Conference Presentations by Jukka Mäkisalo
Conference: SALC7 - the 7th Conference of the Scandinavian Association for Language & Cognition, 2019
In our poster, we sum up the results of the empirical work carried out, so far, on finding eviden... more In our poster, we sum up the results of the empirical work carried out, so far, on finding evidence on dissociating linguistic and cognitive description in translation. In line with cognitive linguistic thinking and with reference to evidence on Figure-Ground alignment and Force Dynamics (Mäkisalo & Lehtinen 2014; Mäkisalo & Lehtinen 2017; Mäkisalo & Lehtinen 2018), we argue that what is transferred (retained) in translation is the cognitive level (cognitive model of the state of affairs). This claim is justified by the findings in translations between English and Finnish, on the basis of which Mäkisalo and Lehtinen (2014) suggested the following general hypothesis called The Cognitive Retention Hypothesis: When describing translation from a source text to a target text, it is possible to distinguish linguistic and cognitive levels, and it is the cognitive level (cognitive model of the state of affairs) that is primarily retained in translation.
In cognitive linguistics, Figure–Ground alignment and Force Dynamics are among the main construals, that is linguistic operations based on general cognitive processes. Talmy (2000) lays the foundations of major conceptual structuring in language at the sentence level to be (1) configurational structuring (space and motion), (2) attention (figure and ground, time and event-related structures) and (3) force and causation (force dynamics and causation). We argue that the Figure–Ground distinction and the Force Dynamics provide one tool for describing the aspects of this cognitive level.
Our project Cognitive Description in Translation aims at constructing a systematic and empirically based description of translation at the sentence level, mainly following the theoretical framework developed by Leonard Talmy and William Croft. In this poster, we sum up our findings in Figure-Ground alignment and Force Dynamics with the addition of spatial cognitive structures of Space configuration. Construing spatial structures is one of the very basic configurations in human perception, and in translation it is retained more often than other structures at the cognitive level. In addition to our previous studies, we widen the selection of language pairs to Polish‒Finnish and Swedish‒Finnish.
Papers by Jukka Mäkisalo
... Kotouttavaa strategiaa käyttävä kääntäjä pyrkii tekemään tekstistään mahdollisimman sujuvaa j... more ... Kotouttavaa strategiaa käyttävä kääntäjä pyrkii tekemään tekstistään mahdollisimman sujuvaa ja helppolukuista. ... Sujuva tyyli taas mainittiin yleisimpänä kotouttavana piirteenä, ja se sai 58 % maininnoista. 8 7 Päätäntä ... Suomi ja Neuvosto-Venäjä 19181920. Suom. ...
This article demonstrates that cognitive linguisticsand here particularly cognitive semanticscan ... more This article demonstrates that cognitive linguisticsand here particularly cognitive semanticscan be effectively used in the description of translating and translation. We focus here on the cognitive structure of Force Dynamics that describes various relations of force between entities in semantics. 12 English clauses with Force Dynamics in their semantics and their 28 different translated versions in Finnish are analysed using Leonard Talmy's (2000) concepts and theory on Cognitive Semantics. As earlier, this study confirms that cognitive semantic structures are retained more often than linguistic (lexical and grammatical) structures. It is shown here how the description of cognitive structures reveals semantic variation between various kinds of valid translation. It is also found that changing or omitting the cognitive structure of the source text in the target text does not necessarily mean fatal deterioration of the translated text excerpt; the outcome can still be a valid translation.
Puhe ja kieli, Dec 31, 2023
The present article introduces a minority language corpus, the Newspaper Corpus of Karelian Finni... more The present article introduces a minority language corpus, the Newspaper Corpus of Karelian Finnish, and the tentative results of lexical and grammatical analysis based on it. The corpus was compiled from the newspaper Karjalan Sanomat and consists of two sub-corpora: texts originally written in Finnish and texts translated into Finnish from Russian. This is the first attempt to analyse a minority language variant of Finnish spoken outside Finland by comparing it to Standard Written Finnish (SWF) and using corpus linguistic methods. The two sub-corpora of Karjalan Sanomat are compared to the newspaper Karjalainen published in Eastern Finland, and the objective is to gain a lexical and grammatical cross-section based on corpus linguistic methods. The analysed features include some quantitative lexical indicators (word length, sTTR), distribution of syntactic categories, and key words (lexical contents and morphosyntactic categories). The comparison shows that the two variants of Karelian Finnish resemble each other more than SWF. Furthermore, it is theoretically interesting that a translated minority language variety is lexically richer (less repetitive) than originally written minority language variety, a result opposite to earlier comparisons between translated and non-translated language variants within majority languages.
