•
“In contrast with left-detachment, the lexical or independent-pronominal topic expression in right- detached position cannot indicate a new topic or a topic shift” op. cit., pp. 203f..
•
The comment of a topic-comment or the assertion of a point of departure-assertion construction is often internally structured as a further type of information structure op. cit., p. 126.
There is a fundamental typological difference between subject-prominent and topic-prominent languages, based originally on Li andThompson 1976. Gundel 1988:221 summarizes the criteria for
topic-prominent languages as follows: “They have no dummy subjects, passive constructions are marginal if they exist at all, zero NP-anaphora are not syntactically restricted…and basic sentence structure is
determined by topic-comment relations rather than by grammatical relations such as subject and object. In addition, all but one of these languages [in her sample; RAD] have basic SOV order.”
Universals of discourse-level topicality might include the following:
•
Topicality is a common global and local theme.
•
Discourse topics can occur along with other themes.
•
Discourse topics are presented before more inclusive themes.
•
A paragraph-level topic is active throughout the paragraph and can be referred to with the language’s typical minimal coding expressions.
•
A higher-level remote topic is active or semiactive throughout its textual span, at least for macro- levels one level above the paragraph.
Languages differ in regard to topicality in at least the following ways:
•
Languages are at different points on the scale of subject- vs. topic- prominence Li and Thompson 1976.
•
Languages can differ radically in the conditions for and frequency of marked information structures see indices of markedness, Dooley 2005. “For example, Lambrecht 1980 observes that while left
dislocation receives a contrastive interpretation in Standard French, it is ‘neutral’ in non-standard French” Gundel 1988:228. “Double-subject” constructions constitute a basic sentence type in some
languages but not in others loc. cit..
•
Languages differ somewhat in regard to discourse functions for topics with marked expressions. In Wayampi Tupi-Guarani, Brazil, resumptive topics tend to be clause-final rather than left-detached
as in English.
•
Languages differ in ways of introducing discourse topics, especially global topics, and in the rigidity of their rules in doing so. In Bantu languages of Mozambique, the main participant is introduced first
unless another participant would provide easier access to an appropriate base space. In English, the options are quite varied.
•
Languages differ in how much subjective information occurs in narrative and in how it is signalled §3.6.2.
4 Translation issues
Although discourse topicality involves important translation issues, this treatment does not deal with them in a systematic way. In this section we discuss one such issue, followed by a brief listing of others.
4.1 Changing thematic structure in translation
Is it valid to change thematic structure in translation, so that the translation has different thematic structure from the source text? In order to answer questions of validity in translation, we need to know
what things the translation’s “clients” feel is important for the translation to preserve, preferably in a prioritized list. Depending on the translation situation, clients can be translators, consultants, churches,
translation agencies, publishers, members of the language group or outsiders Vermeer 19892000. Here we consider two examples of translation in which macro-level thematic structures are preserved even
though micro-level phenomena are changed. I would also like to be able to present an example where macro-level thematic structures are modified, but I know of no documentation of this.
124 124
There is evidently a long-standing policy within SIL not to encourage “major displacement of material” in Bible
Prioritizing goals for a translation seems often to involve something that parallels depth of processing in discourse comprehension §2.2.1; we might think of this as depth of translation. A translation may aim
at greater or lesser depth in at least two areas:
•
in regard to content, that is, aspects of meaning that are found in, or reasonably inferred from, the source text, a translation can aim at different points on a scale between preserving a shallow level of
content simplifying the content or a deep level transmitting detail;
•
in regard to the conceptual structures for discourse units, a translation can aim at preserving a shallow level preserving only high-level structures or a deep level preserving low-level structures as well.
