Appraisal Emotional Adjectives in English/Arabic Translation:

A Corpus Linguistic Approach

Salma MansourLeeds University

OverviewDictionaries: a serious problemPowerful/less adjectives in English and ArabicCorpus analysisResults

Dictionaries Vs. CorporaPrinted dictionaries

limited by space information is always partial interpreted (sometimes wrongly) internally inconsistent and contradict each other out of date

There are many facts about language that cannot be discovered by just thinking about it, or even reading and listening very intently (Sinclair, 1995) As language teachers and professionals, we often have strong intuitions about language usecorpus-based research, however, shows us that our intuitions are often completely wrong (Biber, 2005)

Emotions:In/security (the boy was anxious/confident)Dis/satisfaction (the boy was fed up/ absorbed)Un/happiness (the boy was sad/happy)(Martin and White, 2005: 46-9; Bednarek 2008:15)

Powerful/less adjectives in English and ArabicStrong qawi

Powerful jabar

Tough qas Weak daif

Powerless wahin

Tender raqiq

Examples: weak

AMMD 2007EMD2008LASD1994COED2010WCD2002 daif alaql(mentally weak) (weak, not strong)Not strong in characterLacking physical strength and energyLacking power or strength

BNCLLSI-ENLLSphysically weak18.18hand13.80heart 15.81pulse12.99stomach11.71stomach11.79chest8.97muscle11.70muscle8.90leg8.20ankle7.09knee7.39chin6.95heart7.30Leg4.40body3.02eye1.12

/daif/ weak

I-ARLLS al-shakhsyah the personality150 al-qalb the heart140 al-saqayn the legs 75.35al-basar the eyesight22.44 al-aql the mind1.89

Top 10 collocates of weak in BNC and I-EN

BNCLLSI-ENLLSsyllable 87.51spot133.28spot86.21link107.04link80.91point99.54point57.05economy58.50interaction56.71signal 47.15position39.28tie40.82overlap36.62acid33.38smile34.19argument30.72nuclear30.81immune23.11form28.07position18.65

Examples: strong

AMMD 2007EMD2008LASD1994COED2010WCD2002 Having a degree of power, esp. of the bodyPhysically powerfulPhysically or mentally powerful

Strong

LLS of mental, physical, behavioral collocates of strong

Appraised/Thing evaluatedBNCI-ENMind3.100.47Arm93.6655.75Character44.1334.84Personality34.8858.54

Collocation: a mode of expressing meaningYou shall know a word by the company it keeps (Firth, 1957: 12).Looking at lexicographic work on Arabic collocation, a rather bleak picture emerges. There is an extremely limited amount of information on collocation in both monolingual (Arabic) and bilingual (Arabic-English/English-Arabic dictionaries. Besides, no monolingual (Arabic) or bilingual (Arabic-English/English-Arabic) collocational dictionary has been compiled as yet (Bahumaid, 2006:137).

Dictionaries and semantic prosodies

Lexicographers in the past have not been fully aware of the extent of semantic prosody []modern corpora provide new opportunities of studying the phenomenon (Partington, 1998: 68).

Semantic prosodiesPositive Favorable (pleasant)

Neutral Neutral (No evidence)

Negative Unfavorable (unpleasant)

Strong smellAMMD / I-ARBNC

Node: powerful

BNCLLSI-ENLLStool143.09tool814.27influence136.16force207.16force103.39nation186.20man 90.58weapon136.33weapon83.64man86.53argument57.96influence77.79body55.52incentive76.15position45.45message63.50voice44.83computer57.08personality24.13way54.29

Node: strong

BNCLLSI-ENLLSwind433.66feeling372.52feeling352:24support355.22sense326.05sense349.23support178.31evidence338.85position163.77emphasis305.34emphasis151.91wind266.76evidence129.73leadership258.30link125.36commitment241.05opposition122.81supporter230.46argument108.53leader215.36

Halliday (1976: 73):

Strong (not powerful) tea

Powerful (not strong) car

powerful vs. strong

Powerless vs. weakPowerless collocates with:helplesspassivedo nothingtotally dependenthanging

Weak collocates with:syllablespotlinkpointeconomysmile

Collocation Joint FreqLL score powerless to1762466407187.92powerless against125475918.16powerless .63472209316.85powerless group6535167.10Powerless in101851850.20powerless position4274425.24powerless people61154764.92powerless and2226150802.43powerless ;52039522.43powerless as75215221.77powerless when42075661.55powerless by45049640.37

tender & tough(a) tender

Thing evaluatedEnglishArabicyearinexperienced people, behaviorgentle, nice - foodeasy to chew part of the bodysensitiveoffergenerousfeeling, emotions, loveromantic

(b) tough

Thing evaluatedEnglishArabictimehard peoplerough, stiff - decision, choice, question, competitiondifficultopponentstubborn, obstinate

Same but different!

jabar powerful vs. qawi strong vs. qas tough Positive jabar (great)juhd /effort/, mal /work/, mashru /project/ God

(2) Negative jabar (stubborn, unfair/unjust)malik /king/, hakim /judge, commander, leader/

(3) Neutral jabar (No indication)

(1) Positive qawi (strong)fariq /team/, jaysh /army/, iqtisad /economy/e.g. iqtisad qawi /strong economy/ (not jabar/ not qas)

(2) Negative qawi (destructive)zilzal /earthquake/

(3) Neutral qawi tathir /influence/, shakl /form/

Negative qas (difficult)rajul /man/, waqi /reality/, shay /something/

(2) Positive qas (No indication)

(3) Neutral qas (No indication)

raqiq /tender/Negative raqiq(weak)ghisha /membrane/, jild /skin/

Positive raqiq (nice)uslub /style/, shakhs /person/, sawt /voice/, ihsas /feelings/, thawb /garment/shakhs raqiq (nice person)shakhs daif/wahin (weak person)

Thank you for your attention

The LL score of 'mentally weak' in BNC is (0.64) and in I-EN is (0.49). Similarly, the LLS of weak mind in BNC is (1.58) and in I-EN is (4.37).*LLS of weak syllable in I-EN is (1.87)*If the other two near synonyms /wahin/ and /daif/can be roughly used as a synonym of negative /raqiq/, they can NEVER be used with the positive /raqiq/ because the meaning will be entirely different, if not contradicting!*