Brain and Language, Jun 1, 1999
The present study addresses two major aspects of compound processing, namely the issues of access... more The present study addresses two major aspects of compound processing, namely the issues of access code and structural effects (headedness), with an extensively studied deep dyslexic patient, HH, who has previously been shown to suffer from morphological impairment. In oral reading of compounds, HH preserves their morphological structure and, at the same time, shows additional processing load in increased errors compared to monomorphemic and derived words. Our data suggest that semantically transparent Finnish compounds are decomposed into their constituents at the level of lexical access. Furthermore, there is a processing asymmetry between the constituents, since several qualitative features of HH's reading performance suggest that it is the first constituent which primarily serves as the initial access code.
Across Languages and Cultures, Jun 1, 2008
This research focuses on the type and proportion of the revisions made by translators during targ... more This research focuses on the type and proportion of the revisions made by translators during target text production. Eighteen professional translators used the keyboard logging software Translog while carrying out a translation task on a computer. As Translog registers and displays all keyboard activity in relation to time, all the revisions in the log files can also be identified and counted. The revisions were categorised as revisions of typing errors, revisions of literal translation and other revisions. Typing error revisions account for 51.5%, literal translation revisions for 20.5% and other revisions for 28.0%. If typing error revisions are ignored, literal translation revisions account for 42.3%. Revisions of literal translation were observed at all linguistic levels and in all translators' log files, irrespective of the quality of their final translations. These results suggest that literal translation constitutes an integral element of the translation process and can perhaps be considered as a strategy to expand the translator's working memory. The results also give support to the Monitor Model of translation, which maintains that literal rendering is the default strategy of target text production.
Uralica Helsingiensia, Dec 31, 2019
Translation & Interpreting, Feb 28, 2018
This article explores how Finnish professional translators perceive the status of the profession ... more This article explores how Finnish professional translators perceive the status of the profession in general as opposed to the status of their own work, and how these status perceptions are affected by various factors. We first consider the multiple meanings of status, summarize previous empirical research and introduce the Finnish context, and then go on to statistically analyze survey data consisting of Finnish business, literary and audiovisual translators' responses (n=450). The analysis reveals that the respondents rank translator status in general as middling (as in previous research) but, at the same time, see the status of their own work as high. Further analysis indicates that while status perceptions of the profession in general are mostly not linked to the respondents' working conditions or job satisfaction, perceptions of the status of one's own work fluctuate more. Interestingly, the respondents' backgrounds and qualifications fail to produce statistically significant differences. Moreover, the role of some factors varies among business, literary and audiovisual translators. Distinguishing between the status of the profession in general and the status of the respondents' work thus appears to be important for a better understanding of status and may even partly explain why a middling-status profession nevertheless fosters satisfied translators.
Virittäjä, Oct 10, 2022
Artikkelin aiheena on tapaustutkimus, jossa sosiolingvististä reaaliaikamenetelmää sovelletaan vu... more Artikkelin aiheena on tapaustutkimus, jossa sosiolingvististä reaaliaikamenetelmää sovelletaan vuonna 1900 syntyneen rajakarjalaistaustaisen naisen puhekieleen. Seuruun kohde syntyi eteläkarjalan puhuma-alueella Venäjän Porajärvellä, mistä hän muutti 17-vuotiaana Raja-Karjalan puolelle Ilomantsin Liusvaaraan. Toisen maailmansodan jälkeen hän asui nykyisessä Ilomantsissa savolaismurteiden alueella. Aineistona on noin seitsemän tuntia arkistoituja haastatteluja 18 vuoden ajalta (1960–1978), jolloin haastateltava oli jo eläkeikäinen. