Translation techniques and Thinking-for-Translating

What is it about?

Manner of motion represents a translation problem, especially between languages that belong to different typological groups, since their users (in this case mainly authors and translators) address the semantic component of Manner in different ways. In order to give a full account of the translation of manner of motion events in a German>Spanish parallel corpus of children’s and young adult literature, this contribution describes an interdisciplinary study by resorting to the theory of ‘Thinking for Translating’ (Slobin, 1997, 2000, 2005) and to the hypothesis of translation universals (Baker, 1993; Mauranen & Kujamäki, 2004). It presents a proposal of seven translation techniques adapted to Manner of motion, as well as quantitative data regarding these techniques. Qualitative and quantitative data on the semantic subcomponents of Manner (speed, sound, motor pattern, etc.) are also included. The findings confirm that, in terms of Manner of motion, the translation is simpler than the original text and that motor pattern is the semantic subcomponent of Manner that has been affected by translation to the greatest extent.

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