Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse

Darija Bartkute

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15

| Peer-Reviewed

Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse

Darija Bartkute

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 8, Issue 5)

Received: 1 September 2020 Accepted: 21 September 2020 Published: 7 October 2020

Views: Downloads:

Download PDF

Share This Article

Twitter
Linked In
Facebook

Abstract

Based on the typology of universal uses of demonstratives and presumption of translational explicitation, this paper compares and contrasts demonstratives from a semantic and pragmatic perspective. It aims to identify the translation correspondences of the English demonstratives in Lithuanian and contrast their usage in a comparable corpus to determine the cross-linguistic differences resulting from unequal distribution of lexical correspondences in both languages. This paper analyses a self-compiled parallel corpus and comparable corpus extracted from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language to examine the translation effects at the discourse pragmatic level in the rendition of spatial deixis. The translation correspondences highlight the key role of optional implicitation caused by the availability of contextual variants in the textual uses of demonstratives in Lithuanian. The translation results also reveal that the Lithuanian three-way system of demonstratives shows signs of reduction to a two-way system, as there is an analogous distribution between the English distal demonstrative and the neutral (medial) demonstrative in Lithuanian. A comparison of original texts points to important cross-linguistic differences determined by discourse-related factors, such as higher frequencies of demonstratives in the anaphoric and recognitional functions in Lithuanian texts, which is largely determined by the unmarked status of the neutral (medial) demonstrative. While its article-like status is gaining increasing attention in the literature, the present results indicate that the (neutral) medial demonstrative is an optional indicator of identification that occurs as a stylistic and text-building preference and contributes to greater textual pragmatic explicitness of Lithuanian fiction texts.

Published in	International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 8, Issue 5)
DOI	10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15
Page(s)	229-239
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Spatial Deixis, Three-way System of Demonstratives, Optional Implicitation, English/Lithuanian