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan 13:n äänne- ja muoto-opillisen piirteen edustusta kvantitatiivisen variaationanalyysin keinoin. Tavoitteena on selvittää, miten karjalaisina piirteet ovat säilyneet, onko edustuksessa havaittavissa ajallisia taitekohtia ja mistä mahdollinen vaihtelu voisi selittyä. Kaikissa tutkittavissa piirteissä on vaihtelua karjalaisten ja suomalaisten varianttien kesken koko tarkastelujakson ajan. Tilastollisesti merkitseviä eroja syntyy erityisesti vuoden 1964 näytteen suomalaistumisesta sekä vuosina 1975–1978 karjalaisuuden vahvistumisesta. Vuoden 1964 suomalaistuminen koskee varsinkin fonologisia piirteitä, joihin puhujan kontrollin voi olettaa kohdistuvan herkemmin kuin sijamuotoihin tai verbintaivutukseen. A real-time study of a Border Karelian idiolect The article focuses on a case study in which the sociolinguistic real-time method is applied to the spoken language of a female informant, born in Border Karelia in 1900. She was born in Porajärvi, Russia, which belonged to the South Karelian speaking area. When she was seventeen, she moved to the village of Liusvaara in Ilomantsi, Border Karelia. After the Second World War, she settled in present-day Ilomantsi, which is situated in the Finnish Savo dialect region. The material in this study consists of ca. seven hours of interviews, archived between 1960 and 1978, when the informant was already of retirement age. In this study, the variation of thirteen phonological and morphological features is quantitatively analysed. The aim of the study is to explore how these features have retained aspects of the Karelian language, whether there are temporal turning points in the representation of these features, and how such potential change can be explained. During the whole period of eighteen years, there is variation between Karelian and Finnish with regard to all of the features involved. In 1964, the significant differences concerned the change towards Finnish but later on, successive samples show changes towards Karelian. The change towards Finnish in 1964 notably involved phonological features which are presumably controlled by the speaker more easily than cases or conjugations. Temporal variation may be explained by the speaker’s phases of life: particularly in the 1960s, contact with speakers of the Savo dialect increased. As she aged, the informant returned more markedly to her native Karelian dialect. The study supports previous sociolinguistic findings regarding the propensity for idiolectal change throughout a person’s lifespan, and suggests that in old age speakers often return to the dialect of their youth.
Across Languages and Cultures, Jun 1, 2007
It has been shown in earlier research on comparable corpora that translated language differs from... more It has been shown in earlier research on comparable corpora that translated language differs from non-translated language in its use of the linguistic resources of the target language. For example, language-specific or "unique" items have been shown to manifest significantly lower frequencies in translated Finnish. There are reasons to expect, however, that subtitle language might differ from other varieties of translated language in its exploitation of such cohesive devices that contribute to brevity and conciseness. It is now possible to test this hypothesis on a subtitle corpus of 100 million words which we have recently compiled from the subtitle files of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (FBC/YLE). The clitic particles and other short cohesive elements are an excellent case in point for testing the hypothesis. This paper will report on our preliminary findings of the cohesive devices as they are used in subtitled Finnish of the FBC corpus. Our results suggest that the "unique" cohesive particles manifest even greater frequencies in subtitles than in varieties of non-translated language. Thus it seems that subtitles do not conform to some of the patterns found in previous research on translated language.
HERMES - Journal of Language and Communication in Business, Oct 23, 2017
This study explores how the process of translating relates to other types of writing processes by... more This study explores how the process of translating relates to other types of writing processes by comparing pause lengths preceding syntactic units (words, phrases and clauses) in two types of writing task, a monolingual text production and a translation. It also discusses the grounds for interpreting pause length as a refl ection of the cognitive demands of the writing process. The data was collected from 18 professional translators using the Translog keystroke logging software (Jakobsen/Schou 1999). Each subject wrote two texts: an expository text in Finnish and a translation from English into Finnish (Immonen 2006: 316-319). Firstly, phrase boundary pauses were categorised according to type, function and length of phrase. All three features correlate with pause length. On average, predicate phrases are preceded by short pauses, adpositional phrases by long pauses, and pauses preceding noun phrases grow with the length of the phrase. These fi ndings suggest that the processing of the predicate begins before written production of the clause is started, whereas noun phrases and adpositional phrases are processed during writing. Secondly, pauses preceding clauses were categorised with respect to clause type. In monolingual text production, pauses preceding subordinate clauses are on average shorter than those leading to main clauses. In translation, pauses preceding subordinate and main clauses are almost the same length. It seems therefore that, in translation, the main clause and subordinate clause are processed separately despite the fact that the subordinate clause functions as a syntactic unit within the main clause. 1 1 Suggestions made by the Hermes reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. Encouragement and assistance by Professor Arnt Lykke Jakobsen in formulating the fi nal version of this text is also much appreciated.
