Translation Universals.pdf - ymerleksi - home

122 Jarmo Harri Jantunen
However, the statistical tests showed that a source language may affect overall
frequencies, and the hypothesis of a universal tendency was rejected.
The analysis of collocations supported only partly the hypothesis of untypical
lexical combinations in translations. First of all, translated texts, regardless
of the source language, seemed to show dissimilar collocations compared to
non-translated texts. This supports the hypothesis of untypicality. However,
the actual collocations in texts from one source language turned out to be different
from those in translations in general, which indicates that a source language
may affect the lexical combinations. Perhaps surprisingly, this result was
not consistent in the case of all synonymous degree modifiers, which indicates
a clear influence of linguistic items on the results. The colligation analysis
offered, again, results that do not support the hypothesis of a universal
tendency. Although the translations exhibited almost the same grammatical
patterning as non-translations, the translations from English differed in terms
of the proportions of colligations.
Consequently, the analyses of lexical and grammatical associations as well
as overall frequencies gave partly contrasting and rather more complex findings
compared to the earlier investigations. Thus, it seems that the hypotheses need
to be refined and studied more specifically. What I suggest is that quantitative
hypotheses should be distinguished from qualitative ones. The present study
suggests that quantitative and qualitative analyses give partially contradictory
results. For example, although overall frequencies are partly untypical in
translations (typicality of frequencies), combinations may be typical as well as
untypical (typicality of patterning). More interestingly, it was the proportions
(quantity) of items that distinguished language variants in the colligation
analysis, not their actual range (quality).
The TPCA brings into the picture an important question about linguistic
items which are focused to gain information on generalizations in translations.
Although the present analysis and Mauranen’s study use comparable methods
and focus on lexical items, the results of these studies are not parallel. Moreover,
as seen in this chapter, even the results of the analysis of words all belonging
to one group of synonymous words may reveal contrasting results. Thus,
the interpretations based on lexical combinations must be made very carefully
before further and wider investigations have been carried out.
Apparently, it seems that the Three-Phase Comparative Analysis was a
relatively useful and appropriate method for obtaining information about
source language influence on frequencies and both lexical and grammatical
patterning of degree modifiers in translations. However, some methodological
points must be studied in the further analyses. For example, what is the impact