Information flow in excerpts of two translations of Mme Bovary

Alexandre Sévigny

doi:10.52034/lanstts.v1i.18

Abstract

This article explores how information is accumulated and collated in a cog-nitively realistic fashion in two very short excerpts of translations of Flaubert ’s ‘Mme Bovary’. The approach taken is a formal cognitive linguistic one using Discourse Information Grammar (DIG), a theory of grammar based on the intuitive idea that texts are understood by the reader incrementally, in a left-to-right fashion. Thus, a cognitive pragmatic approach is taken to the study of the excerpts, highlighting how much information is accumulated as the reader develops an understanding of the text in question. The analysis discusses the differences in the build-up of information in the source text and in its translations. The conclusion indicates that translation studies contribute much to the development of formal linear cognitive linguistic theories.

Highlights

This article explores how the information contained in two short extracts from Mme Bovary (Flaubert 1857/1966) compares in translations by May (Flaubert 1953) and Hopkins (Flaubert 1949), when examined from the perspective of time-linear information flow
If any, can be made between the information contained in the source text and the translation(s)? This paper examines three of these relations, as textual information develops incrementally: (i) sequencing, (ii) ambiguity, and (iii) situational equivalence
In a fully-elaborated Discourse Information Grammar (DIG) analysis, the incremental and time-linear development of many pieces of information can be explored thoroughly and used to delve deeply into the underlying forces that make two translations of a similar text so different in the information underlying the effects that they have upon the reader

Summary

Alexandre Sévigny McMaster University

This article explores how information is accumulated and collated in a cognitively realistic fashion in two very short excerpts of translations of Flaubert’s ‘Mme Bovary’. The approach taken is a formal cognitive linguistic one using Discourse Information Grammar (DIG), a theory of grammar based on the intuitive idea that texts are understood by the reader incrementally, in a left-to-right fashion. A cognitive pragmatic approach is taken to the study of the excerpts, highlighting how much information is accumulated as the reader develops an understanding of the text in question. The analysis discusses the differences in the build-up of information in the source text and in its translations. The conclusion indicates that translation studies contribute much to the development of formal linear cognitive linguistic theories

Introduction

Conclusions