Leiden University Student Repository

Heezen, W.I. (2016)

Translating the Subtle Powers of English: A Study of Ideological Triggers in English Syntactic Structures and Their Translations to Dutch

Master thesis | Linguistics (MA)

This thesis aims to compile a collection of descriptive guidelines for the translation of ideological syntactic structures in texts from English to Dutch. The notion that there "is not (...) any possibility that any discourse is free of ideas, and thus of ideology" (Jeffries 8) has prompted the ambition to choose texts that demonstrate the subtle powers of English and Dutch. These hidden forces are manifested in conscious or unconscious linguistic choices which lead to implicit ideological conveyance. There are numerous studies on ideology in texts, and many cultural or socio-political linguistic, or purely linguistic models of analysis have been developed over the past decades. However, little research has been done on the actual translation of implicit ideology in texts and its potential, yet concealed, manipulation of the reader. On the basis of Jeffries’ Critical Stylistics model a set of linguistic tools will be applied on a corpus of English op-ed articles and analysed to...Show moreThis thesis aims to compile a collection of descriptive guidelines for the translation of ideological syntactic structures in texts from English to Dutch. The notion that there "is not (...) any possibility that any discourse is free of ideas, and thus of ideology" (Jeffries 8) has prompted the ambition to choose texts that demonstrate the subtle powers of English and Dutch. These hidden forces are manifested in conscious or unconscious linguistic choices which lead to implicit ideological conveyance. There are numerous studies on ideology in texts, and many cultural or socio-political linguistic, or purely linguistic models of analysis have been developed over the past decades. However, little research has been done on the actual translation of implicit ideology in texts and its potential, yet concealed, manipulation of the reader. On the basis of Jeffries’ Critical Stylistics model a set of linguistic tools will be applied on a corpus of English op-ed articles and analysed to identify their ideological influence on the text, only including socio-political or contextual analysis to a small extent. This largely linguistic approach enables subsequent analysis of the techniques that have been used to translate the ideological structures in these articles. By means of Vinay and Darbelnet's model of direct and oblique translation (Munday 86), and the translation procedures they comprise, this thesis ultimately intends to serve as a stimulus to set guidelines for the translation of ideological syntactic structures from English to Dutch.Show less

Translation Syntactic Ideological Triggers

Author

Heezen, W.I.

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Translation in Theory and Practice

Supervisors

Dol, P.H.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en