A comparable comparison? a corpus stylistics analysis of Julian barnes' The Sense of an Ending in Italian and English (original) (raw)

Foregrounding (e.g. Leech 1965, 1985; Leech and Short 1981), whereby certain linguistic elements in literary works differ consistently and systematically (Mukařovsky 1958: 44) from norms represented by a particular benchmark, has often been measured using corpus stylistics methods (e.g. Mahlberg 2013; Stubbs 2005). While most such studies have focussed on works in their original language, ours instead compares the translation with the original text. More specifically, we explore the stylistic elements identified in Julian Barnes’ novel ‘The Sense of an Ending’ in the original and in its Italian translation. Indeed, if translators need to recreate predominant stylistic features of the Source Text in order to maintain stylistic or translational equivalence (Popovic 1976), then the functional equivalent (ibid. 1976: 6) of any significant foregrounding in the ST should be recreated in the Target Text. Drawing on earlier studies of Barnes’ style (e.g. Shepherd and Berber Sardinha 2013), this work further explores aspects such as point of view (Simpson 1993) and the significance of memory in the novel by comparing the two parts of the ST and the TT, thus applying notions of tertiary or internal deviation (Leech 1985). Corpus stylistics methods were used to identify ‘good bets’ (Leech 2008: 164) which were then subjected to qualitative analysis. It was found for example that key clusters belonging to the category of ‘uncertain impressionistic perceptions’ (Shepherd and Berber Sardinha 2013), frequent in the ST, were minimally present in the key clusters of the TT. Instead, a number of Mental processes figured among the keywords of Part Two when compared with Part One of the TT, whereas this was not the case in the ST. References Leech, G.N. 1965. “‘This bread I break’: Language and Interpretation”, Review of English Literature, 6.2 London: Longmans, Green. Leech, G.N. 1985. “Stylistics”. In T. van Dijk (ed.) Discourse and literature: new approaches to the analysis of literary genres. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Leech, G.N. 2008. Language in Literature: Style and Foregrounding. Harlow: Pearson Longman. Leech, G. N. and Short M. H. 1981. Style in fiction: a linguistic introduction to English fictional prose. London: Longman Mahlberg, M. 2013. Corpus stylistics and Dickens’s fiction. New York/London: Routledge. Mukařovsky, J. 1958. “Standard language and poetic language”. In P. L. Garvin (ed. and tr.) A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure and Style. Washington D.C.: American University Language Centre. Popovic, A. 1976. A Dictionary for the Analysis of Literary Translation. Edmonton: Department of Comparative Literature, University of Alberta. Shepherd, T.M.G. and Berber Sardinha, T. 2013. “A Rough Guide to doing Corpus Stylistics”. Matraga, rio de janeiro, v.20, n.32, Jan/Jun. 2013. Simpson, P. 1993. Language, Ideology and Point of View. London/New York: Routledge. Stubbs, M. 2005. “Conrad in the computer: examples of quantitative stylistics methods”, Language and Literature, 14 (1): 5-24.