References

[1]	Ambrazas, V. (ed). 1997. Lithuanian Grammar. Vilnius: Baltos lankos.
[2]	Ambrazas, V. (ed). 2006. Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatika. [A Grammar of Modern Lithuanian]. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla.
[3]	Anthony, L. 2014. AntConc (Version 3.4.3). Tokyo: Waseda University.
[4]	Balpinar, M. 2019. Demonstratives and Grammaticalization: A Perspective from Modern Turkish. London: Routledge.
[5]	Barlow, M. 2008. ParaConc and Parallel Corpora in Contrastive and Translation Studies. Houston: Athelstan Publications.
[6]	Baumgarten, N., Meyer, B., Özçetin, D. 2008. Explicitness in Translation and Interpreting. A Review and Some Empirical Evidence (of an Elusive Concept). Across Languages and Cultures, 9 (2): 177–203. https://doi.org/10.1556/Acr.9.2008.2.2.
[7]	Becher, V. 2010. Differences in the Use of Deictic Expressions in English and German texts. Linguistics 48 (6): 1309–1342. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.2010.042.
[8]	Becher, V. 2011. Explicitation and Implicitation in Translation. A Corpus-based Study of English-German and German-English Translations of Business Texts. PhD thesis, University of Hamburg.
[9]	Bernardini, S. 2011. Monolingual Comparable Corpora and Parallel Corpora in the Search for Features of Translated Language. SYNAPS: A Journal of Professional Communication, 26: 2–13. http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2393975.
[10]	Botley, S. 2000. Corpora and Discourse Anaphora: Using Corpus Evidence to Test Theoretical Claims. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
[11]	Botley, S., McEnery, T. 2001. Demonstratives in English: A Corpus-based Study. Journal of English Linguistics, 29 (1): 7–33. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00754240122005170.
[12]	Consten, M., Averintseva-Klisch, M. 2012. Tentative Reference Acts? ‘Recognitional Demonstratives’ as Means of Suggesting Mutual Knowledge – or Overriding a Lack of It, Research in Language, 10 (3): 257–277. https://doi.org/10.2478/v10015-011-0033-x.
[13]	Cuenca, M. J. 2020. Pragmatics and Text Linguistics. In Manual of Catalan Linguistics, J. A. Argenter and J. Lüdtke (eds), 287–310. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110450408.
[14]	Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstynas [Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language]. http://corpus.vdu.lt/lt/.
[15]	Da Milano, F. 2007. Demonstratives in the Languages of Europe. In Europe and the Mediterranean as Linguistic Areas: Convergencies from a Historical and Typological Perspective, P. Ramat and E. Roma (eds), 25–48. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.88.04mil.
[16]	Diessel, H. 1999. Demonstratives: Form, Function and Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.42.
[17]	Diessel, H. 2014. Demonstratives, Frames of Reference, and Semantic Universals of Space. Language and Linguistics Compass, 8 (3): 116–132. https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12066.
[18]	Etelämäki, M. 2009. The Finnish Demonstrative Pronouns in Light of Interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 41 (1): 25–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.005.
[19]	Ewing, M. 2014. Pragmatic Uses of Demonstratives in Cirebon Javanese Conversation. In Deixis and Spatial Expressions in Languages of Indonesia (NUSA 56), A. Jukes (ed), 47–63. http://hdl.handle.net/10108/77645.
[20]	Fox, B. 1987. Discourse Structure and Anaphora. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511627767.
[21]	Halliday, M., Matthiessen, C. 2014. Halliday's Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203431269.
[22]	Hasselgård, H. 2004. Spatial Linking in English and Norwegian. In Translation and Corpora, K. Aijmer and H. Hasselgård (eds), 163–188. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.
[23]	Hasselgård, H. 2006. “Not now” – on Non-correspondence between the Cognate Adverbs now and nå. Pragmatic Markers in Contrast, 2: 93–114.
[24]	House, J. 1997. Translation Quality Assessment. A Model Revisited. Tübingen: Narr.
[25]	House, J. 2015. Translation Quality Assessment: Past and Present. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315752839.
[26]	Himmelmann, N. P. 1996. Demonstratives in Narrative Discourse: A Taxonomy of Universal Uses. In Studies in Anaphora, B. Fox (ed), 205–254. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.33.08him.
[27]	Index Translationum – World Bibliography of Translation. http://www.unesco.org/xtrans/.
[28]	Johansson, S. 2007. Seeing through Multilingual Corpora: On the Use of Corpora in Contrastive Studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.26.
[29]	Judžentytė, G. 2017. Spatial Deixis in Lithuanian: Demonstrative Pronouns. In Language: Meaning and Form 8. Grammatical and Lexical Variance in Language System, A. Kalnača and I. Lokmane (eds), 173–193. Rīga: LU Akadēmiskais apgāds.
[30]	Judžentytė-Šinkūnienė, G. 2018. The System of the Demonstrative Pronouns Provided in the Grammar of Modern Lithuanian: Analysis of Traditions. In Valoda: nozīme un forma 9. Gramatika un pragmatika, A. Kalnača and I. Lokmane (eds), 68–79. Rīga: LU Akadēmiskais apgāds.
[31]	Jungbluth, K. 2003. Deictics in the Conversational Dyad. In Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person, F. Lenz (ed), 13–40. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.112.
[32]	Klaudy, K., Károly, K. 2005. Implicitation in Translation: Empirical Evidence for Operational Asymmetry in Translation. Across Languages and Cultures, 6 (1): 13–28. https://doi.org/10.1556/Acr.6.2005.1.2.
[33]	Kranich, S. 2016. Contrastive Pragmatics and Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.261.
[34]	Kryk, B. 1987. On Deixis in English and Polish: The Role of Demonstrative Pronouns. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang.
[35]	Kunz, K. A. 2010. Variation in English and German Nominal Coreference – A Study of Political Essays. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang.
[36]	Lakoff, R. 1974. Remarks on This and That. Papers from the Tenth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 10, 345–356.
[37]	Laury, R. 1997. Demonstratives in Interaction. The Emergence of a Definite Article in Finnish. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/sidag.7.
[38]	Levinson, S. C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[39]	Levinson, S. C. 2004. Deixis. In The Handbook of Pragmatics, L. R. Horn and G. Ward (eds), 97–121. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
[40]	Maes, A. 1991. Nominal Anaphors and the Coherence of Discourse. Belgium: Tilburg University.
[41]	Maes, A. 1996. Nominal Anaphors, Markedness, and the Coherence of Discourse. Leuven: Peeters.
[42]	Malamatidou, S. 2017. Corpus Triangulation: Combining Data and Methods in Corpus-Based Translation Studies. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315669595.
[43]	Mason, I., Şerban, A. 2003. Deixis as an Interactive Feature in Literary Translations from Romanian into English. Target, 15 (2): 269–294. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.15.2.04mas.
[44]	Matras, Y., Bolkestein, M. 2006. Deixis and Anaphora: Some Case Studies. In Pragmatic Organisation of Discourse in the Languages of Europe, G. B. Marcia and L. Schwartz (eds), 215–254. Berlin: Walter De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110892222.
[45]	Noergård-Soerensen, J. 1992. Coherence Theory: The Case of Russian. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110858686.
[46]	Pavesi, M. 2013. This and That in the Language of Film. Dubbing: A Corpus-based Analysis. Meta, 58 (1): 103–133. https://doi.org/10.7202/1023812ar.
[47]	Pavesi, M. 2015. The Translation of Conversation and Film Dubbing as a Discovery Procedure: Evidence from Demonstratives. In Language across Languages – New Perspectives on Translation, E. Miola and P. Ramat (eds), 143–172. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
[48]	Powell, G. 2010. Language, Thought and Reference. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
[49]	Ribera, C. J., Cuenca, M. J. 2013. Use and Translation of Demonstratives in Fiction: A Contrastive Approach (English-Catalan). Catalan Review: International Journal of Catalan Culture, 27: 27–49. https://doi.org/10.3828/CATR.27.1.27.
[50]	Rosinas, A. 1996. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos įvardžiai: funkcijos ir semantika. [Pronouns in Standard Lithuanian: Functions and Semantics]. Vilnius: Mokslo ir Enciklopedijų Leidykla.
[51]	Rosinas, A. 2009. Baltų kalbų įvardžių semantinė ir morfologinė struktūra: sinchronija ir diachronija. [Semantic and Morphological Structure of Pronouns in the Baltic Languages: Synchrony and Diachrony]. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.
[52]	Rühlemann, C., O’Donnell, M. B. 2015. Deixis. In Corpus Pragmatics: A Handbook, K. Aijmer and C. Rühlemann (eds), 331–359. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139057493.
[53]	Scott, K. 2019. Referring Expressions, Pragmatics, and Style: Reference and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316822845.
[54]	The Sketch Engine. https://www.sketchengine.eu/my_keywords/tag/.
[55]	Spraunienė, B. 2011. Apibrėžtumo žymėjimas lietuvių kalboje lyginant su danų ir kitomis artikelinėmis kalbomis. [The Marking of Definiteness in Lithuanian. Against the Background of Danish and other Article Languages]. PhD thesis, Vilnius University.
[56]	Stirling, L., Huddleston, R. 2002. Deixis and Anaphora. In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, R. Huddleston and G. K. Pullum (eds), 1449–1564. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316423530.018.
[57]	Valeckienė, A. 1998. Funkcinė lietuvių kalbos gramatika. [Functional Grammar of Lithuanian]. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.
[58]	Vondřička, P. 2016. InterText Editor v1.5 Comprehensive guide. Institute of the Czech National Corpus, Charles University.
[59]	Wolter, L. 2003. Demonstratives, Definite Descriptions, and Definiteness. University of California at Santa Cruz.

