Riassunto per esame di Lingua e traduzione Inglese, prof.ssa Gatto, libro consigliato Linking Wor(l)ds" di S. Laviosa

The structure of words

Introduction

The vocabulary or lexis of a language is made up of all the words in that language. A word is an item of language that can stand alone as a complete unit of meaning and is separated by spaces in written language. Words can be built up out of smaller units of meaning called morphemes, and the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of words in terms of morphemes is called morphology.

The smallest unit of meaning: the morpheme

The morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language and the smallest units of analysis of sentence and word structure. They can be of two types: free and bound. A free morpheme can occur on its own as a word without any additional elements, for example, LOVE. A bound morpheme can’t occur on its own as a word but is only ever found in the presence of one or more free morphemes, as -er in the word lover. Most bound morphemes are affixes: they can be attached before a free morpheme and are called prefixes, as UN in the word UNHAPPY, when they are attached after a free morpheme they are called suffixes, as NESS in the word HAPPINESS. Affixes are of two types: inflectional affixes (or inflections) and derivational affixes. Inflections are always suffixes; they signal a grammatical relationship or category, aspect, number, tense and so on, as in the word offices, which is composed of the free morpheme OFFICE and the suffix -S indicating the plural form. Derivational affixes can be either prefixes or suffixes. They may indicate a different meaning of a word as IM in the word IMPOSSIBLE, which changes the meaning of the free morpheme POSSIBLE into its opposite, or they may indicate a different word class or part of speech as ITY in the word RAPIDITY, which changes the adjective RAPID into a noun.

Infected, derived and compound words

Most English vocabulary develops by creating new words from old ones. Knowing how English lexis is made up is important for language learners and translators because they can infer the meaning of an unfamiliar word if they know the individual morphemes that make them up. The three major processes of word formation in English are inflection, derivation, and compounding. Inflection involves the use of inflectional suffixes and gives rise to inflected words, such as plural nouns, nouns in the Saxon genitive form, the several tenses of a verb. Derivation involves the use of derivational prefixes and/or suffixes and gives rise to derived words. Examples of derived words involving prefixes are those conveying negation (usual/unusual), reversal (motivate/demotivate), grammatical conversion, as noun to verb (trust/entrust). Examples of derived words involving the use of suffixes are those conveying grammatical conversion such as adverbs derived from adjectives (essential/essentially), nouns from verbs (write/writer), nouns from adjectives (sad/sadness). Examples of derived words involving the use of prefixes and suffixes are: unbelievable, biodegradable, impossibility, internationally. Compounding involves combining two or more free morphemes and gives rise to compound words: work of art, game over, video game, and so on. The analysis of words into morphemes is called morphemic analysis, in which morphemes are represented within curly brackets {a} using descriptive designations for inflections and capital letters for free morphemes and derivational affixes. WRITERS: {WRITER} +{ER} +{pl}.

Translation problems

Certain derivational affixes have no direct equivalent in Italian. The most common translation procedure adopted to overcome such differences is a paraphrase, so WARD and WARDS which mean "in a particular direction or towards a particular place" can be translated as "verso, diretto verso, or in direzione". WISE is used with many nouns, verbs, and adjectives to mean "speaking of or referred to"; it is also used with some nouns and adjectives meaning "in the direction of", so CAREERWISE can be translated as "relativamente alla carriera" and CROSSWISE can be translated as "di traverso or a croce". ED is used with eye and hair to form compound adjectives that describe the eye color, hair color, hairstyle of a person or animal; so blue-eyed can be translated as "dagli occhi blu". AHOLIC is used with some nouns and verbs to create nouns meaning "someone who likes something a lot or who is unable to stop doing something", so CHOCAHOLIC can be translated as "colui che ama la cioccolata". ATHON is used with some nouns and verbs to make nouns meaning "an event or activity that lasts for a long time and is often organized in order to raise money for charity", so SWIMATHON can be translated as "maratona di nuoto". Sometimes there are no direct equivalents of some of the words or expressions that are created using a particular derivational affix that exists in both the source language and target language. The Italian equivalents of the English suffix -ER are TORE for the masculine gender and TRICE for the feminine one, so PLAYER can be translated as "giocatore/giocatrice", however EMPLOYER is translated as "datore di lavoro". Lack of equivalence often occurs with compounds, for example, BUZZWORD, which means "a word that has become very popular, especially a word relating to a particular activity or subject", has no direct equivalent in Italian, therefore it can be translated with a paraphrase such as "slogan del momento". Finally, different syntactic rules may govern the use of some derived words in the source and target language. For example, in Italian, adverbs derived from adjectives by adding the suffix MENTE, which corresponds to the English suffix LY, cannot be combined with each other. It follows that the simple sentence "he acted entirely correctly" cannot be translated as "ha agito interamente correttamente" but as "ha agito in maniera perfettamente corretta".

