Mona Baker Research Articles

Is the truthfulness of a proposition verifiable through access to reference corpora?

Abstract This paper reviews Louw’s (1993 and subsequent publications) deployment of reference corpora in the light of existing philosophical and linguistic milestones when it comes to the notion of the truthfulness of a proposition. Louw (William Ernest. 1993. Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer? The diagnostic potential of semantic prosodies. In Mona Baker, Gill Francis & Elena Tognini-Bonelli (eds.), Text and technology: In honour of John Sinclair, 152–176. Amsterdam: John Benjamins) resorts to reference corpora in order either to explicate a rhetorical device (in Louw 1993, that of irony) or to attempt to reveal the true attitude of the speaker to his/her own proposition (including instances of insincerity). Using two methods (co-selection and wildcarding), an author’s collocational patterns in context are checked against those in the reference corpus, also in context. The frequent lexical variables of grammar strings are taken to represent that string’s corpus-derived subtext. Recently, Louw’s Contextual Prosodic Theory (CPT) has revealed the mechanism of prospection, whereby the grammatical pattern in the first line of a poem anticipates by its most frequent lexical collocates the themes in the remainder of the poem (Louw, Bill & Milojkovic, Marija. 2016. Corpus stylistics as contextual prosodic theory and subtext, 176–183. Amsterdam: John Benjamins). The philosophical background of Louw’s CPT is the works of Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein (Louw, William Ernest. 2010a. Collocation as instrumentation for meaning: A scientific fact. In Willie van Peer, Vander Viana & Sonia Zyngier (eds.), Literary education and digital learning: methods and technologies for humanities studies, 79–101. Hershey, PA: IGI Global and subsequent works) and could be said to be in need of further explanation and illustration. The paper discusses Louw’s take on insincerity (1993) as the speaker’s attitude to the truthfulness of her own statement from the point of view of Frege’s Sinn/Bedeutung distinction, Russell’s logical language, and Wittgenstein’s attitude to the relationship between language and reality. Since prospection may be considered objective proof of the effectiveness of Louw’s approach, an instance of prospection from a poem by Brodsky is used to show that Wittgenstein’s concern for the truthfulness of propositions may be viewed as both the guarantor and the beneficiary of Louw’s views. Additionally, the paper presents an example of prospection in the first line of a novel, Don DeLillo’s White Noise. However, other grammatical patterns in the passage studied in this paper do not contain deviations from the corpus norm, which conforms to the existing commentary on DeLillo in the field of literary criticism. The paper concludes by stating that reference corpora used inductively (Louw, William Ernest. 2017. Uneasy humour as discovery: Collocation and empathy as Whewellian consilience. Studying Humour: International Journal 4) may shed light on the speaker’s attitude to the truthfulness of their own statement.

Comparing Translation Strategies of Two Different Translators of 'Tintin In Tibet'

This study discusses the differences in Indonesian translations of Tintin in Tibet published by two different publishers. The translation strategies used in these books were qualitatively analyzed using the theory of Mona Baker (2018). The rank of the most dominant strategies, from the most frequent to the less, used by the translators are paraphrase using the unrelated word, paraphrase using the related word, cultural substitution, omission, and less expressive word. The naturalness of the translation is affected by the strategies and by the traits of the character and context. In the translation of swear words, the best strategy used to translate the swear words are cultural substitution. It is better than other strategies because the readers can understand more if familiar swear words are used. In conclusion, both translators have different results of natural translation, but in the translation of swear words, the translator of Indira provides more natural translation.Keywords: Translation, translation strategies, natural, swear words

(Re)Framing Gay Literature through Translations, Reprints and Cross-Medium Retranslations

Homosexuality has always been a sensitive topic, a taboo in many social contexts. Recent literature has witnessed burgeoning academic attention in the translation of gay literature in the past two decades, while the translation of Chinese gay literature has remained largely unattended. This paper aims to study the translations, reprints and cross-medium retranslations of the modern Chinese founding works of gay literature, Nie Zi (Crystal Boys). The Chinese literary piece has been translated into English and reprints of the translation have appeared in U.S.A. and Hong Kong over the last three decades. It has also been adapted into film production, TV series and a stage performance. With the modern technology, these adaptation productions have been translated and fansubbed for the international audience. This paper will look at the translation of the title, the cover design, the back blurbs and the textual nuances as well for the book translation and its reprints. The fansubbed subtitle translations will also be scrutinized within the framework of retranslation. The English translation, reprints, cross-medium retranslation of Nie Zi proves to be a supporting case of what Harvey calls “gayed translation”, through labelling strategies and other non-linguistic resources proposed by Mona Baker.

