Taming iconicity in the Spanish and Italian translations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Some observations from a (Contrastive) (Cognitive) Construction Grammar perspective
Building on Tabakowska’s (1993, 2003, 2005, 2009, 2013) full-blown defense of a cognitive linguistic approach to literary translation as well as on
previous research dealing with the implementations of Construction Grammar(s) for translation studies (Szymańska 2011a, 2011b; Serbina 2015), this paper critically examines the role of iconicity in selected lines from Shakespeare’s
Sonnets capitalizing on the passage of Time-Death and their corresponding translations in present-day Spanish
and Italian. Specifically, drawing on Cognitive Construction Grammar (Goldberg 2006)
and Contrastive Construction Grammar (Boas 2010a; Boas & Gonzálvez-García 2014), I focus on instances of secondary predication with verbs of sensory perception,
causative constructions and aspectual constructions iconically connected with the above-mentioned motif and demonstrate that
iconicity emerges as a very useful communicative ‘filter’ that can help to minimize any undesirable arbitrariness which may
obscure the semantico-pragmatic interpretation of the source text and/or its rendering into the target text.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Iconicity: Some initial working assumptions
- 3.Construction Grammar(s) and interlingual translation
- 4.Towards a constructionist account of verb complementation in English, Spanish, and Italian
- 5.Some notes on the iconicity of Time-Death fracture in the Italian and Spanish translations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
- 5.1Some preliminary considerations
- 5.2The sensory subjective-transitive construction
- 5.3Causative constructions
- 6.Closing remarks
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Key to the translations used in this paper
-
References
References
References
Achard, Michel
1998 Representation of Cognitive Structures: Syntax and Semantics of French Sentential Complements (
Cognitive Linguistics Research Series 11). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Alm-Arvius, Christina
1993 The English Verb See: A Study in Multiple Meaning. Göteborg: Acta Universitas Gothoburgensis.
Álvarez, José María
1999 Sonetos. Valencia: Pre-Textos.
Baldini, Gabriele
1992 William Shakespeare: Sonetti. Milan: Feltrinelli. (Translation by
Lucifero Darchini.)
Boas, Hans C.
2010b Comparing constructions across languages. In
Contrastive Studies in Construction Grammar (
Constructional Approaches to Language 10),
Hans C. Boas (ed.). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1–20.
Boas, Hans C. & Francisco Gonzálvez-García
Bolinger, Dwight
1968 Entailment and the meaning of structures.
Glossa 21: 119–127.
Bolinger, Dwight
1974 Concept and percept: Two infinitive constructions and their vicissitudes. In
World Papers in Phonetics: Festschrift for Dr. Onishi’s Kiju,
Masao Ōnishi (ed.). Tokyo: Phonetic Society of Japan, 65–91.
Bolinger, Dwight
1977 Meaning and Form. London: Longman.
Borkin, Ann
1973 To be or not to be.
Chicago Linguistic Society Proceedings 91: 44–56.
Brinton, Laurel J.
1985 The iconic role of aspect in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129.
Poetics Today 6 (3): 447–459.
Butler, Christopher S. & Francisco Gonzálvez-García
Bybee, Joan
2003 Aspect. In
International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. 2nd ed.,
W. J. Frawley (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 157–158.
Chamosa González, José Luis
1997 Crítica y evaluación de traducciones: Elementos para su discusión. In
Aproximaciones a los Estudios de Traducción,
Purificación Fernández Nistal &
José María Bravo Gozalo (eds). Valladolid: University of Valladolid Press, 29–50.
Cifuentes Honrubia, José Luis & José Luis Tornel Sala
1996 El predicativo en español: Iconicidad y gramática.
Lingüística Española Actual XVIII1: 17–47.
Clark, Eve V.
1971 On the acquisition of the meaning of after and before.
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 101: 266–275.
Comrie, Bernard
1976 Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Croft, William
2001 Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Croft, William
2003 Typology and Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Declerck, Renaat
1982 The triple origin of participial perception verb complements.
Journal of English Linguistics 161: 27–46.
Demonte, Violeta
1991 Observaciones sobre la predicación secundaria: Mando-c, extracción y reanálisis. In
Detrás de la Palabra,
Violeta Demonte (ed.). Madrid: Alianza, 157–201.
Diessel, Holger
2005 Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses.
Linguistics 431: 449–470.
Diessel, Holger
2008 Iconicity of sequence. A corpus-based analysis of the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses in English.