Lexical and sense relation

Introduction

In the vocabulary of any language, words are linked together into a sort of gigantic spider’s web organized by principles that are language-specific. Two of these organized principles are lexical relations (or syntagmatic relations) and sense relations (or paradigmatic relations). Lexical relations concern the co-occurrence of certain words that may be semantically unrelated, while sense relations are concerned with how words relate to each other in terms of their meaning, that is how similar or different or general or specific they are to one another.

Collocation

The tendency of certain words to occur together regularly in a given language is called collocation and words that are bound together by collocation are known as collocates. Collocational range is the set of collocates that usually accompany a given word, called the node. The collocational range of a word varies with the different meanings that a word conveys. For example, the verb SPEND meaning "using money to pay for things" strongly collocates with MONEY, but when it means "to do something for a period of time" it strongly collocates with TIME. The collocational range of a word is also associated with language variety, so a monosemic word (a word conveying one meaning) may be accompanied by different collocates according to the language variety in which it occurs. For example, in everyday language the word CHILD typically collocates with adjectives like little, good, obedient; while the word PET normally co-occurs with adjectives such as domestic, household. However, in the language variety used in the web pages of businesses offering farmhouse holidays both words collocate with WELCOME in expressions such as Children/Pet are welcome. Collocation plays an important role in the study of English lexis because it is present in almost every spoken or written utterance. Learning to choose the most appropriate collocation will make our language sound more natural and we’ll also be able to express ourselves more clearly and effectively.

Synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy

Synonymy is the relationship that links words that have the same or almost the same meaning in a particular context. Words that are synonymous with one another are called synonyms. Synonyms cannot always be substituted for one another because lexical meaning isn’t a unitary notion but is made up of several components:

• The propositional meaning of a word relates to what a word refers to in a concrete or abstract world. For example, the word Internet refers to a computer system that allows people in different parts of the world to exchange information.
• The expressive meaning of a word relates to the speaker’s feelings and attitudes. For example, the interjections such as Yuck, Ops or impolite words.
• Evoked meaning arises from variation in dialect and register. Dialect is a variety of language that is used only in a particular geographical area, in different periods in the history of a language or by a particular social group. Register is a variety of language that a speaker or a writer considers appropriate in a particular situational context, whose relevant components are field of discourse, tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse.

Field of discourse refers to what is going on in the situational context, for example describing, selling, buying, making love, writing a novel. Tenor of discourse refers to the interpersonal and social relationship between the people taking part in the situational context, for example student and teacher, friends, lovers. Mode of discourse refers to the role the language is playing (informative, persuasive, pedagogic) and the medium of transmission (spoken, written, multimedia). All of these affect the lexical and grammatical features of the language used. Words are usually synonymous with one another with regard to one or more of the various components that make their meaning but not necessarily all of them. This is an important reason why synonyms cannot always be substituted for one another. For example, Yes, Yeah, and Yep. They all convey the same propositional meaning. However, yes is neutral with regard to expressive meaning and tenor of discourse, and it is not associated with a particular mode of discourse, while Yeah and Yep are used informally and in a spoken mode. Polisemic words have different synonyms, one for each of the senses they express.