TRANSLATION OF SAPARDI DJOKO DAMONO’S POEM INTO ENGLISH

This article describes the translation strategy used by John H. McGlynn to translate Sapardi Djoko Damono's poem Sajak Orang Gila into English with the title Ballad of a Crazy Man, and see: Has this translation’s poem equality in word level. If not, what is the cause. The method is descriptive qualitative. Data sources are the poem Sajak Orang Gila and Ballad of a Crazy Man. Words, phrases, and sentences in all the stanzas and lines were analyzed using the poetry translation theory by Andre Lavefere to determine the translation strategies used to translate the poem, and using the theory of the cause of inequality by Mona Baker. The analysis shows that the translation strategy used by John H. McGlynn are literal and interpretation translation strategy. The literal translation strategy is used to translate 11 stanzas, and the interpretation translation strategy is used to translate 2 stanzas. In general, the translation of this poem is good, because the meaning in the source poem is conveyed well in the target poem. However, in the translation of some stanzas found incompatible meanings in words. There are 3 causes of discrepancies found, namely: 1) Differences in physical or interpersonal perspectives; 2) The target language lack a special term (hyponym); and 3) Differences in expressive meaning.

25 years of The Translator: Mona Baker, Moira Inghilleri and Dirk Delabastita in conversation with Sue-Ann Harding and Loredana Polezzi

This conversation, which took place in the summer of 2020, traces 25 years of publishing The Translator, from its inception and early days, to its establishment as a leading international publicati...

Musykilatu Tarjamati al-‘Ibarati al-Mutashahibati fi Majmu‘ah al-Qasas ‘Amirah fi al-Mir’ah’ li Lina Kailani

Translator is an effort to move the meaning of the source text into the target language the transfer of meaning related to the message the writer wants to convey. Likewise in the translation of the book Ami>rah Fi> al-Mir'a>h by Lina Kaylani. The problem of translation arises when the collocation is translated by following the original Arabic pattern without adjusting to the target language, be it context, vocabulary, or sentence structure. Collocation is a permanent association between words and other words that coexist in a sentence. Mona Baker states that collocation is a rather flexible language pattern which allows several variations of form. The purpose of this study is to find the collocation expressions (‘Iba>rah al-Mutas}a>h}ibah) and how to translate it. This research results that the researcher found 23 kinds of collocation expressions and has two ways in translating them, as follows; The translator must choose the exact and appropriate words for the collocation expressions in the Arabic language, or the translator must search for their equivalence and the translator must search for the same phrase in the Indonesian language, the phrase in which it is considered accompanying.

Translating as Narrating? A Narrative Approach to Translation Studies

Mona Baker presents with her Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account, a narrative perspective for translation studies, believing that translation functions as re-narration and translators/interpreters should circulate discourses that “promote peace”. Promising and inspiring as her initiative may sound, the narrative course charted for translation studies would be problematic on both ontological and ethical grounds. Valuable lessons could be drawn from Chinese historical narratives, in which censure of historians and discourses of facts are meticulously balanced under the guidance of two seemingly paradoxical regularities, namely “to narrate but not make history” (述而不作) and “subtle words carry profound meanings” (春秋大义). Being faithful to the historical truth while appreciative of the subjectivity of historians, the Chinese narratives tradition might thus suggest a hermeneutical route that integrating narrative theories with translation.

