Traveling Theories: Origins and Manifestations

(20-22 March 2016)

The First International Conference of
the Department of English, Ain Shams
University

On Semantic Prosody in Translated

Language: A Corpus-based Cognitive-
Semantic Approach

Radwa Mohammad Mohammad Kotait

Lecturer – English Department
Faculty of Al-Alsun – Ain Shams University
March 2016
 Semantic Translation Corpus
Collocations Prosody and Semantic Analysis
Prosody
 Collocations

”You really do 'know a word by the 'company it keeps’”__ J.R. Firth (1968).
Collocations: Brief Overview

• As far back as in 1934, the

German linguist W. Porzig observed that
e.g. tongue/lick, dog/bark,
blond/hair.

•J. R. Firth (1957:194) calls this “

” where “two or more words have a strong
tendency to be used together” (1968:181) (not so clear
in his writings).

•Cruse (1986:40) “ ”
 Collocations: Overview (cont.)

• J. Sinclair (1991:170) – Neo-Firthian – “the occurrence of

two or more words within a short space of each other in
a text”
• He benefited from the advent of computers and corpus
linguistics, instead of relying on intuition and
introspection
• CL led him to the discovery that meaning is not limited
to a LEXEME, but rather “ ”
(1996)
Extended Unit of Meaning

• In “The Search for Units of Meaning”, Sinclair (1996)

says “the pursuit of independent word meaning has
been illusory”.
• Hence comes the hypothesis that units of meaning are

• This has led to naming types of co-occurrence

relations in
Extended Units of Meaning

– frequent co-occurrence of word forms

(physical evidence)
– the occurrence of grammatical choices
– a lexical set of frequently
occurring collocates, which share a semantic feature
(i.e. not exactly same words, but rather words from
the same lexical field)
– when a word acquires +ve or
–ve associations due to its frequent occurrences with
certain words
Illustration
• Stubbs (2000:449; 2001:64)
COLLOCATION
rancid butter; thunderous
applause; sustainable
development
SEMANTIC PREFERENCE
Commit: always followed by a
noun phrase of the semantic
field “crimes and/or
behaviour which is socially
disapproved of” such as
murder, adultery or sin
COLLIGATION
Cases : in some cases; in
many cases.
SEMANTIC PROSODY
Cause: almost always
followed by something –ve
such as problems, serious
illness, death or damage.
Provide: mostly followed by
+ve things such as service or
support.
Cognitive Linguistics Meets Extended Units of Meaning

• Cognitive Linguistics sees no distinction between

Semantics & Pragmatics.
• It is knowledge of what a words means and how a
word is used
• No such a thing as autonomous mental lexicon which
contains semantic knowledge separately from other
kinds of knowledge
 Encyclopaedic Knowledge

“Frequency in text instantiates

entrenchment in the cognitive
system” (Schmid, 2000, 39)
 Semantic Prosody

“A consistent aura of meaning with which a form is imbued by its collocates”__ B. Louw (1993)
 What is Semantic Prosody?

When a word acquires +ve or –ve associaitons

of some other words due to its frequent
occurrences with these words
 What is Semantic Prosody?

“A consistent aura of meaning with which a

form is imbued by its collocates” – Louw
(1993:157)
 What is Semantic Prosody?

“the spreading of connotational coloring

beyond single word boundaries” Partington
(1998:68)
Semantic Prosody

• Semantic Prosody has started to arouse considerable

attention with Corpus Linguistics over the last 20 years
or so, since Sinclair kindled it in 1980s and again in 1991
• “SP is , and on the pragmatic side of the
semantics/pragmatics continuum”
• “It shows how the rest of the item is to be interpreted
” (Sinclair, 1996:87-8)
• “It is associated not with a particular collocating word,
but with an attitude which can be expressed in a variety
of ways” (Sinclair, 2004:33-4)
Semantic Prosody

• It prepares hearer/reader for what follows whether

desirable or undesirable
• It the topic and indicates to the
hearer/reader (sometimes unconsciously) how a part of
the utterance is to be interpreted functionally
• Hunston (2000:205) stresses the element of
“ ”; when a lexical item occurs in a context of
clearly +ve or –ve meaning, the result is that an
, derived
intertextually, is implied.
Semantic Prosody vs Connotation

• SP is not a property of a word, as a word can collocate

with different Semantic Prosodies in different Contexts
• SP goes the boundaries of a single word
• Connotation is limited to the lexeme. “ideas or qualities
which it makes you think of”__ CoBuild
• whereas according to “extended unit of meaning”
theory, and the cognitive view of Encyclopaedic
Knowledge, SP is expressed by that lexical item in
association with others which create a typical linguistic
environment.
Semantic Prosody