Cognitive Linguistics 191: 465–490.
Diessel, Holger
2013 Adverbial subordination. In
Bloomsbury Companion to Syntax,
Silvia Luraghi &
Claudia Parodi (eds). London: Continuum, 341–354.
Duffley, Patrick
1992 The English Infinitive. London: Longman.
Ebeling, Jarle
1998 Using translations to explore construction meaning in English and Norwegian. In
Corpora and Cross-linguistic Research: Theory, Method and Case Studies,
Stig Johansson &
Signe Oksefjell (eds). Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 169–195.
Enkvist, Nils Erik
1990 Discourse comprehension, text strategies and style.
AMULA 731: 166–180.
Fanego, Teresa
1990a Finite complement clauses in Shakespeare’s English. I.
Studia Neophilologica 621: 3–21.
Fanego, Teresa
1990b Finite complement clauses in Shakespeare’s English. II.
Studia Neophilologica 621: 129–149.
Fanego, Teresa
1992 Infinitival Complements in Shakespeare’s English. Santiago de Compostela: University of Santiago de Compostela Press.
Fenk-Oczlon, Gertraud
1991 Frequenz und kognition – Frequenz und markiertheit.
Folia Linguistica 251: 361–394.
Fischer, Olga C. M.
1996 Verbal complementation in Early Middle English: How do the infinitives fit in? In
English Historical Linguistics 1994,
Derek Britton (ed.). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 247–270.
Fischer, Olga C. M.
1999 Changes in infinitival constructions in English. In
Anglistentag 1998,
Sabine Schulting &
Fritz-Wilhelm Neumann (eds). Erfurt Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 7–27.
Fischer, Olga & Max Nänny
Fischer, Olga & Max Nänny
(eds) 2001 The Motivated Sign (
Iconicity in Language and Literature 2). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Ford, Cecilia E.
1993 Grammar in Interaction: Adverbial Clauses in American English Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Galera Masegosa, Alicia & Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez
2012 Lexical class and perspectivization constraints on subsumption in the Lexical Constructional Model: The case of say verbs in English.
Language Sciences 341: 54–64.
García Calvo, Agustín
1974 William Shakespeare/Sonetos de Amor. Barcelona: Anagrama. 1998 edition.
García García, Luciano
2013 Sonetos y Querellas de una Amante. William Shakespeare. Edición en Inglés, Traducción y Notas. Valencia: JPM Ediciones.
Givón, Talmy
1990 Syntax. A Functional-Typological Approach. Vol. 21. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Givón, Talmy
2001 Syntax: An Introduction. Volume II1. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Goldberg, Adele E.
1995 Constructions. A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Goldberg, Adele E.
2006 Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gonzálvez-García, Francisco
2009 The family of object-related depictives in English and Spanish: First steps towards a constructionist, usage-based analysis.
Language Sciences 311: 663–723.
Gonzálvez-García, Francisco
Gonzálvez-García, Francisco
2011 Metaphor and metonymy do not render coercion superfluous: Evidence from the subjective-transitive construction.
Linguistics 49 (6): 1305–1358.
Gonzálvez-García, Francisco
2014 Bringing together fragments and constructions: Evidence from complementation in English and Spanish. In
Romance Perspectives on Construction Grammar (
Constructional Approaches to Language 15),
Hans C. Boas &
Francisco Gonzálvez-García (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 181–226.
Gramley, Stephan
1987 The Infinitive Forms of English as Verb Complements. Duisburg: LAUD.
Guasti, Maria Teresa
1993 Causative and Perception Verbs (A Comparative Study). Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier.
Haiman, John
1980 The iconicity of grammar: Isomorphism and motivation.
Language 56 (3): 515–540.
Haiman, John
1983 Iconic and economic motivation.
Language 59 (4): 781–819.
Haiman, John
1994 Iconicity. In
The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics,
Ronald E. Asher (ed.). Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1629–1633.
Haiman, John
2006 Iconicity. In
Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Vol. V1. 2nd ed.,
Keith Brown (ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier, 457–461.
Halverson, Sandra L.
2007 A cognitive linguistic approach to translation shifts. In
The Study of Language and Translation,
Willy Vandeweghe,
Sonia Vandepitte &
Marc van de Velde (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 105–121.
Halverson, Sandra L.
2010 Cognitive translation studies. In
Translation and Cognition,
Gregory Shreve &
Erik Angelone (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 349–369.
Halverson, Sandra L.