Cite This Article

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Darija Bartkute. (2020). Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 8(5), 229-239. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Darija Bartkute. Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2020, 8(5), 229-239. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Darija Bartkute. Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse. Int J Lang Linguist. 2020;8(5):229-239. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15,
  author = {Darija Bartkute},
  title = {Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse},
  journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
  volume = {8},
  number = {5},
  pages = {229-239},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20200805.15},
  abstract = {Based on the typology of universal uses of demonstratives and presumption of translational explicitation, this paper compares and contrasts demonstratives from a semantic and pragmatic perspective. It aims to identify the translation correspondences of the English demonstratives in Lithuanian and contrast their usage in a comparable corpus to determine the cross-linguistic differences resulting from unequal distribution of lexical correspondences in both languages. This paper analyses a self-compiled parallel corpus and comparable corpus extracted from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language to examine the translation effects at the discourse pragmatic level in the rendition of spatial deixis. The translation correspondences highlight the key role of optional implicitation caused by the availability of contextual variants in the textual uses of demonstratives in Lithuanian. The translation results also reveal that the Lithuanian three-way system of demonstratives shows signs of reduction to a two-way system, as there is an analogous distribution between the English distal demonstrative and the neutral (medial) demonstrative in Lithuanian. A comparison of original texts points to important cross-linguistic differences determined by discourse-related factors, such as higher frequencies of demonstratives in the anaphoric and recognitional functions in Lithuanian texts, which is largely determined by the unmarked status of the neutral (medial) demonstrative. While its article-like status is gaining increasing attention in the literature, the present results indicate that the (neutral) medial demonstrative is an optional indicator of identification that occurs as a stylistic and text-building preference and contributes to greater textual pragmatic explicitness of Lithuanian fiction texts.},
 year = {2020}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse
AU  - Darija Bartkute
Y1  - 2020/10/07
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15
T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
SP  - 229
EP  - 239
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-0221
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15
AB  - Based on the typology of universal uses of demonstratives and presumption of translational explicitation, this paper compares and contrasts demonstratives from a semantic and pragmatic perspective. It aims to identify the translation correspondences of the English demonstratives in Lithuanian and contrast their usage in a comparable corpus to determine the cross-linguistic differences resulting from unequal distribution of lexical correspondences in both languages. This paper analyses a self-compiled parallel corpus and comparable corpus extracted from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language to examine the translation effects at the discourse pragmatic level in the rendition of spatial deixis. The translation correspondences highlight the key role of optional implicitation caused by the availability of contextual variants in the textual uses of demonstratives in Lithuanian. The translation results also reveal that the Lithuanian three-way system of demonstratives shows signs of reduction to a two-way system, as there is an analogous distribution between the English distal demonstrative and the neutral (medial) demonstrative in Lithuanian. A comparison of original texts points to important cross-linguistic differences determined by discourse-related factors, such as higher frequencies of demonstratives in the anaphoric and recognitional functions in Lithuanian texts, which is largely determined by the unmarked status of the neutral (medial) demonstrative. While its article-like status is gaining increasing attention in the literature, the present results indicate that the (neutral) medial demonstrative is an optional indicator of identification that occurs as a stylistic and text-building preference and contributes to greater textual pragmatic explicitness of Lithuanian fiction texts.
VL  - 8
IS  - 5
ER  -