In the translation of the Bible into Mbyá Guarani Tupi-Guarani, Brazil, the “clients” were most strongly represented by mother-tongue translators and church leaders. Their first priority was to preserve
a fairly deep level of perceived content basically, the information that they could recognize in the source text. Their second priority was to preserve higher-level structure: macro-level units, schemas and themes
were to be transferred unchanged again, to the extent that they could be recognized in the source text. In contrast, lower-level structures, which are typically information structure adjustments within the steps of
a paragraph schema §2.6.2, could be recast in natural target-language ways Dooley 2005. Lower-level, essentially micro-level adjustments are largely due to differences between languages regarding conditions
for information structure markedness. As Dryer 1995:127 says, “languages can vary widely in what discourse factors are associated with pragmatically marked word order. While one language may use a
marked word order in certain situations, another language may use the unmarked word order in corresponding situations, and use a marked word order in situations in which the first language uses its
unmarked word order.” When discourse conditions for information structure in Mbyá Guarani were different from those of the source text, the translation followed the target language, generally resulting in
lower indices of information structure markedness but in higher indices for markedness of certain specific types Dooley 2005.
A similar thing has been found to occur in translation between English and German. Doherty 2005 studied over 1200 sentences of technical texts translated from English to German, systematically testing
different possibilities for naturalness and discourse appropriateness of certain aspects of information structure. She found that whereas about 8 percent of the German sentences topicalized clausal arguments,
less than 1 percent of the English sentences did so; and whereas about 23 percent of the German sentences topicalized adjuncts, only about 12 percent of English sentences did so p. 192.
125
When she examined language-specific discourse conditions behind these differences, she found that English has stricter
discourse conditions for topicalization, requiring that a topicalized argument “participate in a contrastive or partitive relation with the preceding discourse.”
126
Conditions for German are broader, including those of English along with a weaker processing condition which Doherty calls “balanced information
distribution”; this “intersperses higher information with lower information, or lower with higher
translation Hollenbach 1975. Roberts 1997 states that in argumentation in Amele Papuan, Papua New Guinea, the common and most easily comprehended order is inductive support-thesis, which contrasts with the deductive
thesis-support order found commonly in New Testament Greek. In translation, he advocates using the target language’s common order: “Wherever there was a section of extensive deductive reasoning in the NT Greek source
text, we usually found that Amele readers could understand the material better and be better able to answer comprehension questions if we reordered the logical argumentation of the text to follow an inductive reasoning
structure.” Only two discourse-level examples are furnished: 1 Corinthians 2:10–11 and Romans 8:1–8, both of which are internal to “sections” in the translation the Amele translation of the second passage has thesis-support-
thesis in a “sandwich” arrangement, adding a second statement of the thesis instead of transposing the Greek thesis- support order. For languages in general, one can generally depart from an “unmarked” order by adding material, as
is done in “sandwiching.”
125
Topicalization, in Doherty’s study, is the fronting of a non-focus element: an argument as marked topic or an adjunct as point of departure.
126
In conversation, English also uses topic fronting to signal the adoption of a topic from one’s interlocutor.
information,” apparently using a scale like the Givenness hierarchy Figure 11.
127
Natural translation between English and German therefore results in significantly different information structure on micro-
levels, at least in regard to topicalization. The macro-level thematic structure, however, was apparently unaltered in the text that Doherty examined; the only differences she noted were in the information
structure of sentences.
These two examples—Bible translation into Mbyá Guarani and translation of scientific texts between English and German with a relatively deep level of content—show marked changes of information
structure on lower levels, while higher-level knowledge structures are largely preserved. These latter structures—discourse schemas in the present treatment—account for much of the thematic organization.
The head of a schema is the most inclusive theme, and is often the final macropredication for a discourse unit. There may be other nonhead themes, such as discourse topics, which are not implicit in the schema
but must be construed by other means. If macro-level schemas are preserved in translation, a large part of thematic organization will automatically be preserved as well, although not all. If, however, consolidated
mental representations are required to be preserved in translation, then all thematic structure is likely to be preserved as well, since themes are among the best-remembered elements in a consolidated mental
representation Tomlin et al. 1997:83. Therefore, for a translation whose goals include the preservation of the consolidated mental representation, to the extent that it can be known from the source text and
expressed in the target language, macro-level schemas and thematic organizaton should be preserved, but micro-level structures need not be.
This is not a “rule” for translation, but appears to be a common way to get it done Dooley 2005.
4.2 Other translation issues noted briefly