Antonymy is the relationship that links antonyms, that are words that are opposite in meaning in a particular context. There are different types of antonyms: gradable antonyms are opposites that can be graded such as large and small, so we can say that something is smaller than something else; ungradable antonyms (or complementary antonyms) are opposites that cannot be graded, for example single and married; converse antonyms are opposites that are mutually dependent on one another such as buy and sell, give and receive. A polisemic word may have different antonyms for each of its senses.

Hyponymy is the relationship that links a specific word to a general one when the specific word, called hyponym, is included in the general word, called hypernym. The group of words that are linked by a relationship of hyponymy form a semantic field such as the field of sports, animals, games, in which the words at the same level of the taxonomy are called co-hyponyms. Semantic fields are abstract concepts; the actual words that make up a semantic field form a lexical set. The concept of semantic field is very useful for English learners and translators because it helps them to organize the vocabulary of source and target languages into taxonomies and notice overlaps, mismatches, and correspondences across the two languages.

Translation problems

Languages may have collocations that convey the same or similar meaning but are different in form. For example, the Italian equivalents of the English collocations pass an exam/a gentle breeze are respectively superare un esame/una dolce brezza. In the language of sports, the Italian word Podio often co-occurs with gradino in utterances such as "conquistare il gradino più alto del podio" but in English, the Italian equivalent noun podium doesn’t co-occur with the highest step to mean "win the gold medal" but is often associated with the verbs climb on to/stand on, as well as the nouns medal or winner in expressions such as "step onto the medal podium/step onto the winner’s podium". So, some collocations are culture-specific (or culture-bound), that is they express ideas linked to cultural situations that may be unfamiliar to the speakers of another language. For example, expressions such as children are welcome often found in tourist brochures advertising holiday accommodation, do not exist in Italian. This collocation reflects the cultural context in Britain, where children aren’t always welcome to stay in holiday accommodation, therefore it is important for marketing reasons to include this information in promotional literature. Another example of culture-specific collocation is provided by the word natura, which frequently occurs in the web pages of Italian Agriturisme in expressions such as "a stretto diretto contatto con la natura". The word natura is also associated with bellezza/pace/silenzio/incontaminata. However, the direct equivalent expression "in full contact with nature" is not used in the web pages of British Farmhouse Holidays. Moreover, the association with beauty/silence/immersion, and unspoilt is not found either. Therefore, nature isn't a suitable equivalent of natura for translation purposes. Instead, it is the word countryside which shares a similar set of collocates with natura in typical utterances such as "in a very peaceful countryside". Many cases of non-equivalence at word level between source and target language concern a mismatch in propositional meaning, for example, the target language does not have a word which expresses a culture-specific concept in the source text. The concept may relate to a religious belief, a social custom, a type of food, and so on. Another way of dealing with the type of non-equivalence is the use of a loan word. For example, the Italian word trullo is usually borrowed in English translations and enclosed in single inverted commas.

Other sense relations

Homonymy, polysemy, and wordplay

Homonymy is the relationship that links homonyms, that is words that have the same sound and spelling but different meanings. For example, the word bank has two different meanings: a financial institution (the Royal Bank of Scotland); a large number of pieces in a row (a bank of TV monitors). Polysemy is the term used to refer to the different meanings conveyed by the same word. Words that have more than one propositional meaning are called polysemous (or polysemic) words as opposed to monosemous (or monosemic) words, which convey only one propositional meaning. Generally speaking, wordplay (or pun) is a witticism that relies for its effect on playing with different levels of linguistic analysis (morphology, orthography, phonology, syntax, or semantics). Puns rely on the different meanings of a polysemic word or on bringing two...