Corporate rhetoric in English and Japanese business reports
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Svenja Junge
Abstract
This article presents some findings from an ongoing study of Japanese and English letters to stakeholders – letters from the management in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reports – and their respective translations. Central aims of the study are to see how this global business genre is realized in these two very different cultural settings and typologically distant languages and to what extent a “cultural filter” (House 1997) is applied in translations under these conditions. For these aims a small corpus of letters to stakeholders is qualitatively and quantitatively examined. The qualitative part will give a general overview of source language interference effects and of the application of the cultural filter in the translations. The quantitative analysis will establish the use and frequency of personal pronouns in the corpus, a method that is used for example in Böttger (2007) to access cultural differences in author-reader interaction.
Abstract
This article presents some findings from an ongoing study of Japanese and English letters to stakeholders – letters from the management in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reports – and their respective translations. Central aims of the study are to see how this global business genre is realized in these two very different cultural settings and typologically distant languages and to what extent a “cultural filter” (House 1997) is applied in translations under these conditions. For these aims a small corpus of letters to stakeholders is qualitatively and quantitatively examined. The qualitative part will give a general overview of source language interference effects and of the application of the cultural filter in the translations. The quantitative analysis will establish the use and frequency of personal pronouns in the corpus, a method that is used for example in Böttger (2007) to access cultural differences in author-reader interaction.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
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Part I. Diachronic perspectives
- A tentative typology of translation-induced language change 11
- Travelling the paths of discourse traditions 45
- Evidence of language contact in the Parliament Rolls of Medieval England 71
- Translation-induced formulations of directives in Early Modern German cookbooks 87
- Battlefield victory 109
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Part II. Diachronic perspectives
- Between normalization and shining-through 135
- Linking constructions in English and German translated and original texts 163
- Features of writtenness transferred 183
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Part III. Synchronic perspectives
- Corporate rhetoric in English and Japanese business reports 209
- Assessing the impact of translations on English-German language contact 233
- The impact of English on Spanish-language media in the USA 257
- Revisiting a translation effect in an oral language 281
- Index 311
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Diachronic perspectives
- A tentative typology of translation-induced language change 11
- Travelling the paths of discourse traditions 45
- Evidence of language contact in the Parliament Rolls of Medieval England 71
- Translation-induced formulations of directives in Early Modern German cookbooks 87
- Battlefield victory 109
-
Part II. Diachronic perspectives
- Between normalization and shining-through 135
- Linking constructions in English and German translated and original texts 163
- Features of writtenness transferred 183
-
Part III. Synchronic perspectives
- Corporate rhetoric in English and Japanese business reports 209
- Assessing the impact of translations on English-German language contact 233
- The impact of English on Spanish-language media in the USA 257
- Revisiting a translation effect in an oral language 281
- Index 311