同志文學翻譯之叙事建構：以白先勇作品《孽子》的英譯爲例

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.
 一直以來，同性戀都是一個敏感話題，甚至是社會禁忌。中文“同志文學”的書寫和翻譯在在於文化與意識形態紛繁衝突的語境下進行。雖然近年國際翻譯研究學界愈來愈關注同志文學翻譯議題，相關研究在中文學界卻並未得到重視。蒙娜•貝克（Mona Baker）於《翻譯與衝突：叙事性闡釋》中指出，透過建構策略（framing strategies），“譯者、出版商、編輯以及參與到整個翻譯出版過程的相關人員，在譯文中對原文叙事進行强調、弱化或者改變”。基於此，本文透過分析白先勇小說《孽子》的英譯本，討論各種語言及非語言符號資源如何被運用，從而實現標示等建構策略重構譯文，並最終對譯文進行凱斯•哈維（Keith Harvey）提出的“同志主題强化”（gayed translation）。
 Homosexuality has always been a sensitive topic and even a social taboo. Translation studies in the West have witnessed an increase in academic attention given to the translation of gay literature in the past two decades. In contrast, it has remained largely unheeded in the Chinese scholarly world, where the writing and translation of gay literature has always been closely associated with cultural and ideological conflicts. In her Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account, Mona Baker points out that through framing strategies, “translators and interpreters-in collaboration with publishers, editors and other agents involved in the interaction-accentuate, undermine or modify aspects of the narrative (s) encoded in the source text or utterance.” This paper is a study of the English translation of the Chinese founding work of gay literature, Niezi (Crystal Boys) by Pai Hsien-yung, which proves to be a supporting example of what Keith Harvey calls “gayed translation,” through labeling strategies and other non- linguistic resources.

The Translation of Idioms in George Orwell’s <i>Animal Farm</i>

This research aims to study the use of idioms in Animal Farm (1954) and their translation into Bahasa Indonesia. The idioms found in the original text are classified based on the classification of idioms by Adam Makkai (1972). The idiom translation strategy is identified by comparing the idioms in the source text to the translation in the target text. The research identifies 156 idioms and classifies them into phrasal verb idioms (39%), tournure idioms (34%), irreversible binomials (11%), phrasal compound idioms (14%), and incorporating verb idioms (2%). There are 4 strategies to translate an idiom following Mona Baker (1992) and 1 strategy following Newmark (1991). The idiom translation strategy is classified into translating an idiom by using an idiom of similar meaning and form (1.92%), translating an idiom by using an idiom of similar meaning but different form (1.92%), translating an idiom by using paraphrase (85.90%), translating an idiom by using omission (0.64%), and literal translation strategy (9.62%).

A model for assessing the non-linguistic framing of conflict narratives: the case of interpreters in the Libyan warzone 2011

ABSTRACTThe performance of interpreters in wartimes is not always related to language mediation as it, in most cases, exceeds interpreting the performance of extra tasks. This excess increases the significance range of the roles of interpreters in framing the narratives of war zones. In order to examine this work, I have developed a new model (non-linguistic framing), which is developed to fulfil the gap regarding the issue of the framing of narratives in the work of war-zone interpreters. The model discusses the impact of the extra tasks that war-zone interpreters perform, as well as the range of selection they are allowed on framing conflicts on two main non-textual roles, which are (a) interpreters and gatekeeping, and (b) interpreters and suppression. The framework in this paper is based mainly on Mona Baker’s understanding of narrative theory and framing theory and other studies submitted in the field. This article starts by elucidating languages at wars and the need for such a model, briefly explaining the data and the methodology used to collect the data, presenting my developed model, and ending with concluding remarks.

Interview with Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen

As a sequel to the first part of the interview on translation, this transcript further explores issues related to Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and translation studies. Christian Matthiessen and Bo Wang first discuss the acceptance of the term ‘systemic functional translation studies’ in academia. Then, Christian Matthiessen comments on the contributions made by various scholars, including J. R. Firth, Erich Steiner and his group, Mona Baker, Juliane House, and J. R. Martin. Finally, Christian Matthiessen explains the relationships between SFL and some translation theories, i.e. skopos theory, polysystem theory and descriptive translation studies. Our discussions are expected to contribute to the debates on translation studies and SFL as well as the applications of SFL to translation.

On Translating Semantic Prosody of Some Nature–related Words in the Holy Qur’an: A Corpus-based Study

This study explores the semantic prosody of three selected Qur’anic words and evaluates their interpretations in three selected English translations. The selected nature- related words: مطر rain,نهر /الأنهار river(s), and اليم the main are examined using the Quranic Arabic corpus (Dukes, 2017). The study examines translation equivalence at and above the word level. Moreover, it detects any undergone shift in semantic prosody and collocation in the selected translations as a result of the translators’ unawareness of subtle prosodic differences in the source text (ST) or even the semantic prosody of the alternatives in the target text (TT). The study adopts Mona Baker’s (2011) descriptive approach to account for the way the adopted translation strategies can influence the semantic prosody of the node. The study concludes that the translators were unaware of semantic prosody which posed a hurdle in translation.

