Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Correspondences and Contrasts in Foreign Language Pedagogy and Translation Studies pp 181–195Cite as

Quantifying English and Polish Lolitas: A Corpus-Driven Stylistic Comparison

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 1473 Accesses

Part of the book series: Second Language Learning and Teaching ((SLLT))

Abstract

The study presented in this article, which is a fragment of a larger study of translational and non- translational texts (Grabowski 2012), falls within the scope of descriptive translation studies (DTS) and corpus linguistics, with particular emphasis on the study of translation universals, on the example of English-original (written in 1955) and two independent Polish translations of the novel Lolita by V. Nabokov (by Stiller in 1991 and Kłobukowski in 1997). According to Baker (1995: 243), universal features of translation or translation universals, constitute specific textual characteristics (e.g. lexical, grammatical or stylistic) typical of translated texts, irrespective of languages involved in the translation process. In this study, which was completed with the use of corpus linguistics methodology, the texts were compared in terms of basic stylometric indicators presented through descriptive statistics, top-frequency wordlists, frequency profiles and frequency spectra. More specifically, the analysis aimed to compare the English-original and two Polish translations of Lolita in terms of text length, sentence length, number of repetitions (conciseness of style) as well as frequencies and distribution of both word-types (distinct words) and word-tokens (running words). Also, the aim was to find traces, if any, of translation universals (S-universals, after Chesterman 2004) attested in the Polish translations. The article concludes with suggestions as to research on translation universals in literary texts with the use of corpus linguistics methodology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Any lexeme is a set of inflectional forms, and each of these word-forms is treated as a separate word type, which overall inflates TTR and STTR for highly-inflectional languages. Obviously enough, even if lemmatization was conducted, it would not solve the problem of disambiguation.

  2. 2.

    Apart from using larger corpora, which translates into more statistically significant results, it is possible to approach text length from mathematical perspective, e.g. using entropy, which is the quantity that measures information in texts (Oakes 1998: 58–60; Mikhailov 2003: 169).

  3. 3.

    It requires clarification that Ruszkowski provided data regarding average utterance length. However, since the author adopted orthographic criterion regarding segmentation of utterances (Ruszkowski 2004: 30–32) in his study the very term utterance is therefore equivalent with the sentence.

References

  • Baker, M. 1995. Corpora in translation studies: An overview and some suggestions for future research. Target 7(2): 223–243.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, M. 2000. Towards a methodology for investigating the style of a literary translator. Target 12(2): 241–266.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baroni, M. 2009. Distributions in text. In Corpus linguistics: An international handbook, Vol. 2, eds. A. Lüdeling and M. Kytö, 803–821. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyd, B. 1995. Chronology of Nabokov’s life and works. The Garland companion to vladimir nabokov, ed. V. Alexandrov. New York: Garland Publishing Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chesterman, A. 2004. Beyond the particular. In Translation universals: Do they exist?, eds. A. Mauranen and P. Kuyamaki, 33–49. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comrie, B. 1981. Language universals and linguistic typology: Syntax and morphology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Englund Dimitrova, B. 1993. Semantic change in translation – a cognitive perspective. In Translation and knowledge, eds. Y. Gambier and J. Tommola, 285–296. Turku: Centre for Translation and Interpreting.

    Google Scholar 

  • Englund Dimitrova, B. 1994. Statistical analysis of translations (on the basis of translations from and to Bulgarian, Russian and Swedish). Scandinavian Working Papers on Bilingualism 9: 87–103.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grabowski, L. 2012. A Corpus-driven study of translational and non-translational texts: The case of nabokov's "lolita". Opole: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Opolskiego.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoover, D. 2004. Testing Burrows’s Delta. Literary and linguistic computing 19(4): 453–475. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenny, D. 2001. Lexis and creativity in translation. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laviosa-Braithwaite, S. 1995. Comparable corpora: towards a corpus linguistic methodology for the empirical study of translation. In Translation and meaning Part 3, eds. M. Thelen and B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, 153–163. Maastricht: UPM.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mikhailov, M. 2003. Parallel corpora of literary texts: principles of compilation and use in linguistics and translation studies. Acta Electronica Universitatis Tamperensis, 280. Tampere: Tampere University Press. Retrieved on 4 Feb 2011 from: http://acta.uta.fi/pdf/951-44-5754-4.pdf

  • Mikhailov, M. and M. Villikka. 2001. Is there such a thing as a translator’s style?. Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2001 conference, 378–386. Lancaster: Lancaster University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nabokov, V. 1955. Lolita. Paris: Olympia Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nabokov, V. 1991. Lolita: powieść [Lolita: a novel]. Trans. R. Stiller. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nabokov, V. 1997. Lolita: powieść [Lolita: a novel]. Trans. M. Klobukowski. Kraków: DaCapo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nida, E. and C. Taber. 1974. The theory and practice of translation. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oakes, M. 1998. Statistics for corpus linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olohan, M. 2004. Introducing corpora in translation studies. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Piotrowski, T. 1994. Problems in bilingual lexicography. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruszkowski, M. 2004. Statystyka w badaniach stylistyczno-składniowych [Statistics in research into stylistics and syntax]. Kielce: Wydawnictwo Akademii Świętokrzyskiej.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rybicki, J. 2007. Stylometria komputerowa w służbie tłumacza. Na przykładzie własnych przekładów. Rocznik przekładoznawczy ¾: 169–179. Toruń: Wydawnictwo UMK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scarpa, F. 2006. Corpus-based quality-assessment of specialist translation: A study using parallel and comparable corpora in English and Italian. In Insights into specialized translation, eds. M. Gotti and S. Sarcevic, 155–172. Bern: Peter Lang Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, M. 2004. Wordsmith Tools 4.0. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinclair, J. 1991. Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiller, R. 1991. “Lolita” jako gra i paradoks [Lolita as a Game and Paradox] In Lolita: powieść [Lolita: a novel], by V. Nabokov, 419–439. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiller, R. 1997. Ty żagwio! Albo Nabokov Kłobukowskiego. Wiadomości Kulturalne 47 (183): 6–7.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Opole University, Opole, Poland

    Łukasz Grabowski

Authors
  1. Łukasz Grabowski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Łukasz Grabowski .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , English Department, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Bojarskiego 1, Toruń, 87-100, Poland

    Katarzyna Piątkowska

  2. , English Department, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Bojarskiego 1, Toruń, 87-100, Poland

    Ewa Kościałkowska-Okońska

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Grabowski, Ł. (2013). Quantifying English and Polish Lolitas: A Corpus-Driven Stylistic Comparison. In: Piątkowska, K., Kościałkowska-Okońska, E. (eds) Correspondences and Contrasts in Foreign Language Pedagogy and Translation Studies. Second Language Learning and Teaching. Springer, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00161-6_14

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation