Perception of linguistic diversity in Spanish teaching materials, published in Catalonia in the 19th century

PID2019-104659GB-l00

PeDiLiXIX

The aim of the project is to compile a database of teaching materials for Spanish in order to gain deeper insights into the process of Überdachung of Catalan by Spanish in Catalonia in the 19th century. Throughout the 19th century many Spanish teaching materials were conceived to be used in primary schools to teach Catalan children who until this point had little or no knowledge of Spanish. The slow and protracted expansion of the public school system played a major role in this.

The authors of teaching materials are often direct witnesses to the changes in language distribution (who speaks which language, when and where?) and usage (what is each language or variety used for?). A systematic compilation of the teaching materials published in Catalonia, their processing and analysis—particularly, the complete study of paratexts (such as covers, dedications, introductions, prologues, supplements and footnotes)—can help to clarify the dissemination of Spanish and the preservation of Catalan during the 19th century.

Participants: Gerda Hassler (Universität Potsdam, Germany), Rolf Kailuweit (Universität Düsseldorf, Germany), Beatrice Schmid (Universität Basel, Switzerland) and Jenny Brumme

Perceptions of Language Contact

Swiss National Science Foundation (Decision IZK0Z1_163634), September - November 2015

Perceptions of Language Contact and Linguistic Diversity in Spanish Grammar Books 1820-1875

The project “Perceptions of Language Contact and Linguistic Diversity in Spanish Grammar Books 1820-1875” aims to carry out the first thorough analysis of Spanish Grammar Books printed in Catalonia during this period. There are two main research questions: a) how do the Grammars depict the contact between Spanish (national language of Spain) and Catalan (autochthon language of Catalonia) and b) how do they reflect linguistic variation and language diversity? The metalinguistic reflections, which are derived mainly from the paratexts of the Grammar books, will be classified in order to reach conclusions about how the linguistic environment was perceived and what the authors’ views on it were. The results will help us to reconsider the process of minorisation among the Catalan-speaking community during the 19th century and to refine traditional beliefs and opinions about the rise of language conflict in this period.

Participants: Beatrice Schmid (Universität Basel) and Jenny Brumme

EFRATRA

FFI2014-52697-P The evocative potential of phraseology. Its evolution in adapted and translated fictional dialogue (EFRATRA), 1 January 2015 - 31 December 2018

The main goal of the EFRATRA Project (Spanish acronym for ‘The evocative potential of phraseology’) is to study the impact and evolution of idiomatic expressions (phrasemes) in the fictional dialogue of different textual genres. In contrast to the former projects, EFRATRA analyses both translated texts and adaptations from the source text, choosing to focus on the increasingly recognised phenomenon of phraseological activity in fictional dialogue. In this way, the project attempts to relate the approaches adopted by different disciplines for this kind of analysis: translation studies in its different modalities, narratology, adaptation and media studies, and linguistics, or more precisely phraseology.

This research project is motivated by the need to gain in-depth knowledge of the character and behaviour of phrasemes, which participate in the evocation and simulation of fictional orality. The model created offers a methodological advantage, namely a holistic approach to describe the functions and handling of phrasemes, as well as the shifts that occur in the processes of adaptation and translation in line with the textual genre and across textual genres.

TRADIF

FFI2010-16783 The Translation of Fictional Dialogue. Literary Texts and Multimodal Texts (TRADIF), 1 January 2008 - 31 December 2013

Fictional dialogue constitutes the link that joins the literary text with the multimodal text and it is the appropriate place for evoking orality, conferring authenticity and credibility to the narrated plot and for giving a voice to the fictitious characters. In order to achieve this mimesis of the spoken language, also called "feigned orality", the author of a fictional text selects specific features, considered typical of the language of the communicative immediateness although they may also include stereotypical elements, depending on the historical language and the culture in question as well as on the current literary conventions in every period.

Since some of the resources used to evoke orality are general, that is to say, they are observed in the situation of communicative immediateness of a great number of languages (universal features), and some of them are historical-idiomatic characteristics of the source language, recreating them in the target language (or languages) constitutes a real challenge for the translator.

On the basis of an intra-linguistic and cross-linguistic approach, the project intends to investigate a) the selected features and their functions in fictional dialogue; b) the changes which take place during translation ("translation shifts"), and the translation strategies applied in the transfer of orality; c) the metalinguistic reflections of the authors and translators of fictional texts.

OFDYT

HUM 2007-62745/FILO Feigned Orality: Description and Translation (OFDYT), 1 October 2007 - 30 September 2010

Feigned orality constitutes a specific, structured modality, whose place between oral and written modes, and more precisely, between the polarities of language of proximity and language of distance is not easy to establish. It does not simply map onto an expression of colloquial language in a written text (e.g. a script, a novel). The intervention of an author involves selecting certain typical features of oral language so as to evoke an oral context by means of the written mode. These features have functions assigned to them that may match their functions in the language of proximity, but they may also be stereotypical elements.

Given the increasing frequency of use of these elements—which provide credibility to fictional texts and non-fictional texts alike—and the problems they pose when it comes to rendering this authenticity in another language and culture, this project aims to: a) describe the specific resources of each one of the languages to be studied or the particular traits observed in the use of typically oral elements; b) distinguish between resources regarded as “plausible” in a fictional text and the resources that belong to real oral language; c) describe the changes that are made when it comes to translating feigned orality, and, implicitly, the value judgements that translators bring to the fore when operating these changes.

On the applied side of the project, will be the description of a linguistic model that serves as a backdrop to these translational options. This will involve producing the necessary resources, temporarily, as a synopsis or diagram, to assess the quality of the translations that carry the trait of feigned orality.