN-13 / EAN:
About 35 years ago the Research Laboratories of the Bell Telephone System started a comprehensive research program on speech and hearing, and its relation to the design of telephone systems. It was apparent that great advantages would come if one could describe accurately every part of the system, namely (1) the talker, (2) the microphone, (3) the electrical transmission line, (4) the telephone receiver (head phone or terminating loud-speaker), and (5) the listener.
The attack was first launched most vigorously on the constitution of speech issuing from the mouth of a typical talker to establish a reasonable description of speech; then one can find to what extent small imperfections and variations of the speech sounds affect the ability of the listener to recognize what the talker said. The work included study of both normal and abnormal organs of speech and hearing.
As the work progressed it became apparent that better and more precise instruments must be developed than were available, and a considerable part of the effort has been devoted to the matter of securing devices which would convert sound waves into electrical form and reconvert them again to sound with the least possible distortion. Out of this have come unexpected rewards to the telephone and phonograph arts, for as these devices were perfected they found very immediate application to the great advantage of those industries.
One of the most difficult phases of the investigation has been that relating to the degree of precision with which the mind can differentiate and interpret sounds that are very nearly alike. This does not lend itself so readily to analysis and measurement as does the purely mechanical operation of the ear itself. The approach to this problem has been through the use of essentially perfect reproduction systems which could be deteriorated step by step until their faults became noticeable to the observer. This set a limit to the degree of perfection which could ever be demanded in the apparatus. When the deterioration was carried somewhat further, an estimate could be obtained of the degree of dissatisfaction presented by certain measured imperfections, and hence a practical basis of choice of a reasonably perfect system could be established.
Then after 15 years of such research work, a report was made to the public in the form of my book "Speech and Hearing" (published in 1929). Since its publication there has been a wealth of new information bearing upon this problem. Some of this information has come from the Bell Telephone Laboratories, but many other laboratories have made noteworthy contributions. This present book deals with all the information, and presents the subject, "Speech and Hearing in Communication", as an integrated whole. Chapters 15, 16, 17, and 18 summarize about thirty years of work with the Bell Telephone Laboratories by various groups on the perception of speech sound by listeners having normal hearing. They present it in the form of a method of calculating the articulation score expected by any talker-listener pair using any kind of system, which may be immersed in any kind of noise. In chapter 19 this is extended to the case of deafened listeners, and it is shown what the fundamental criteria must be for designing a hearing aid to be used by a deafened person having any kind and degree of deafness.
The last chapter deals with compensation cases due to injured hearing. The principles developed in the book are applied to this problem. A simple method is evolved for obtaining the effective hearing loss. It takes into account the hearing loss in both ears. This effective hearing loss is then related to the percent compensation that such a deafened person should receive compared to that which should be received by a totally deafened person.
An Old English Grammar
By Randolph Quirk
* Publisher:Routledge
* Number Of Pages:176
* Publication Date:1958-01-01
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0415045347
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780415045346
Product Description:
A compact grammar for the student of English taking a descriptive approach. The introduction provides a general background and indicates the kinds of evidence on which frammatical description is based.
Summary: A Very Useful, Informative and Practical Grammatical Lexicon
Rating: 4
As the preface to this edition indicates, this Grammar is designed for the literary student of English as opposed to the student of philology. Thus, the emphasis is on practical issues of the language. In other words, it eschews lengthy and digressive forays into the history or context of certain linguistic developments (though it does touch on certain essential matters) and focuses instead on the issues most pertinent to one who wishes to begin mastering the basics and intermediate elements of the language, such as inflexions, cases, syntactical issues. One does not need to bring a broad basis of linguuistic training/experience to bear; but one should keep in mind that it is presented like a traditional lexicon one might encounter in Latin or Greek, i.e., no handholding through the practical elements of the language - nor is it riddled with practice sentences or parallel examples in ModE. For those, however, who want to undertake a rigorous and systematic study of the basics of OE, this is a very handy and practical Grammar reference with which to begin such an endeavor.