Copy | Download

Author Information

Darija Bartkute

Education Academy, Vytautas Magnus University, Vilnius, Lithuania

Download PDF

Sections

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Darija Bartkute. (2020). Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 8(5), 229-239. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Darija Bartkute. Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2020, 8(5), 229-239. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Darija Bartkute. Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse. Int J Lang Linguist. 2020;8(5):229-239. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15,
  author = {Darija Bartkute},
  title = {Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse},
  journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
  volume = {8},
  number = {5},
  pages = {229-239},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20200805.15},
  abstract = {Based on the typology of universal uses of demonstratives and presumption of translational explicitation, this paper compares and contrasts demonstratives from a semantic and pragmatic perspective. It aims to identify the translation correspondences of the English demonstratives in Lithuanian and contrast their usage in a comparable corpus to determine the cross-linguistic differences resulting from unequal distribution of lexical correspondences in both languages. This paper analyses a self-compiled parallel corpus and comparable corpus extracted from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language to examine the translation effects at the discourse pragmatic level in the rendition of spatial deixis. The translation correspondences highlight the key role of optional implicitation caused by the availability of contextual variants in the textual uses of demonstratives in Lithuanian. The translation results also reveal that the Lithuanian three-way system of demonstratives shows signs of reduction to a two-way system, as there is an analogous distribution between the English distal demonstrative and the neutral (medial) demonstrative in Lithuanian. A comparison of original texts points to important cross-linguistic differences determined by discourse-related factors, such as higher frequencies of demonstratives in the anaphoric and recognitional functions in Lithuanian texts, which is largely determined by the unmarked status of the neutral (medial) demonstrative. While its article-like status is gaining increasing attention in the literature, the present results indicate that the (neutral) medial demonstrative is an optional indicator of identification that occurs as a stylistic and text-building preference and contributes to greater textual pragmatic explicitness of Lithuanian fiction texts.},
 year = {2020}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Spatial Deictics and Translational Implicitation: Evidence from a Corpus-based Analysis of English and Lithuanian Fictional Discourse
AU  - Darija Bartkute
Y1  - 2020/10/07
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15
T2  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JF  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
JO  - International Journal of Language and Linguistics
SP  - 229
EP  - 239
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-0221
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20200805.15
AB  - Based on the typology of universal uses of demonstratives and presumption of translational explicitation, this paper compares and contrasts demonstratives from a semantic and pragmatic perspective. It aims to identify the translation correspondences of the English demonstratives in Lithuanian and contrast their usage in a comparable corpus to determine the cross-linguistic differences resulting from unequal distribution of lexical correspondences in both languages. This paper analyses a self-compiled parallel corpus and comparable corpus extracted from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language to examine the translation effects at the discourse pragmatic level in the rendition of spatial deixis. The translation correspondences highlight the key role of optional implicitation caused by the availability of contextual variants in the textual uses of demonstratives in Lithuanian. The translation results also reveal that the Lithuanian three-way system of demonstratives shows signs of reduction to a two-way system, as there is an analogous distribution between the English distal demonstrative and the neutral (medial) demonstrative in Lithuanian. A comparison of original texts points to important cross-linguistic differences determined by discourse-related factors, such as higher frequencies of demonstratives in the anaphoric and recognitional functions in Lithuanian texts, which is largely determined by the unmarked status of the neutral (medial) demonstrative. While its article-like status is gaining increasing attention in the literature, the present results indicate that the (neutral) medial demonstrative is an optional indicator of identification that occurs as a stylistic and text-building preference and contributes to greater textual pragmatic explicitness of Lithuanian fiction texts.
VL  - 8
IS  - 5
ER  -

Copy | Download