últimas corrientes teóricas en los estudios de traducción - Gredos ...

K. J. DUNCAN BARLOW–ON THE TRANSLATING OF THE PASSIVE VOICE IN THE DETECTIVE GENRE
2. LINGUISTIC THEORIES AND THEIR RELATION TO TRANSLATION
The second contention of this paper is that certain linguistic studies may be of
some avail to translators.
2.1. VERBAL TENSE/PASSIVE TYPE
The following two examples, although not published translations, seem illustrative
of the probable usefulness of linguistic theories:
3.a. “I understand the body was tied up […]”
b. “[…] The legs were securely bound about the ankle […] The hands had been tied
behind the back […] I deduced that the body […] had been buffeted by the
stream.”
154
(Allingham M.:1931/1980 “Police at the funeral”, p. 89)
If we compare the tenses of “was tied up” and “the legs were bound”, on the one
hand, and “the hands had been tied” and “the body had been buffeted” on the other, we
find Past simple tenses versus Past Perfect tenses. In his “The English Verb” (1965)
Palmer establishes the difference between “statal passives” and “lexical passives”.
According to Palmer “statal passives” are those which refer to “a resultant present
state” (p. 88). When dealing with “statal passives” he gives, together with other instances,
two which seem relevant here:
4.a. “The glass has been broken”
b. “The glass is broken”
(Palmer 1966: 88)
“The glass is broken” is, as he says, an example of statal passive but he goes no
further as regards the relationship between verbal tense and type of passive. However, if
we compare Palmer’s instances with our “3a” and “b” it seems that there is a relationship
between passive types and verbal tense. In the examples above “was tied up”, “were
securely bound” and Palmer’s “is broken” are much alike, insofar as they are simple
tenses, whereas “had been tied”, “had been buffeted” are, as is Palmer’s “has been
broken”, compound tenses.
These comparisons lead us to conclude that simple tenses are used to describe
states while compound tenses are used to describe actions. In other words, and
considering examples “a” and “b”, it would appear that these are passives which describe
an action without mentioning the actor. These “action passives” would be, apparently,
more frequently expressed via compound tenses.
2.2. SPANISH “VOZ”
Instances “5.a/b” to “8.a/b” are illustrations of other linguistic theories which
ought to be of use to translators: