On the universality of frames

Evidence from English-to-Japanese translation

Yoko Hasegawa | University of California, Berkeley and International Computer Science Institute

Russell Lee-Goldman

Charles J. Fillmore

This paper investigates the cross-linguistic applicability of the concept of frame as developed in the Berkeley FrameNet project. We examine whether the frames created for the annotation of English texts can also function as a tool for the assessment of the accuracy of English-to-Japanese translations. If the semantic structure of a source text is analyzed in terms of the frames evoked by its constituent words and the ways in which the elements of those frames are realized, then those frames, their constituent elements, and their interconnections must somehow be present in the translation. The paper concentrates on passages involving causation, as causal relationships are considered by many to exhibit the most salient differences in rhetorical preference between the two languages.

Keywords: causation, Frame Semantics, FrameNet, noun-centered vs. verb-centered typology, parallel-text corpora, rhetorical structure, topic-worthiness, transitivity, translation assessment

Published online: 22 March 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.82.03has

Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Sakaguchi, Kei

2022. In The Language of Food in Japanese [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 25], ► pp. 232 ff.

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