A corpus-driven investigation of translator style : a study of Humphrey Davies' Arabic-English translations of Midaq Alley and The Yacoubian Building
The aim of this study is to isolate the individual stylistic traits of one translator, Humphrey Davies, within the framework of descriptive translation studies. Daviesâ English translation of the Arabic novel Midaq Alley is compared, using a corpus-driven approach based on keyword lists, to another English translation of the same source text by another translator, Trevor Legassick. By making this initial corpus-driven comparison and subsequently generating a keyword list for Daviesâ Midaq Alley, the stylistic features regarded as indicative of the translator style and meriting further investigation declared themselves and, accordingly, hypotheses regarding Daviesâ translator style were constructed and then tested by carrying out a thorough corpus-based investigation. A consistent pattern of choices was identified in the translation of four types of words: culture-specific items, including culture-specific common expressions and proper nouns; terms of respect; reporting verbs and function words, including the contraction ââdâ and âthatâ as complementizer, relativizer, demonstrative pronoun and demonstrative determiner. For lexical words, the results show that Daviesâ tends to transliterate
Altamimi, Bader Abdulaziz S.
A corpus-driven investigation of translator style : a study of Humphrey Davies' Arabic-English translations of Midaq Alley and The Yacoubian Building. The aim of this study is to isolate the individual stylistic traits of one translator, Humphrey Davies, within the framework of descriptive translation studies. Daviesâ English translation of the Arabic novel Midaq Alley is compared, using a corpus-driven approach based on keyword lists, to another English translation of the same source text by another translator, Trevor Legassick. By making this initial corpus-driven comparison and subsequently generating a keyword list for Daviesâ Midaq Alley, the stylistic features regarded as indicative of the translator style and meriting further investigation declared themselves and, accordingly, hypotheses regarding Daviesâ translator style were constructed and then tested by carrying out a thorough corpus-based investigation. A consistent pattern of choices was identified in the translation of four types of words: culture-specific items, including culture-specific common expressions and proper nouns; terms of respect; reporting verbs and function words, including the contraction ââdâ and âthatâ as complementizer, relativizer, demonstrative pronoun and demonstrative determiner. For lexical words, the results show that Daviesâ tends to transliterate
corpus_driven investigation translator style study davies arabic_english_translation building aim_study isolate individual stylistic trait translator davies within_framework descriptive translation_study davies english_translation arabic novel compare use corpus_driven base list another english_translation source_text another translator make initial corpus_driven comparison subsequently generate list davies stylistic feature regard indicative translator style merit investigation declare accordingly hypotheses regard davies translator style construct test carry thorough corpus_based investigation consistent pattern choice identify translation type word culture_specific item include culture_specific common expression proper noun term respect report verb function_word include contraction demonstrative pronoun demonstrative determiner lexical word show davies tend