Managing Latin: support and intratextual translation as mediation strategies in the history of English
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Arja Nurmi
Arja Nurmi received her PhD from the University of Helsinki and is currently a senior lecturer at Tampere University. Her research interests include historical sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, multilingual practices and translating multilingual texts. She has recently co-edited volumes on
Challenging the Myth of Monolingual Corpora (Brill, 2017) andExploring Future Paths for Historical Sociolinguistics (Benjamins, 2017).
and
Janne Skaffari
Janne Skaffari is a senior lecturer at the University of Turku, where he also earned his doctorate. His research mostly focuses on language contact phenomena, particularly lexical borrowing and code-switching in medieval England. He has recently co-edited volumes on
Multilingual Practices in Language History: English and Beyond (de Gruyter, 2018) andVerbal and Visual Communication in Early English Texts (Brepols, 2017).
Abstract
Our study maps the practices of managing Latin in English texts from over a thousand years. Mediation is a communicative activity which involves explaining the content of a conversation or text to another person. In contexts of multilingual writing, this is typically self-mediation, which a writer may perform by complementing code-switches with intratextual translations in the text. The data for the study are drawn from corpora of English historical texts, dictionaries and manuscripts, and mediation is analyzed in terms of support, intratextual translation and flagging. The findings show that while cognitive support helps a reader understand all of the content of the text, intratextual translation may also have relational functions, where the reader is expected to understand both languages used, as when code-switching and translation are a vehicle for humor. Intratextual translation can also be used to add credibility to the writer’s argument or to link it to a broader discussion on the topic. Mediation is also facilitated by flagging code-switching and intratextual translation metalinguistically or visually. Support is needed for Latin as a language which has always been part of relatively few English-speakers’ repertoire, but these strategies are expected to apply to other language pairs as well.
Funding source: Faculty of Humanities, University of Turku
Funding source: Academy of Finland
Award Identifier / Grant number: 157059, 258434, 295381
About the authors
Arja Nurmi received her PhD from the University of Helsinki and is currently a senior lecturer at Tampere University. Her research interests include historical sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, multilingual practices and translating multilingual texts. She has recently co-edited volumes on Challenging the Myth of Monolingual Corpora (Brill, 2017) and Exploring Future Paths for Historical Sociolinguistics (Benjamins, 2017).
Janne Skaffari is a senior lecturer at the University of Turku, where he also earned his doctorate. His research mostly focuses on language contact phenomena, particularly lexical borrowing and code-switching in medieval England. He has recently co-edited volumes on Multilingual Practices in Language History: English and Beyond (de Gruyter, 2018) and Verbal and Visual Communication in Early English Texts (Brepols, 2017).
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Full Length Articles
- The ‘sun’ shinning upon the ‘ever-lasting’ country: a diachronic analysis of Iranian national anthems during the 20th century
- All you need is love: metaphors of love in 1946–2016 Billboard year-end number-one songs
- Managing Latin: support and intratextual translation as mediation strategies in the history of English
- Text formulations as practices of demonstrating understanding in dialogic reading
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Full Length Articles
- The ‘sun’ shinning upon the ‘ever-lasting’ country: a diachronic analysis of Iranian national anthems during the 20th century
- All you need is love: metaphors of love in 1946–2016 Billboard year-end number-one songs
- Managing Latin: support and intratextual translation as mediation strategies in the history of English
- Text formulations as practices of demonstrating understanding in dialogic reading
- The intertextual nature of embedded email communication for contract negotiation activities
- Multimodal persuasive strategies in product pitches
