Translating manner-of-motion in comics: A multilingual and multimodal corpus-based study

Juan Sun
Sun Yat-sen University

This article presents a corpus-based investigation of the translation of manner-of-motion from a multilingual and multimodal perspective. The corpus consists of five French comics, along with their corresponding translations from one Chinese version and two English versions. Thus, within the framework of the typology of motion events, the study covers three typologically distinct languages. Using corpus linguistics methods and combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, this study aims to provide empirical evidence on several important issues regarding the translation of manner-of-motion in comics. The results highlight the crucial role of visual language in compensating for alterations in the target textual codes. The significant differences between the Chinese and English translations may be explained by the impact of typological differences in expressing motion events, and the combined effects of the graphic representation of the target language and the spatial limitations of balloons.

Publication history

Date received: 11 March 2025

Date accepted: 15 June 2026

Published online: 7 July 2026

Table of contents

Research on a wide range of languages over the past three decades has demonstrated that languages differ in their ways of expressing motion events and can be divided into three categories. Verb-framed and satellite-framed languages (henceforth V- and S-languages, respectively) — this dichotomy, initially proposed by Talmy (1985, 2000), has been extremely influential in the field of linguistic typology — differ, as will be described in more detail later, in terms of whether path, the schematic core of motion events, tends to be encoded in the main verb or in satellite elements. The third category, referred to by Slobin (2004) as equipollently-framed languages (henceforth E-languages), is distinguished by the fact that path and manner are encoded by equivalent linguistic forms.

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