Summary: Not for those unaquainted with the Old English language
Rating: 2
This is not the most well-organized Old English Grammar in existence, but it does serve a certain purpose. There is a wealth of information and interesting tid-bits of philological lore, but it is not an introduction to the language by any means (just a warning). Those who do have an understanding of the language would do well to own it, at least for reference purposes, but there are much better and more concise grammars available.
A Grammar of Shakespeare's Language
By N. F. Blake
* Publisher:Palgrave Macmillan
* Number Of Pages:432
* Publication Date:2001-12-07
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0333725905
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780333725900
Product Description:
Shakespeare's language is a surprisingly neglected topic. An understanding of how his language works is fundamental to appreciating every aspect of his work. This first comprehensive study since the 19th century provides a detailed analysis of the grammar of Shakespeare's language. Steering clear of linguistic jargon, it includes not only traditional features such as the make-up of clauses and differing parts of speech, but also language used in various forms of discourse.
Summary: The Best Book on Shakespeare in a Very Long Time
Rating: 5
I am reviewing N. F. Blake's "A Grammar of Shakespeare's Language"
This is the best book about Shakespeare's art in quite a long time. It is so because it focuses on the grammatical norms of Shakespeare's English.
This is a book that adds to our understanding of Shakespeare because it describes in great detail the syntax of the English of Shakespeare's plays and poems. This grammar uses terms from traditional grammar like adjective and adverb, and it also uses terms from functional grammar such as "noun head," "do-periphrasis," and "discourse analysis." A familiarity with the grammars of Quirk, Greenbaum, Svartvik and Leech is not essential but will make Blake's grammar easier to read.
Blake uses the Norton Facsimile (second editition), the Allen and Muir edition of Shakepeare's quarto facsimilies, and 19th Century facsimiles as his sources. It is a bold choice to do so because he wants to demonstrate the features of Shakepeare's grammar with a minimum of editorial interference. But then Blake ties his citations to the line numbering from the Oxford edition because he says this edition was more accessable to the ordinary reader. I confess that I do not find the choice convienent. I would have preferred that he cited the sources that he used directly because it would have been easier to verify his conclusions.
It should be stressed that this book limits itself to the syntax and usage found in Shakespeare plays and poems. It is not a comprehensive grammar of Early Modern English. There are features which show up in Early Modern English which do not show up in Shakespeare's writings. For example, on page 208 Blake writes that "In ShE "not" is never abbrivated to "n't"....which sets it apart from PdE where forms like "don't" are common." "N't" is found in Early Modern English. Though it is true that Shakespeare did not use contractions like "won't," his contempory Thomas Middleton did. See "The Family of Love" (1607) act iv, scene iv, line 49. Gudgeon says to Purge "A pile on ye, won't you! had you not been so manable, here are some would have saved you that labour."
The word "don't" does appear in the 1623 folio, but not as a contraction of "do not" but as a contraction of "done it." See Macbeth act 2, scene 2, line 13 (Norton2 p. 744 col. 2)
But these are minor criticisms. This grammar is authoritative. Shakespeare's readers at all levels will find many things to interest them.
Recent Advances in Natural Language Processing IV: Selected Papers from RANLP 2005 (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory)
By Nicolas Nicolov, Kalina Bontcheva, Galia Angelova, Ruslan Mitkov
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:307
* Publication Date:2007-12-13
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:9027248079
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9789027248077
Recent Advances In Natural Language Processing III: Selected Papers From RANLP 2003 (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory)
By Nicolas Nicolov, Bulgaria) Ranlp 200 (2003 Samokov
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:402
* Publication Date:2004-12-31
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1588116182
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588116185
Multilingual Communication (Hamburg Studies in Multilingualism)
By Juliane House, Jochen Rehbein
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:341
* Publication Date:2005-04-30
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1588115895
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588115898
Studies In Stemmatology II
By Annelies Roeleveld, Pieter Van Reenen, August den Hollander, Margot van Mulken, Pieter Th. Van Reenen, A. A. Den Hollander, Margot Van Mulken
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:312
* Publication Date:2004-09-30
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1588115356
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588115355
Pragmatic Markers in Oral Narrative: The Case of English and Catalan (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series)
By Montserrat Gonzalez
* Publisher:John Benjamins Publishing Co
* Number Of Pages:409
* Publication Date:2004-05
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1588115194
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588115195
Tok Pisin Texts: From the Beginning to the Present (Varieties of English Around the World Text Series, 9)
By Peter Muhlhausler, Thomas Edward Dutton, Suzanne Romaine
* Publisher:Philadelphia Pa
* Number Of Pages:284
* Publication Date:2003-12
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1588114562
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781588114563
Quantificational Topics: A Scopal Treatment of Exceptional Wide Scope Phenomena (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy)
By Cornelia Endriss
* Publisher:Springer
* Number Of Pages:308
* Publication Date:2009-05-01
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:904812302X
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9789048123025
Product Description:
Addressing an issue that has puzzled the linguistics community for many years, this book offers a novel approach to the exceptional wide scope behaviour of indefinites. It is the first book explicitly dedicated to exceptional wide scope phenomena. Its unique approach offers an explanation for the fact that it is only a proper subset of the indefinites that shows this exceptional wide scope behaviour.