Grammatical Equivalence In “Eat, Pray, and Love” A Novel by Margaret Gilbert

The objective of this study was to describe how Indonesian translator translated the meaning of number, gender, person, tense & aspect, and also voice (NGPTV) which proposed by Mona Baker. Besides that, a descriptive qualitative method and content analysis technique were used in analyzing 20% of data. The main results of the study were: 1). The use of number with SS category was 917 (61%); while PS and PP category were almost had the same value 314 (21%) and 264 (17%); but for SP category was only 22 (1%); 2). The use of Gender notion in GN was 248 (55%), and NG was 207 (45%); 3). The use of person was 2103 (100%); 4). The use of Tense & Aspect category in the form of Past tense, Present tense, and Future tense were different in number, they were 336 (95%), 12 (3%) and 6 (2%); 5). The use of voice in the form of AA was the biggest one in 244 (82%), but for AP and PP were only 45 (15%) and 10 (3%). However, it was found that 0% for PA category. Therefore, it concluded that the translator had been successfully translated the text in the notion of NGPTV.

Les étapes de traduire des proverbes français en indonésien

<p class="Keyword"><span lang="FR">The
 translation of proverbs is not a simple activity. Translators still face
 problems. They must transfer the message so that the right translation will be
 done without change or eliminate the principles of the proverbs being moral and
 culture.  This translation arises not
 only at the problems of a lack of direction and forms of the Indonesian
 proverb, but also those of the type of proverbs. From these problems, we
 analyzed the problems to discover good ways to translate. The data is collected
 from a well-known French fable, "<i>Les
 Fables de La Fontaine</i>" from 1668 to the 1678. Fourteen titles of
 fables have been chosen and sixteen proverbs were founded. Using Nida and
 Taber’s theory of translation that is developed by Hoed and Mona Baker’s paraphrase
 strategy, proverbs were translated and analyzed. This research gives us steps
 to translate French proverbs in Indonesian. There are three relevant elements
 that translators must take into account. Firstly, is to find key words, two
 words maximum, whether a word or a phrase. Secondly, be careful to choose
 Indonesian proverbs as they are sometimes different than those of source
 language. And thirdly, we must also keep the consistency of the translated
 text.</span></p>

Positioning the Autobiographer in the Arabic Translation of Eat, pray, love: A Study of the (re)Framing Techniques

A narrative is a means through which people can experience the worldwhich Mona Baker (2006) defines as the stories people tell themselves aboutthe world to construct reality and guide people’s behaviors. There are variousforms of narratives, and the genre of autobiography in which the writer decidesto share his/her experience with others is just an example of the ontologicalnarrative where the writer narrates his/her story. The significance ofautobiographies as an ontological narrative coincides with the rise of femaleautobiographers who chronicle their lives to guide other women towardsleading a better life. Autobiographers give themselves a certain position in thenarrative world which can be subjected to change and alteration when theautobiography is translated into another language. Retaining theautobiographer’s position is one of the challenges facing translators,especially, if the autobiography and its translation do not belong to the sameculture. Baker’s (2006) Narrative Theory is one of the theories which canaccount for the changes occurring to the autobiographer’s position whentranslated. The paper uses Baker’s (re)framing scheme to examine therepositioning of the autobiographer, Elizabeth Gilbert, in the Arabictranslation of Eat, pray, love: One woman’s search for everything across Italy,India and Indonesia. The study attempts to identify the (re)framing techniquescapable of changing the autobiographer’s. It also highlights the importance ofthe integration between the Narrative Theory (Baker, 2006) and thePositioning Theory (Davies & Harre, 1990), especially, that the narrative typecan change in the translation

Strategi Penerjemahan dan Pergeseran Makna Istilah Budaya Sosial dalam Terjemahan Komik Garudayana Saga Volume 1-4 Karya Is Yuniarto

