Cover not available
Article published In:
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 25:3 (2020) ► pp.241–269

The translation of reporting verbs in Italian

The case of the Harry Potter series

| University of Nottingham
This paper reports on a study of reporting verbs in the Harry Potter series and their translation in Italian. It offers quantitative and qualitative perspectives on how the English verbs have been translated by two Italian translators, who worked on different books of the series. This study first analyses verb usage across the three protagonists of the series (Harry, Ron, and Hermione) in English and Italian; then, it employs Caldas-Coulthard’s (1987) taxonomy of reporting verbs and compares verb categories between source and target texts to identify tendencies in the translation of this textual feature. It finally discusses the stylistic implications of translation alterations and their potential effect on character development. As such, this paper contributes not only to the limited literature on reporting verbs in translation (especially in Italian), but it also furthers the understanding of the role of reporting verbs as a characterisation device.
Keywords: reporting verbs, literary translation, stylistics, corpus-based translation studies, Harry Potter series
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Reporting verbs and their translation
  • 3.Data and methods
  • 4.Reporting verbs comparison between STs and TTs
  • 5.Category comparison between STs and TTs
  • 6.Potential effects on character development
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 14 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.19124.mas
References (31)
References
Baker, M. (1993). Corpus linguistics and translation studies – Implications and applications. In M. Baker, G. Francis, & E. Tognini-Bonelli (Eds.), Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair (pp. 233–250). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ben-Ari, N. (1998). The ambivalent case of repetitions in literary translation. Avoiding repetitions: A ‘universal’ of translation. Meta, 43(1), 68–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, S. (2004). Shift of cohesion and coherence in translation. In L. Venuti (Ed.), Translation Studies Reader (2nd ed.) (pp. 290–305). Routledge.Google Scholar
Caldas-Coulthard, C. R. (1987). Reported speech in written narrative texts. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Discussing Discourse (pp. 149–167). University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
(1994). On reporting reporting: The representation of speech in factual and factional narratives. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in Written Text Analysis (pp. 295–308). Routledge.Google Scholar
Čermák, F., & Rosen, A. (2012). The case of InterCorp, a multilingual parallel corpus. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 17(3), 411–427. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Čermáková, A. (2015). Repetition in John Irving’s novel a Widow for One Year. A corpus stylistic approach to literary translation. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 20(3), 355–377. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Čermáková, A., & Fárová, L. (2010). Keywords in Harry Potter and their Czech and Finnish translation equivalents. In F. Čermák, P. Corness, & A. Klégr (Eds.), InterCorp: Exploring a Multilingual Corpus (pp. 177–188). NLN.Google Scholar
Čermáková, A., & Mahlberg, M. (2018). Translating fictional characters – Alice and the Queen from the Wonderland in English and Czech. In A. Čermáková & M. Mahlberg (Eds.), The Corpus Linguistics Discourse: In Honour of Wolfgang Teubert (pp. 223–253). John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Corness, P. (2010). Shifts in Czech translation of the reporting verb said in English fiction. In F. Čermák, P. Corness & A. Klégr (Eds.), InterCorp: Exploring a Multilingual Corpus (pp. 159–176). NLN.Google Scholar
Culpeper, J. (2001). Language and Characterisation: People in Plays and Other Texts. Pearson Education.Google Scholar
Eberhardt, M. (2017). Gendered representations through speech: The case of the Harry Potter series. Language and Literature, 26(3), 227–246. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klaudy, K., & Károly, K. (2005). Implicitation in translation: Empirical evidence for operational asymmetry in translation. Across Languages and Cultures, 6(1), 13–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laviosa, S. (2002). Corpus-based Translation Studies. Rodopi.Google Scholar
Leech, G., & Short, M. (2007). Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose (2nd ed.). Pearson Longman.Google Scholar
Levý, J. (2011). The Art of Translation [transl. by P. Corness]. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Machálek, T. (2014). KonText – Application for Working with Language Corpora [Computer software]. FF UK. Retrieved November, 2020, from [URL]
Mastropierro, L. (2019, July 23–27). Reporting verbs in the Harry Potter series and its Italian translation: A corpus stylistic perspective [Paper presentation]. International Corpus Linguistics Conference 2019, Cardiff, UK.
Øverås, L. (1998). In search of the third code: An investigation of norms in literary translation. Meta, 43(4), 557–570. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rojo, A., & Valenzuela, J. (2001). How to say things with words: Ways of saying in English and Spanish. Meta, 46(3), 467–477. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruano San Segundo, P. (2016). A corpus-stylistic approach to Dickens’ use of speech verbs: Beyond mere reporting. Language and Literature, 25(2), 113–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017a). Corpus methodologies in literary translation studies: An analysis of speech verbs in four Spanish translations of Hard Times . Meta, 62(1), 94–113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2017b). Reporting verbs as a stylistic device in the creation of fictional personalities in literary texts. Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies, 39(2), 105–124. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2018a). An analysis of Charles Dickens’s gender-based use of speech verbs. Gender & Language, 12(2), 192–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2018b). Dickens’s hyperbolic style revisited: Verbs that describe sounds made by animals used to report the words of male villains. Style, 52(4), 475–493.Google Scholar
Semino, E., & Short, M. (2004). Corpus Stylistics: Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation in a Corpus of English Writing. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simpson, P. (2004). Stylistics. A Resource Book for Students. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Toolan, M. (2001). Narrative. A Critical Linguistic Introduction (2nd ed.). Routledge.Google Scholar
Yu, H., & Guo, S. (2016). The Master said, the Master exclaimed: Reporting verbs and the image of Huineng in translations of the Platform Sutra. Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, 3(3), 267–279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Winters, M. (2007). F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Die Schönen und Verdammten: A corpus-based study of speech-act report verbs as a feature of translators’ style. Meta, 52(3), 412–425. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Molés-Cases, Teresa
2023. Chapter 3. Reporting direct speech in Spanish and German. In Corpus Use in Cross-linguistic Research [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 113], ► pp. 51 ff. DOI logo
Ryu, Jisu, Soonbae Kim, Arthur C. Graesser & Moongee Jeon
2023. Corpus stylistic analysis of literary translation using multilevel linguistic measures. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 35:4 ► pp. 514 ff. DOI logo
Meng, Lingzi & Feng Pan
2022. Using corpora to reveal style in translation: The case of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 october 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.