The author draws a careful distinction between genuine and apparent scope readings, a distinction that is usually not taken care of and has thus led to certain confusions. In particular, it is argued that functional readings have to be kept strictly apart from non-functional ones and that all proposals that use functional mechanisms to explain the phenomena at hand face severe problems.
The existing body of literature on the main issues of the book is thoroughly reviewed. This makes the book well suited as background literature for graduate seminars on those topics.
Meaning in Language: An Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics (Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics)
By D. Alan Cruse
* Publisher:Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages:440
* Publication Date:2000-03-30
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0198700105
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780198700104
Product Description:
This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the ways in which meaning is conveyed in language. It covers topics normally considered to fall under pragmatics, as well as semantic matters. The author seeks, above all, to display and to explain the richness and subtlety of meaning, and to that end provides abundant examples throughout the text. Numerous exercises (and suggested answers) are provided at every stage.
Thinking Translation: A Course in Translation Method
By Sandor Hervey
* Publisher:Routledge
* Number Of Pages:256
* Publication Date:1992-03
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0415078164
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780415078160
Product Description:
The authors show that the best way to develop proficiency in translating is by making students aware of the nature of translation as a problem-solving tool. Through discussion backed by concrete examples and practical applications, predominantly in translating French to English, students will acquire the skills necessary to deal intelligently with a wide range of translation problems. Areas covered include economic journalism, poetry, theater, and film subtitling, as well as consumer manuals and scientific and technical texts. The teachers' pack comes with a useful 120-page handbook and a 30-minute cassette.
Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World (Concise Encyclopedias of Language and Linguistics)
By Keith Brown
Publisher:Elsevier Science
Number Of Pages:1320
Publication Date:2008-11-21
ISBN-10 / ASIN:0080877745
ISBN-13 / EAN:9780080877747
Product Description:
Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World is an authoritative single-volume reference resource comprehensively describing the major languages and language families of the world.
It will provide full descriptions of the phonology, semantics, morphology, and syntax of the world's major languages, giving insights into their structure, history and development, sounds, meaning, structure, and language family, thereby both highlighting their diversity for comparative study, and contextualizing them according to their genetic relationships and regional distribution.
Based on the highly acclaimed and award-winning Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, this volume will provide an edited collection of almost 400 articles throughout which a representative subset of the world's major languages are unfolded and explained in up-to-date terminology and authoritative interpretation, by the leading scholars in linguistics.
In highlighting the diversity of the world's languages - from the thriving to the endangered and extinct - this work will be the first point of call to any language expert interested in this huge area. No other single volume will match the extent of language coverage or the authority of the contributors of Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World.
* Extraordinary breadth of coverage: a comprehensive selection of just under 400 articles covering the world's major languages, language families, and classification structures, issues and disputes
* Peerless quality: based on 20 years of academic development on two editions of the leading reference resource in linguistics, Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics
* Unique authorship: 350 of the world's leading experts brought together for one purpose
* Exceptional editorial selection, review and validation process: Keith Brown and Sarah Ogilvie act as first-tier guarantors for article quality and coverage
* Compact and affordable: one-volume format makes this suitable for personal study at any institution interested in areal, descriptive, or comparative language study - and at a fraction of the cost of the full encyclopedia