The impact of typological differences on the perceived degree of dynamicity in motion events

  1. Cifuentes Férez, Paula
Revue:
TRANS: revista de traductología

ISSN: 1137-2311

Année de publication: 2017

Número: 21

Pages: 163-179

Type: Article

DOI: 10.24310/TRANS.2017.V0I21.3650 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDialnet editor

D'autres publications dans: TRANS: revista de traductología

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Résumé

Drawing from Talmy’s work on lexicalization patterns, and Slobin’s thinking-for-speaking hypothesis, the translation of motion has been an active arena for research. Recently, a new line of research on the reception of translations of motion has arisen, suggesting that typological differences have an impact on the target audience’s assessments about a translated text. This paper aims to explore the influence that typological differences between English and Spanish may have on readers’ judgments about the degree of dynamicity of the motion events narrated in original English texts and in Spanish translations. 20 excerpts were taken from 5 bestsellers written in English and their corresponding translations into Spanish. Participants were asked to rate in a 1 to 4 point scale the degree of dynamicity of the events described. Results suggest (a) Spanish translations did not differ in terms of dynamicity when path and manner information has been either lost or totally kept, and (b) that lexical verb choice in some English fragments together with the intrinsic nature of the events seemed to have an effect on the English audience’s judgments. 

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* This research has been funded by grant FFI2013-45553-C3- 3-P from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. I am very grateful to Michele I. Feist for proofreading this paper and to the reviewers for all their helpful suggestions and comments on an earlier draft.

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