2013 Implications of cognitive linguistics for translation studies. In
Cognitive Linguistics and Translation: Advances in some Theoretical Models and Applications,
Ana Rojo &
Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano (eds). Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 33–73.
Hansen-Schirra, Silvia & Stella Neumann
2012 Corpus enrichment, representation, exploitation, and quality control. In
Cross-linguistic Corpora for the Study of Translations: Insights from the Language Pair English-German,
Silvia Hansen-Schirra,
Stella Neumann &
Erich Steiner (eds). Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 35–52.
Haspelmath, Martin
2008 Frequency vs. iconicity in explaining grammatical asymmetries.
Cognitive Linguistics 191: 1–33.
Hernanz, María Luisa
1988 En torno a la sintaxis y semántica de los complementos predicativos en español.
Estudi General 81: 7–29.
Hiraga, Masako K.
1994 Diagrams and metaphors: Iconic aspects in language.
Journal of Pragmatics 221: 5–21.
Hoffmann, Thomas & Graeme Trousdale
2013 The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hollmann, Willem B.
2015 The iconicity of infinitival complementation in present-day English causatives. In
Inside-Out (
Iconicity in Language and Literature 4),
Costantino Maeder,
Olga Fischer &
William J. Herlofsky (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 286–306.
Horie, Kaoru
1993 A cross-linguistic study of perception and cognition verb complements: A cognitive perspective. PhD dissertation, University of Southern California.
House, Juliane
1997 Translation Quality Assessment: A Model Revisited. Tübingen: Narr.
Huddleston, Rodney
1969 Predicate complement constructions in English (A review article).
Lingua 231: 241–273.
James, Francis
1987 Semantics of the English Subjunctive. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Karttunen, Lauri
1971 Implicative verbs.
Language 471: 340–358.
Kirsner, Robert & Sandra A. Thompson
1976 The role of pragmatic inference in semantics: A study of sensory verb complements in English.
Glossa 101: 200–240.
Lakoff, George
1987 Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langacker, Ronald W.
1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, Ronald W.
1991a Concept, Image, and Symbol (The Cognitive Basis of Grammar). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Langacker, Ronald W.
1991b Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2: Descriptive Application. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, Ronald W.
2008 Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lvóvskaya, Zinaida
1997 Problemas Actuales de Traducción. Granada: Granada Lingüística & Método Ediciones.
Machacek, Jaroslav
1965 Complementation of the English Verb by the Accusative-with-Infinitive and the Content Clause. Prague: Státi Pedgagocké Nakaldatelsví.
MacWhinney, Brian, Andrej Malchukov & Edith Moravcsik
(eds) 2014 Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McCandless, Robert Ian
1993 La popularidad de un texto isabelino en España: Los sonetos de Shakespeare.
Sendebar 41: 225–244.
Maeder, Costantino, Olga Fischer & William J. Herlofsky
(eds) 2005 Outside-In – Inside-Out (
Iconicity in Language and Literature 4). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Micó, José María
1985 Una traición a Shakespeare.
Cuadernos de Traducción e Interpretación 5–61: 53–57.
Mujica Laínez, Manuel
1983 Sonetos de William Shakespeare. Madrid: Visor.
Mujica Laínez, Manuel
1985 Recuerdo de Procusto: Traducir a Shakespeare.
Cuadernos de Traducción e Interpretación 5–61: 41–43.
Müller, Wolfgang G. & Olga Fischer
(eds) 2003 From Sign to Signing (
Iconicity in Language and Literature 3). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Nänny, Max & Olga Fischer
2006 Iconicity: Literary texts. In
Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics,
Keith Brown (ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier, 462–472.
Newmark, Peter
1987 Manual de Traducción. Madrid: Cátedra.
Nida, Eugene A.
1964 Towards a Science of Translating: With Special Reference to Principles and Procedures Involved in Bible Translating. Leiden: Brill.
Pérez Romero, Carmen
1987 Monumento de Amor (Los Sonetos de W. Shakespeare Vertidos al Español en Sonetos). Cáceres: University of Extremadura Press.
Pérez Romero, Carmen
1988 Sanciones aduaneras en la frontera anglo-española al traducir los sonetos de Shakespeare.
Cuadernos de Traducción e Interpretación 101: 19–37.
Praz, Mario
1964 Shakespeare-Tutte le Opere. Florence: Sansoni.
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svartvik
1985 A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
Riddle, Elizabeth R.
