Vandevoorde L. Semantic differences in translation: Exploring the field of inchoativity

Berlin: Language Science Press, 2020. — viii, 256 p. — (Translation and Multilingual Natural Language Processing 13). — ISBN 978-3-96110-072-9.Although the notion of meaning has always been at the core of translation, the invariance of meaning has, partly due to practical constraints, rarely been challenged in Corpusbased Translation Studies. In answer to this, the aim of this book is to question the invariance of meaning in translated texts: if translation scholars agree on the fact that translated language is different from non-translated language with respect to a number of grammatical and lexical aspects, would it be possible to identify differences between translated and non-translated language on the semantic level too? More specifically, this books tries to formulate an answer to the following three questions: (i) how can semantic differences in translated vs non-translated language be investigated in a corpus-based study?, (ii) are there any differences on the semantic level between translated and nontranslated language? and (iii) if there are differences on the semantic level, can we ascribe them to any of the (universal) tendencies of translation? In this book, I establish a way to visually explore semantic similarity on the basis of representations of translated and non-translated semantic fields. A technique for the comparison of semantic fields of translated and non-translated language called SMM++ (based on Helge Dyvik’s Semantic Mirrors method) is developed, yielding statistics-based visualizations of semantic fields. The SMM++ is presented via the case of inchoativity in Dutch (beginnen ‘to begin’). By comparing the visualizations of the semantic fields on different levels (translated Dutch with French as a source language, with English as a source language and non-translated Dutch) I further explore whether the differences between translated and non-translated fields of inchoativity in Dutch can be linked to any of the well-known universals of translation. The main results of this study are explained on the basis of two cognitively inspired frameworks: Halverson’s Gravitational Pull Hypothesis and Paradis’ neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism.Acknowledgements.
Abbreviations.

Theoretical considerations.Corpus-based translation studies.
Corpora.
Baker’s universals.
The cognitive turn in translation studies.
On a tightrope with equivalence.
Conclusion.
Contrastive corpus studies.
Use of translations in contrastive studies.
Back-translation.
Applying back-translation: Mutual Correspondence.
Applying back-translation: Semantic Mirroring.
Conclusion.
Corpus semantics.
Translational equivalence in Word Sense Disambiguation.
Vector Space Models.
Corpus-based cognitive semantics.Methodology.Semasiological and onomasiological perspectives.
The Dutch Parallel Corpus.
The Semantic Mirrors Method.
Work flow of the SMM.
Prerequisites and assumptions.
Overlap.
Extended Semantic Mirrors Method: SMM++.
Extension 1: Translation direction and asymmetry of translation.
Extension 2: Statistical implementability of the data sets.
Technical fine-tuning.
Conceptual issue.
Applying the first extension of the SMM to retrieve data sets for beginnen.
First T-images of beginnenENG and beginnenFR.
Inverse T-images of beginnenENG and beginnenFR.
Second T-images of beginnenENG and beginnenFR.
Final selection of candidate lexemes.
Statistical visualization.
Introduction to the statistical visualization.
Correspondence Analysis.
Hierarchical Cluster Analysis.
Statistical approaches to universals on the semantic level.
Measuring prototypicality effects as a proxy for levelling out.
Semantic fields of commencer and to begin.Results.SourceDutch.
Results of the Hierarchical Agglomerative Cluster analysis.
Prototype-based organization of the clusters in the dendrogram (semasiological level).
Prototype-based organization of the lexemes within each cluster (onomasiological level).
Interpretation of the semantic field of beginnen/inchoativity for SourceDutch.
TransDutchENG.
Results of the Hierarchical Agglomerative Cluster analysis.
Prototype-based organization of the clusters in the dendrogram (semasiological level).
Prototype-based organization of the lexemes within each cluster (onomasiological level).
Interpretation of the semantic field of beginnen/inchoativity for TransDutchENG.
TransDutchFR.
Results of the Hierarchical Agglomerative Cluster analysis.
Prototype-based organization of the clusters in the dendrogram (semasiological level).
Prototype-based organization of the lexemes within each cluster (onomasiological level).
Interpretation of the semantic field of beginnen/inchoativity for TransDutchFR.
Levelling out.
Semasiological levelling out.
Onomasiological changes in the prototype-based organization.
Shining through.
Semasiological shining through.
Onomasiological shining through.
Normalization.
Semasiological normalization.
Onomasiological normalization.Cognitive explorations.Linking cognitive explanations to corpus data.
Linking cognitive explanations to semantic fields.
Similarities and differences between the models.
Gravitational Pull Hypothesis.
A cognitive-explanational model from neurolinguistics.
Paradis’ neurolinguistic theory of bilingualism.
Applying Paradis’ theory to translation.
Applying Paradis’ theory to the resulting semantic representations of inchoativity.General conclusions.
Retrospective insights.
Appendix A: T-images.
Appendix B: R script.
Appendix C: Distances of lexemes.

Name index.