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Conclusive English 'then' and Swedish 'då'. A corpus-based contrastive study.

Altenberg, Bengt LU (2010) In Languages in Contrast 10(1). p.102-123
Abstract
Conclusive English 'then' and Swedish 'då' are compared on the basis of a bi-directional translation corpus. The examples are classified into five different uses according to certain formal and contextual criteria. The two words are shown to have obvious functional similarities: in each of the categories distinguished 'then' and 'då' are the preferred translation equivalents of each other. But there are also striking differences. Swedish 'då' is generally much more common than English 'then' and the latter is often left out in the English translations. In other words, the use of an explicit conclusion marker is more often felt to be redundant in English than in Swedish. The two words also display positional differences. For example, unlike... (More)
Conclusive English 'then' and Swedish 'då' are compared on the basis of a bi-directional translation corpus. The examples are classified into five different uses according to certain formal and contextual criteria. The two words are shown to have obvious functional similarities: in each of the categories distinguished 'then' and 'då' are the preferred translation equivalents of each other. But there are also striking differences. Swedish 'då' is generally much more common than English 'then' and the latter is often left out in the English translations. In other words, the use of an explicit conclusion marker is more often felt to be redundant in English than in Swedish. The two words also display positional differences. For example, unlike 'then', Swedish 'då' cannot occur initially in non-declarative clauses and its use as an unstressed pragmatic particle is confined to clause-final position. Another notable feature is that an unstressed particle in the original text (in both languages) is sometimes rendered by a stressed adverb in the translation, a tendency which suggests that the distinction between stressed anaphoric adverb and unstressed discourse particle is blurred and a matter of degree rather than a clear-cut dichotomy. (Less)
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author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
contrastive analysis, translation, corpus linguistics, conclusion marker, English/Swedish
in
Languages in Contrast
volume
10
issue
1
pages
102 - 123
publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
external identifiers
  • scopus:77954738629
ISSN
1387-6759
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
1ae2a237-46da-440e-b579-f94f38404a07 (old id 1594500)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 13:49:38
date last changed
2022-01-27 21:16:14
@article{1ae2a237-46da-440e-b579-f94f38404a07,
  abstract     = {{Conclusive English 'then' and Swedish 'då' are compared on the basis of a bi-directional translation corpus. The examples are classified into five different uses according to certain formal and contextual criteria. The two words are shown to have obvious functional similarities: in each of the categories distinguished 'then' and 'då' are the preferred translation equivalents of each other. But there are also striking differences. Swedish 'då' is generally much more common than English 'then' and the latter is often left out in the English translations. In other words, the use of an explicit conclusion marker is more often felt to be redundant in English than in Swedish. The two words also display positional differences. For example, unlike 'then', Swedish 'då' cannot occur initially in non-declarative clauses and its use as an unstressed pragmatic particle is confined to clause-final position. Another notable feature is that an unstressed particle in the original text (in both languages) is sometimes rendered by a stressed adverb in the translation, a tendency which suggests that the distinction between stressed anaphoric adverb and unstressed discourse particle is blurred and a matter of degree rather than a clear-cut dichotomy.}},
  author       = {{Altenberg, Bengt}},
  issn         = {{1387-6759}},
  keywords     = {{contrastive analysis; translation; corpus linguistics; conclusion marker; English/Swedish}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{102--123}},
  publisher    = {{John Benjamins Publishing Company}},
  series       = {{Languages in Contrast}},
  title        = {{Conclusive English 'then' and Swedish 'då'. A corpus-based contrastive study.}},
  volume       = {{10}},
  year         = {{2010}},
}