1975 Some pragmatic conditions on complementizer choice.
Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society 111: 467–474.
Rodríguez Espiñeira, María José
1989 El complemento predicativo del complemento directo en español. PhD dissertation, University of Santiago de Compostela.
Rodríguez Espiñeira, María José
2002 Percepción directa e indirecta en español. Diferencias semánticas y formales.
Verba 271: 33–85.
Rojo, Ana & Javier Valenzuela
2013 Constructing meaning in translation: The role of constructions in translation problems. In
Cognitive Linguistics and Translation: Advances in some Theoretical Models and Applications,
Ana Rojo &
Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano (eds). Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 283–310.
Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José
2013 Pedagogical grammar and meaning construction. Plenary lecture given at the 1st International Constructionist Approaches to Language Pedagogy Conference (CALP 2013), Brussels, 8–9 November 2013.
Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José & Alicia Galera Masegosa
Rutelli, Romana
1986 Shakespeare: I Sonetti. Milan: Garzanti.
Salvi, Giorgio
1981 Complementi predicativi.
Studi di Grammatica Italiana 101: 313–349.
Serbina, Tatiana
2015 A Construction Grammar approach to the analysis of translation shifts: A corpus-based study. PhD dissertation, RWTH Aachen University.
[URL] (Last accessed on 8 June 2018).
Shakespeare, W.
1995 Sonetti. Testo Inglese a Fronte. Milan: BUR. Translation by
A. Serpieri. 2015 edition.
Shibatani, Masayoshi
1976 Syntax and Semantics 6: The Grammar of English Causative Constructions. New York: Academic Press.
Song, J. J.
2006 Causatives: Semantics. In
Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics,
Keith Brown (ed.). Amsterdam and New York: Elsevier, 265–268.
Spaulding, Robert K.
1933 Infinitive and subjunctive with hacer, mandar, dejar, and the like.
Hispania 16 (4): 425–432.
Spears, Arthur K.
1977 The semantics of English complementation. PhD dissertation, University of California at San Diego.
Szymańska, Izabela
2011a Mosaics: A Construction-grammar-based Approach to Translation. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper.
Szymańska, Izabela
2011b Construction Grammar as a framework for describing translation: A prolegomenon. In
New Perspectives in Language, Discourse and Translation Studies (
Second Language Learning and Teaching),
Mirosław Pawlak &
Jakub Bielak (eds). Berlin: Springer, 215–225.
Tabakowska, Elżbieta
1993 Cognitive Linguistics and Poetics of Translation. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
Tabakowska, Elżbieta
2003 Iconicity and literary translation. In
From Sign to Signing (
Iconicity in Language and Literature 3),
Wolfgang G. Müller &
Olga Fischer (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 361–376.
Tabakowska, Elżbieta
2005 Iconicity as a function of point of view. In
Outside-In – Inside-Out (
Iconicity in Language and Literature 4),
Costantino Maeder,
Olga Fischer &
William J. Herlofsky (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 375–387.
Tabakowska, Elżbieta
. Iconicity
2009 Grammar, Meaning and Pragmatics (
Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights 5),
Frank Brisard,
Jan-Ola Östman &
Jef Verschueren (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 129–145.
Tabakowska, Elżbieta
2013 (Cognitive) grammar in translation: Form as meaning. In
Cognitive Linguistics and Translation: Advances in some Theoretical Models and Applications,
Ana Rojo &
Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano (eds). Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 229–250.
Tabakowska, Elżbieta, Christina Ljunberg & Olga Fischer
(eds) 2007 Insistent Images (
Iconicity in Language and Literature 5). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Timyam, Napasri & Benjamin K. Bergen
Ungaretti, Giuseppe
1986 Saggi e Interventi. Milan: Mondadori.
Valenzuela, A.
1999 Álvarez: Los Sonetos de Shakespeare son indestructibles.
La Verdad (Diario de Murcia) 25th April 1999, p. 72.
Van der Meer, Geart
1994 Verbs of perception and their complementation.
English Studies 51: 468–480.
Yoon, Jiyoung & Stephanie Wulff
Zandvoort, Reinard Willem & Jan Ate Van Ek
1962 A Handbook of English Grammar. 6th ed. London: Longman Press.
Zazo, Anna Luisa
1993 Shakespeare: Sonetti. Milan: Mondadori.
Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
Statham, Simon & Rocío Montoro
2019.
The year’s work in stylistics 2018.
Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 28:4
► pp. 354 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 february 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.