An Analysis of the Underspecifications of “AND” in Parallel Corpora: A Case Study in Simultaneous Translation in Iranian Context

Document Type : research article

Author

Assistant Professor of English Language Teaching, Arak University, Arak, Iran

Abstract

The present exploratory research intended to investigate the coherence relations in intercultural communications in the process of translation. As a result, the manifestations of underspecification in translation strategies of the most frequent, complex, common, and apparently simple discourse marker “and” were investigated qualitatively and quantitatively. Research methodologies in discourse analysis and translation studies were combined through the data derived from parallel corpora in simultaneous translation. The parallel corpora in consisted of three lectures in Persian and their simultaneous translation into English including about 35000 words. Instances of DMs were determined and sorted applying Mohammadi and Dehghan (2020) inventory of DMs based on the analysis of corpora in translation studies. The results revealed that in 73% of the cases, the simultaneous translator resorted to underspecification in the process of translating discourse marker “and”. This explorative investigation revealed two manifestations of underspecification in the process of analysis: change and omission. The translator changed this DM into different DMs in 35% of the instances. And the instances of AND were deleted in 38% of the cases. However, in 28% the instances of use “and” was not underspecified in the process of translation. The bases and sources were discussed and different educational, research, and administrative implications were suggested.

Keywords

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Journal of Foreign Language Research
Volume 11, Issue 1
June 2021
Pages 67-80

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