• Yet it is sometimes elusive or , too subliminal to

be readily perceived by hearer/reader/translator
• Some SPs are explicitly and easily recongnizable, others
are not. (e.g. cause, happen, end up v-ing, provide)
• Due to this subtleness, SP is often hidden from human
intuition.
• Here comes the benefits of Corpus analysis as the node
word and its collocates ,
but with a fixed pattern.
• SP could be +ve (favourable), -ve (unfavourable), or
neutral/mixed
Semantic Prosody across languages

• Within the last few years, there has been a number of

studies of SP within a contrastive framework
Berber-Sardinha (2000) English-Portuguese
Xiao &McEnery(2006) English-Chinese
Jeremy Munday (forthcoming) English-Spanish
• Conclusion: Collocational behaviour & SP of near-
synonyms are across language pairs.
Sometimes they are quite similar; other times, quite
different.
• They agree it deserves more attention and collaboration
between Translation Studies theorists and mono-lingual
linguists.
Translation
& Semantic Prosody

Corpus-based Translation Studies

Corpus-based Translation Studies

• Translation-relevant corpus-
based studies are quickly gaining
momentum over the last two
decades
• Translators are requested to be
- holistic - culture-aware
- function-aware - register-aware
- frequency-aware
- alert to context & purpose
- aware of co-text
- careful with ST & TT conventions
- closely watchful of requirements
& restraints
Corpus-driven approach to translation
Semantic Prosody & Corpus-based TS
Semantic Prosody & Corpus-based TS
Semantic Prosody & Corpus-based TS
 Corpus
Analysis Corpus Analysis

Semantic prosody is “a phenomenon that has been only revealed computationally, and whose extent
and development can only be properly traced by computational methods” (Louw, 1993: 159).
Semantic Prosody & Corpus-based TS
Stubbs (2001: 89-95)

Undergo – nouns to the right

of the verb show:
- semantic preference:
•medicine (treatment,
hysterectomy, brain, surgery,
•tests (examination, training)
•change (dramatic changes, a
historic transformation among
others)

All have very strong

unfavourable prosody
Semantic Prosody in Arabic
Translating ‫بســــبب‬
On account of
as a result of
because of
In this part of the study
In this part of the study
 COCA – as a result of

• Search was done for nouns within a span of 4 words

to the right of as a node
•This resulted in 3424 hits
COCA – as a result of
 COCA – as a result of
•The top 20 lexical collocates are ‘war’ (126), ‘changes’ (112),
‘experience’ (87), ‘efforts’ (84), ‘work’ (76), ‘study’ (68), ‘decision’
(64), ‘process’ (64), ‘exposure’ (62), ‘pressure’ (57), ‘actions’
(50), ‘crisis’ (50), ‘experiences’ (50), ‘change’ (46), ‘research’
(46), ‘program’ (45), ‘action’ (44), ‘government’ (44), ‘training’
(44), and ‘intervention’ (43).

• Of these top 20, ‘war’, ‘change(s)’, ‘decision’, ‘action(s)’, ‘crisis’,

and ‘exposure’ are associated with “unpleasant” outcomes.
• WAR–
- a cancer that came about as a result of an international war against terrorism
- The Ottoman Empire also disintegrated as a result of the " war to end all wars
- … the devastation of rural lands as a result of the war
- children orphaned as a result of war and disease
- considered Iraq to be worse off as a result of the war
- 2005 was a year of great pain and frustration as a result of the war in Iraq
 COCA – as a result of
• CHANGE(s)– (mostly matters that take a turn to the worse due to human intervention in nature; otherwise, change is neutral)
- costs (are increasing) as a result of these changes to the health care system
- As a result of such changes, environmental impacts include more flooding
- food may deteriorate as a result of chemical changes within the food itself
- these internationally significant islands are in jeopardy as a result of human-
induced changes
- Vienna will likely see its international role decline as a result of changes in Eastern
Europe
- structures " may reasonably be expected to be damaged as a result of changes in the
shoreline

•DECISION – (mostly matters that take a turn to the worse due to the wrong decision)
- this violence is as a result of a decision made by Vladimir Putin
- a judge's family members were killed as a result of a decision he or she made
- the numbers and costs of the diseases that will occur as a result of that decision
- a split in the party as a result of the wrong decision of my party
 COCA – as a result of
• ‘efforts’, ‘work’, ‘study’, ‘process’, ‘pressure’, ‘experiences’,
‘research’, ‘program’, ‘government’, ‘training’, and ‘intervention’
are mostly positive in their contexts.

•STUDY _ (research that open new vistas of hope and knowledge)

- several interesting and encouraging findings as a result of this study
- As a result of the study, the police department has changed its system
- food may deteriorate as a result of chemical changes within the food itself
- As a result of this study, a new measure of coachability was developed
- As a result of this study, it is determined that efficacy is a characteristic
• WORK _ (fruitful efforts)
- as a result of the hard work he's turned into a really great athlete
- recognition LaV has received as a result of the hard work
- As a result of this collaborative work
- as a result of this groundbreaking work,
- most of those improvements came as a result of the work of governors
 COCA – as a result of
• Conclusion

leans towards +ve semantic prosody especially with contexts

that have to do with “earnest and conscientious activity intended
to do or accomplish something” and “a search for knowledge”.

acquires –ve semantic prosody when it collocates with

outcomes of human intervention resulting in war, crisis, changing
the face of nature to the worse.
TEC – as a result of
COCA – on account of
 COCA – on account of

• Same search on ‘on account of’ results in 365 hits

• The top 15 lexical collocates are ‘race’ (32), ‘religion’ (19), ‘fact’
(14), ‘age’ (13), ‘color’ (12), ‘injuries’ (11), ‘father’ (8), ‘hair’ (6),
‘sex’ (6), ‘war’ (6), ‘weather’ (6), ‘daddy’ (5), ‘health’ (5), ‘mother’
(5), ‘people’ (5)

-It has an overwhelming –ve semantic prosody; mostly the reason

behind doing someone an injustice or being the subject of
discrimination based on race, religion, age, color, or sex.
-Or facing trouble due to bad weather, ill health, or a difficult
parent.
TEC – on account of
 TEC – on account of

• Some translations used ‘on account of’ correctly, reflecting correct prosody
-the people of Dubai called him Dr Black on account of his dark complexion
- but without imperial style on account of his Cuban accent.
- I don't feel wronged on account of his horrible behavior
-Yet here he was wasting a day on account of his injury

• However, the following sentences are positive semantic prosodies, which clash
with the negative semantic prosodies. This might result in an ironic effect.
-became a multimillionaire nonetheless on account of his shrewdness and
clever
-Feared on account of his passion for uncompromising justice.
-had not previously been very friendly with on account of my devotion to my
studies
-was much too clearIy actually felt faint on account of that purity and clarity
- if I am not mistaken, pleased me most, on account of the excellent
treatment of the voices
COCA – because of
 COCA – because of

• Same search on ‘because of’ results in 25079 hits

• The top 20 lexical collocates are ‘lack’ (1264), ‘way’ (1077),

‘nature’ (891), ‘problem’ (692), ‘size’ (538), ‘concerns’ (509),
‘number’ (432), ‘work’ (414), ‘time’ (403), ‘race’ (401), ‘injury’
(378), ‘cost’ (365), ‘age’ (356), ‘fact’ (353), ‘differences’ (349),
‘health’ (341), ‘war’ (324), ‘color’ (321), ‘weather’ (316), and ‘fear’
(314).

•Results reflect mixed semantic prosodies with ‘because of’, in a

wide range of registers.
 COCA – because of

-It has either a neutral semantic prosody especially with

‘differences’, ‘work’
- Normally, you are paying a discount for a property because of the work it needs
- because of your work as a scientist working on the cellular level
- Because of work I've done with children
And ‘way’ -
-because of the way she smilingly went through it.
-particularly because of the way he was expected to settle down
-because of the way the prints are all framed

- Or really negative semantic prosody with ‘lack’, ‘problems’,

‘concerns’, and ‘fear’.
 COCA – because of

- Or positive semantic prosody with ‘success’, ‘importance’, and

‘support’.
-revenue was up because of the success of the higher-priced products
-Because of the success of this campaign by the government in re-appropriating
- became icons because of their success and lyrical flow

-The remarkable achievements of the past year were

possible because of the support and hard work of many individuals
- Obama won Michigan by nearly 10 points in part because of support from the
powerful United Auto Workers
-the Michigan Opera Theater is growing because of lavish support from three local
businesses
TEC – because of
 Conclusion
- -ve semantic prosody – preference for grounds of discrimination or
injustice

- +ve semantic prosody with contexts that have to do with “earnest and
conscientious activity intended to do or accomplish something” and “a search for
knowledge”, and –ve semantic prosody when it collocates with outcomes of human
intervention resulting in war, crisis, changing the face of nature to the worse. It is
mostly used in academic register.

– has mixed semantic prosody and is used in a wider range of registers.

Using any of these in translation in a context that has a semantic prosody different
than that usually associated with it shall result in a collocational clash or an ironic
effect that has not been intended by the ST.
 Recommendations

•More research needs to be carried out in the field of Semantic

Prosody and Translation, especially in English-Arabic as a
language pair.

•More awareness needs to be raised of Semantic Prosody, esp.

among translation trainees and practitioners to avoid using
established translation equivalents that might result in
collocational clash

•More research in Semantic Prosody in Arabic needs to be

carried out, as it is still a new area of research
? Questions?
Thanks a lot
What’s Your Message?