Metadiscourse distribution measurement – an experimental case study of a translation
Absztrakt
The term metadiscourse is used for language elements that either aid the organising of a text or serve the expression of the writer’s stance towards the content of the text or towards the reader. Most research done on metadiscourse scrutinise the number and quality of these elements for whole texts, while disregard the examination of the patterns on a lower level. Nevertheless, discovering paragraph-level patterns may not just help understand the metadiscourse structure of texts but could also help us understand better what happens to texts during translation. To our knowledge, no established methods exist to measure and compare metadiscourse distribution patterns. This paper introduces a method of paragraph-level analysis and comparison, and presents the results of a small case study carried out on a textbook excerpt and its translation. The method shown here opens up the possibility to furthering the depth of knowledge about text construction, reader-writer communication and discourse community-specific characteristics and how these features are handled during translation.
Hivatkozások
Ädel, A. (2001): On the search for metadiscourse units. In: Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2001 conference: UCREL Technical Papers. Volume 13. Special Issue. Lancaster: Department of Linguistics, Lancaster University
Bennett, K. (2007): Epistemicide!: The Tale of a Predatory Discourse. The Translator. 13/2. 151–169.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2007.10799236
Bond, S. J. – Hayes, J. R. (1984): Cues People Use to Paragraph Text. Research in the Teaching of English. 18/2. 147–167
Čmerjková, S. (1996): Academic Writing in Czech and English. In: E. Ventola – A. Mauranen (eds.): Academic writing: Intercultural and textual issues. John Benjamins: Amsterdam.
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.41.11cme
Dueñas, P. M. (2009): Logical markers in L1 (Spanish and English) and L2 (English) Business research articles. English Text Construction. 2/2. 246–264.
https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.2.2.07mur
Duncan, M. (2007): Whatever happened to the paragraph? College English. 69/5. 470–495
Fløttum, K. (2006): Academic voices: Across languages and disciplines. John Benjamins: Amsterdam.
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.148
Hyland, K. (1999): Talking to Students: Metadiscourse in Introductory Coursebooks. English for Specific Purposes. 18/1. 3–26.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(97)00025-2
Hyland, K. (2010): Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. Continuum: New York.
Hyland, K. (2017): Metadiscourse: What is it and where is it going? Journal of Pragmatics. 113. 16–29
Károly, K. (2012): News Discourse in Translation: Topical Structure and News Content in the Analytical News Article. Meta: Translators’ Journal. 57/4. 884–908.
https://doi.org/10.7202/1021223ar
Kawase, T. (2015): Metadiscourse in the introductions of PhD theses and research articles. Journal of English for Academic Purposes. 20. 114–124.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2015.08.006
Le, E. (1999): The use of paragraphs in French and English academic writing: Towards a grammar of paragraphs. Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse. 19/3. 307–344.
https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1999.19.3.307
Liao, M. H. (2011): Interaction in the genre of popular science: Writer, translator and reader. The Translator. 17/2. 349–368.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2011.10799493
Mauranen, A. (1993): Contrastive ESP rhetoric: Metatext in Finnish-English economics texts. English for Specific Purposes. 12/1. 3–22.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906(93)90024-I
Montgomery, S. L. (2009): English and Science: Realities and issues for translation in the age of an expanding lingua franca. The Journal of Specialised Translation. 11. 6–16
Neumayer, D. (2014): Kulturális különbségek a tudományos cikkek szerkezetében. Fordítástudomány. 16/2.
Neumayer, D. (2019): Interactional and Interactive Discourse in Physics Coursebooks – A Case Study Across Languages. In: Bocz, Zs. – Besznyák, R. (szerk.): Porta Lingua 2019. SZOKOE:Budapest. 403–414
Peterlin, A. P. (2005): Text-organising metatext in research articles: An English–Slovene contrastive analysis. English for Specific Purposes. 24/3. 307–319.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esp.2004.11.001
Peterlin, A. P. (2008): The thesis statement in translations of academic discourse: An exploratory study. The Journal of Specialised Translation. 10. 10–22
Peterlin, A. P. – Moe, M. Z. (2016): Translating hedging devices in news discourse. Journal of Pragmatics. 102. 112.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.06.009
Van Bonn, S. – Swales, J. M. (2007): English and French journal abstracts in the language sciences: Three exploratory studies. Journal of English for Academic Purposes. 6/2. 93–108.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2007.04.001
Williams, I. A. (2005): Thematic Items Referring to Research and Researchers in the Discussion Section of Spanish Biomedical Articles and English-Spanish Translations. Babel. 51/2. 124–160.
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.51.2.02wil
Williams, I. A. (2006): Towards a target-oriented model for quantitative contrastive analysis in translation studies: An exploratory study of theme–rheme structure in Spanish-English biomedical research articles. Languages in Contrast. 6/1. 1–45.