The title of this research is “Translation Strategies and The Shifting Meaning of Social Culture Terms in Translation of Garudayana Saga Volume 1-4 by Is Yuniarto”. The research is aimed to analyze the translation strategies used by translator, and componential analysis of the social cultural terms in translation of the comic. The theories that were used in this research were theory of translation strategies proposed by Mona Baker (1992), theory of componential analysis proposed by Roger T. Bell (1993), and theory of cultural anthropological by Koentjaraningrat (2014). There are four categories of social cultural terms: work, leisure, greetings and idioms. There are seven strategies used by the translator: translation by general word, neutral word, cultural substitution, loan word or loan word plus explanation, paraphrase using related word, paraphrase using unrelated word and omitted word. Strategies that most used by translator were translation by general word and cultural substitution. These strategies were used due to differences in social cultural background of society in Indonesia and Japan. The least used strategies were paraphrase using unrelated word and omitted word, since the used of these two strategies can reduce the cause of the shifting meaning in translation.

First Exploration into the Feasibility of the Construction for Energy Power Corpus

With the rapid development of science and technology, people are more likely to resort to technological products to tackle new problems in life. Associated with some famous theories, corpus, as Professor Mona Baker’s theory suggests, can be utilized in many areas and simplify the process of multilingual transformation. Since it has been rising for a certain period of time, corpus related to energy power has still not been built yet. Despite some potential problems to be solved in the actual exploration, this thesis aims to study on the feasibility of the construction and development for energy power corpus on the basis of the ways, tools, overall design and planning, etc. of the construction so as to make up the lack of data and provide more possibilities in the research field of energy power, and help to broaden the scope of corpus database for ease of more researches and findings in the future study.

Translation Strategies of Idioms: With Special Reference to “Anak Semua Bangsa” and “Child of All Nations”

This research entitled “Translation Strategies of Idioms: With Special Reference to “Anak Semua Bangsa” and “Child of All Nations”. The aims of this research are to find out the translation strategies applied by the translator in translating the idioms of ST to the TT and to identify the types of equivalence of the translated idioms. The data were in form of idioms collected from an Indonesian novel “Anak Semua Bangsa” and its English translation “Child of All Nations”. Observation method and note-taking technique was used in collecting the data. The data were analyzed using descriptive-qualitative method. In order to answer the formulated questions, the theory of translation strategies of translating idiom proposed by Mona Baker in “In Other Words” (1992) was applied in analyzing the translation strategies used by the translator in translating the idioms in the novels and the theory of equivalence proposed by Eugene Nida in Toward a Science of Translating (1964) to identify the types of equivalence of the translated idioms. The results indicate that there are only three translation strategies found in the translation of 20 idioms used as the data in this study. Moreover, both Nida’s theory of Formal and Dynamic Equivalence were found in the translation of the idioms.

Penerjemahan Istilah Budaya Bahasa Mandarin dalam Novel 边旅行边恋爱 (Biān lǚxíng Biān Liàn'ài)

The purpose of this study is to obtain an overall view of culture translation and the strategies applied in translating those terms. This study used a qualitative approach using a content analysis method. The date used in this study is dialogues about culture translation and translation strategies. The researchers used Peter Newmark Theory to analyzed the culture translatoin, and used Mona Baker theory to analyzed the strategies. The results of the study showed, there are 147 data, 43 data belonged to the category of materials, 13 data belonged to the category of socials, 28 data belonged to the category of organization, tradition, activities, and religion, 51 data belonged to the category of ecology, and 12 data belonged to the category of body movements and habits. Meanwhile, there are 5 from 8 translation strategies that used by translator based on Baker theory. 43 data used translation by a more general word, 38 data used more nuetral/less expressive word, 3 data used cultural substitution, 47 data used a loan word plu explanation, and 7 data translation by omission.

Book Review: Communication and Political Crisis: Media, Politics and Governance in a Globalized Public Sphere by Brian McNair and Citizen Media and Public Spaces by Mona Baker and Bolette B. Blaagaard (Eds.)

Book Review: <i>Communication and Political Crisis: Media, Politics and Governance in a Globalized Public Sphere</i> by Brian McNair and <i>Citizen Media and Public Spaces</i> by Mona Baker and Bolette B. Blaagaard (Eds.)