The Colon in English, German and Swedish: A Contrastive Corpus-Based Study
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Jenny Ström Herold
Abstract
This paper compares the use of the colon in English, German, and Swedish originals and translations. The material stems from the Linnaeus University English-German-Swedish corpus (LEGS), which contains original and translated non-fiction books. Both in originals and translations, colons are the most common in German and the least common in English. Colons tend to be translated into colons, but when they are not, commas or no punctuation are the preferred alternatives. English prefers using full sentences before quotedmaterial (One sentence recurs throughout the book:), while Swedish and German often rely on elliptic clauses (Ein Politiker sagt:). A noteworthy finding is the German preference for using fragments before colons (Das Resultat:). This phenomenon is an effect of German writers and translators wanting to avoid verb-final subordinate clauses. This tendency is so strong that German translators sometimes reduce full source-text clauses to utterances consisting of fragments + colons preceding main clauses. In general, such reduced and implicit structures are rare in translations. The occurrence of such translations in ourmaterial indicates that target-language norms may sometimes be stronger than translation universals, i. e. explicitation, which refers to the tendency for translation to be more overt than their originals.
Abstract
This paper compares the use of the colon in English, German, and Swedish originals and translations. The material stems from the Linnaeus University English-German-Swedish corpus (LEGS), which contains original and translated non-fiction books. Both in originals and translations, colons are the most common in German and the least common in English. Colons tend to be translated into colons, but when they are not, commas or no punctuation are the preferred alternatives. English prefers using full sentences before quotedmaterial (One sentence recurs throughout the book:), while Swedish and German often rely on elliptic clauses (Ein Politiker sagt:). A noteworthy finding is the German preference for using fragments before colons (Das Resultat:). This phenomenon is an effect of German writers and translators wanting to avoid verb-final subordinate clauses. This tendency is so strong that German translators sometimes reduce full source-text clauses to utterances consisting of fragments + colons preceding main clauses. In general, such reduced and implicit structures are rare in translations. The occurrence of such translations in ourmaterial indicates that target-language norms may sometimes be stronger than translation universals, i. e. explicitation, which refers to the tendency for translation to be more overt than their originals.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Vorwort V
- Preface VII
- Inhaltsverzeichnis/Contents IX
- Einleitung XIII
- Introduction XXIII
-
System
- Zur Kommasetzung im Deutschen 3
- ‹/›, ‹,› und ‹,› – Variation und Wandel in der Entwicklung der Kommas im 17. und 18. Jh. aus graph(emat)ischer Perspektive 25
- Das Komma in kontrastiver Perspektive Italienisch–Deutsch 57
- Punctuation Principles in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic Printed Works of the Croatian Protestant Printing Press in Urach (1561–1564) 73
-
Norm
- Isolating the Syntactic Factor in Non-Standard Punctuation 91
- Vom genormten Satzbau zur genormten Interpunktion 109
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Gebrauch/Use
- Textsegmentierung in Handschrift und Frühdruck 137
- Interpunktion in historischen Patientenbriefen 163
- Japanische Interpunktion im Wandel der Zeit 187
- An Investigation of the Factors Influencing Chinese Readers’ Perception of Sentence Boundaries in Mandarin 215
- The Colon in English, German and Swedish: A Contrastive Corpus-Based Study 237
- Comparing Word Marks 263
- The Ellipsis and the Dash in Italian and English: A Contrastive Perspective 289
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Erwerb/Acquisition
- Interpunktion – (K)ein Thema für Deutsch als Fremdsprache? 317
- Deutsch und Dänisch im Vergleich: Die Verwendung des Ausrufezeichens 343
- Zur Kommasetzung italienischer DaF-Lernender 369
- Sachregister/Index 397
- Interpunktionszeichenregister/Index of Punctuation Marks 407
- Adressen/Addresses 413
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Vorwort V
- Preface VII
- Inhaltsverzeichnis/Contents IX
- Einleitung XIII
- Introduction XXIII
-
System
- Zur Kommasetzung im Deutschen 3
- ‹/›, ‹,› und ‹,› – Variation und Wandel in der Entwicklung der Kommas im 17. und 18. Jh. aus graph(emat)ischer Perspektive 25
- Das Komma in kontrastiver Perspektive Italienisch–Deutsch 57
- Punctuation Principles in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic Printed Works of the Croatian Protestant Printing Press in Urach (1561–1564) 73
-
Norm
- Isolating the Syntactic Factor in Non-Standard Punctuation 91
- Vom genormten Satzbau zur genormten Interpunktion 109
-
Gebrauch/Use
- Textsegmentierung in Handschrift und Frühdruck 137
- Interpunktion in historischen Patientenbriefen 163
- Japanische Interpunktion im Wandel der Zeit 187
- An Investigation of the Factors Influencing Chinese Readers’ Perception of Sentence Boundaries in Mandarin 215
- The Colon in English, German and Swedish: A Contrastive Corpus-Based Study 237
- Comparing Word Marks 263
- The Ellipsis and the Dash in Italian and English: A Contrastive Perspective 289
-
Erwerb/Acquisition
- Interpunktion – (K)ein Thema für Deutsch als Fremdsprache? 317
- Deutsch und Dänisch im Vergleich: Die Verwendung des Ausrufezeichens 343
- Zur Kommasetzung italienischer DaF-Lernender 369
- Sachregister/Index 397
- Interpunktionszeichenregister/Index of Punctuation Marks 407
- Adressen/Addresses 413
