Cover not available
Article published In:
Languages in Contrast
Vol. 17:2 (2017) ► pp.157–182

Question tags in translation

An investigation into the translatability of English question tags into Dutch

| KU Leuven

Canonical question tags feature prominently in spoken English, where they display great versatility. At face value they are meant to elicit a response from a co-participant in the form of (dis)agreement with the proposition to which the tag has been added. Their pragmatic scope is, however, considerably broader: they serve as politeness strategies but also emphasize the speaker’s convictions or mark accusations. Like many other languages, Dutch does not have a similar structure, which raises questions as to what devices Dutch employs to serve the same purpose as question tags. This contrastive study examines such correspondents in a parallel corpus of English novels and their Dutch translations. Three structures can be identified: pragmatic markers, clause-final parentheticals and combinations of these. The data indicate a preference for pragmatic markers (most notably hè and toch), which predominantly appear either as invariant tags or clause-medially, indicating subtle shifts in utterance interpretation.

Keywords: question tags, pragmatics, translation, fiction, English/Dutch, parallel corpus
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and methodology
  • 3.Dutch correspondents of English question tags
    • 3.1Pragmatic markers
      • 3.1.1Pragmatic markers as invariant tags
      • 3.1.2Pragmatic markers in clause-medial position
      • 3.1.3Combination of clause-medial and clause-final pragmatic markers
      • 3.1.4Clause-initial
    • 3.2Clause-final parentheticals
    • 3.3Combinations of clause-medial pragmatic markers and clause-final parentheticals
    • 3.4Others
    • 3.5Zero correspondence
  • 4.Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.17.2.01buy
References
Aijmer, K. and Simon-Vandenbergen, A. -M.
2003 The Discourse Particle well and its Equivalents in Swedish and Dutch. Linguistics 411:1123–1161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Algeo, J.
1988 The Tag Question in British English: It’s Different, i’n’it? English World-Wide 9(2):171–191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1990  It’s a Myth, innit? Politeness and the English Tag Question. In The State of the Language. C. B. Ricks and L. Michaels (eds), 443–450. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Axelsson, K.
2011 Tag Questions in Fiction Dialogue. PhD Thesis, University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
2014 Confirmation-Demanding Tag Questions in Fiction Dialogue. In Subjectivity and Epistemicity: Corpus, Discourse, and Literary Approaches to Stance. D. Glynn and M. Sjölin (eds), 165–185. Lund: Lund University.Google Scholar
Bazzanella, C. and Morra, L.
2000 Discourse Markers and the Indeterminacy of Translation. In Argomenti per una Linguistica della Traduzione. Notes pour une Linguistique de la Traduction. On Linguistic Aspects of Translation. I. Korzen and C. Marello (eds), 149–157. Alessandria: Edizione dell’ Orso.Google Scholar
Bolden, G. B.
2006 Little Words That Matter: Discourse Markers “So” and “Oh” and the Doing of Other‐Attentiveness in Social Interaction. Journal of Communication 56(4):661–688. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Buysse, L.
2017 English So and Dutch Dus in a Parallel Corpus: An Investigation into their Mutual Translatability. In Contrastive Analysis of Discourse-Pragmatic Aspects of Linguistic Genres (Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics 5), K. Aijmer and D. Lewis (eds), 33–61. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caspers, J. and van der Wouden, T.
2010 Modal Particles in Dutch as a Second Language. Evidence from a Perception Experiment. Linguistik Online 44(4). Available at [URL] [last accessed 9 June 2016].
Columbus, G.
2010 A Comparative Analysis of Invariant Tags in Three Varieties of English. English World-Wide 31(3):288–310. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culicover, P. W.
1992 English Tag Questions in Universal Grammar. Lingua 88(3–4):193–226. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foolen, A.
2006 Polysemy Patterns in Contrast: The Case of Dutch toch and German doch . In Pragmatic Markers in Contrast, K. Aijmer and A. -M. Simon-Vandenbergen (eds), 59–72. Oxford/Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
2010 Partikels volgen de schijf van vijf. Internationale Neerlandistiek 481:41–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gómez González, M. A.
2014 Canonical Tag Questions in English, Spanish and Portuguese. A Discourse-Functional Study. Languages in Contrast 14(1):93–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hogeweg, L., Ramachers, S. and Wottrich, V.
2011  Doch, toch and wel on the Table. In Linguistics in the Netherlands 2011, R. Nouwen and M. Elenbaas (eds), 50–60. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Holmes, J.
1982 The Functions of Question Tags. English Language Research Journal 31:40–65.Google Scholar
Huddleston, R. and Pullum, G. K.
2002 The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johansson, S.
2006 How Well Can well Be Translated? On the English Discourse Particle well and its Correspondences in Norwegian and German. In Pragmatic markers in contrast, K. Aijmer and A. -M. Simon-Vandenbergen (eds), 115–137. Oxford/Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Kimps, D.
2007 Declarative Constant Polarity Tag Questions: A Data-Driven Analysis of their Form, Meaning and Attitudinal Uses. Journal of Pragmatics 39(2):270–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kimps, D., Davidse, K. and Cornillie, B.
2014 A Speech Function Analysis of Tag Questions in British English Spontaneous Dialogue. Journal of Pragmatics 66(1):64–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kirsner, R. S.
2003 On the Interaction of the Dutch Pragmatic Particles hoor and hè with the Imperative and Infinitivus Pro Imperativo. In Usage-Based Approaches to Dutch: Lexicon, Grammar, Discourse, A. Verhagen and J. van de Weijer (eds), 59–96. Utrecht: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics LOT.Google Scholar
Kirsner, R. S. and van Heuven, V. J.
1996 Boundary tones and the semantics of the Dutch final particles hè, hoor, zeg and joh . In Linguistics in the Netherlands 1996, den Dikken, M. and Cremers, C. (eds), 133–146. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Leech, G. and Short, M.
2007 Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose (2nd edition). Harlow: Pearson.Google Scholar
Palacios Martínez, I.
2015 Variation, Development and Pragmatic Uses of Innit in the Language of British Adults and Teenagers. English Language and Linguistics 19(3):383–405. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomaselli, M. V. and Gatt, A.
2015 Italian Tag Questions and their Conversational Functions. Journal of Pragmatics 84(1), 54–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tottie, G. and Hoffmann, S.
2006 Tag Questions in British and American English. Journal of English Linguistics 34(4):283–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van der Wouden, T. and Caspers, J.
2010 Nederlandse partikelbeschrijving in internationaal perspectief: waar zijn we eigenlijk en waar moet het toch naartoe? Internationale Neerlandistiek 48(1):52–62. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van der Wouden, T. and Foolen, A.
2011 Pragmatische Partikels in de Rechterperiferie. Nederlandse Taalkunde 16(3):307–322. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2015 Dutch Particles in the Right Periphery. In Final Particles, S. Hancil, A. Haselow and M. Post (eds), 221–247. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Vandeweghe, W.
2010 Modale partikels en vertaling. Internationale Neerlandistiek 48(1):19–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weydt, H.
2006 What are Particles Good for? In Approaches to Discourse Particles, K. Fischer (ed.), 203–217. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Zeevat, H. and Karagjosova, E.
2009 History and Grammaticalisation of “Doch”/“Toch”. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 511:135–152.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Axelsson, Karin
2020. Questions in English and Swedish fiction texts. Languages in Contrast 20:2 ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2018. Tag Questions in Conversation [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 83], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 june 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.