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Target
Vol. 20:2 (2008) ► pp.203–221

Translator awareness of semantic prosodies

| Århus School of Business, University of Århus
| Århus School of Business, University of Århus

An increasing amount of linguistic corpus-based research is being carried out and especially within semantics, some groundbreaking results are highly relevant to Translation Studies. Research has shown that evaluation in language is very much anchored in extended lexical units and not merely in the lexeme. Corpusbased semantic profiles of words reveal evaluative features which may not be accessible through introspection and which have therefore not been part of dictionary information. Previous empirical research has almost exclusively been concerned with native speakers of English. The present study, however, tests and compares the awareness of these evaluative features in the behaviour of soonto-be translators and first year LSP English students when using their foreign language.

Keywords: synonymy, equivalence, corpus analysis, semantic profiles, extended lexical units, connotation, semantic preference, semantic prosody, translator awareness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Synonymy
  • 3.Semantic prosody
  • 4.Synonymy/equivalence in translation
  • 5.Empirical study: Translator awareness of semantic prosodies
    • 5.1Semantic profile of CAUSE
    • 5.2Semantic profile of LEAD TO
    • 5.3Study design
    • 5.4Results
      • 5.4.1BA student results
      • 5.4.2MA student results
    • 5.5Discussion of results and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 November 2008
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.20.2.02dam
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