Target International Journal of Translation Studies, 2001
Virittäjä
Artikkelin aiheena on tapaustutkimus, jossa sosiolingvististä reaaliaikamenetelmää sovelletaan vu... more Artikkelin aiheena on tapaustutkimus, jossa sosiolingvististä reaaliaikamenetelmää sovelletaan vuonna 1900 syntyneen rajakarjalaistaustaisen naisen puhekieleen. Seuruun kohde syntyi eteläkarjalan puhuma-alueella Venäjän Porajärvellä, mistä hän muutti 17-vuotiaana Raja-Karjalan puolelle Ilomantsin Liusvaaraan. Toisen maailmansodan jälkeen hän asui nykyisessä Ilomantsissa savolaismurteiden alueella. Aineistona on noin seitsemän tuntia arkistoituja haastatteluja 18 vuoden ajalta (1960–1978), jolloin haastateltava oli jo eläkeikäinen. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan 13:n äänne- ja muoto-opillisen piirteen edustusta kvantitatiivisen variaationanalyysin keinoin. Tavoitteena on selvittää, miten karjalaisina piirteet ovat säilyneet, onko edustuksessa havaittavissa ajallisia taitekohtia ja mistä mahdollinen vaihtelu voisi selittyä. Kaikissa tutkittavissa piirteissä on vaihtelua karjalaisten ja suomalaisten varianttien kesken koko tarkastelujakson ajan. Tilastollisesti merkitseviä eroja syntyy e...
Itä-Suomen yliopisto, Mar 19, 2012
Itä-Suomen yliopistossa toteutettava Suomen akatemian tutkimushanke Venäjästä suomeksi ja suomest... more Itä-Suomen yliopistossa toteutettava Suomen akatemian tutkimushanke Venäjästä suomeksi ja suomesta venäjäksi-kääntäminen monikulttuurisessa yhteisössä järjesti lokakuussa 2010 Joensuun kampuksella kiinnostavan tapaamisen, johon kokoontui tutkijoita sekä Suomesta että venäjältä. Suomesta suurin edustus oli projektia isännöivästä yliopistosta, mutta myös helsingin ja tampereen yliopiston venäjän kielen ja kääntämisen oppiaineesta saapui esitelmöitsijöitä. venäjältä oli vahva edustus Petroskoin valtionyliopiston itämerensuomalaisten kielten laitokselta, joka vastaa yhteishankkeen toteuttamisesta venäjällä. tähän julkaisuun on koottu venäjä-suomi-venäjä-kääntämisen tutkimuksen seminaarin anti. artikkeleita yhdistäviä tekijöitä ovat kotouttamisen ja vieraannuttamisen problematiikka, joka on ollut myös venäjästä suomeksi ja suomesta venäjäksi-tutkimushankkeen keskeinen tutkimuksen kohde, sekä kääntäminen mediassa. Kotouttamisen ja vieraannuttamisen ongelmakenttää pohjustetaan Marja Jäniksen johdantoartikkelissa, jossa tutustutaan näihin käsitteisiin vähemmistökielen käsitteen näkökulmasta. Itse kokoelma on jaettu kolmeen osaan, joista ensimmäinen käsittelee konkreettisten kielenainesten kääntämiseen liittyviä kysymyksiä. ensimmäisessä artikkelissa Ljubov Kolomainen tarkastelee lehtikielen esimerkkien avulla tyypillisiä leksikaalisia transformaatioita suomi-venäjä-kieliparilla. anna Lenina käsittelee puolestaan venäjästä suomennettujen lehtitekstien syntaktisia piirteitä. Lenina käyttää tutkimusaineistona tekstejä Karjalan Sanomista, Petroskoissa ilmestyvästä suomenkielisen vähemmistön sanomalehdestä. Karjalan Sanomat on aineistona myös anna Petrovan artikkelissa, jossa kiinnostuksen kohteena ovat poistot käännösstrategiana. tutkimuksessa keskitytään poliittisen sanaston käännösongelmiin. ensimmäisen osan viimeisessä artikkelissa alexandra Belikova esittelee uuden lähestymistavan arvioida metaforien kreatiivisuutta kääntämisen kannalta. Belikova on luonut menetelmän, jonka avulla kunkin metaforan kreatiivisuuden aste sekä lähdetekstissä että käännöksessä voidaan määritellä. Kokoelman toinen osa sisältää kaksi av-kääntämistä käsittelevää artikkelia. Mihail Mihailov tarkastelee multimodaalisen korpuksen kokoamista tuoden esille erityisesti materiaalin annotointiin liittyviä seikkoja, jotka voisivat olla hyödyllisiä tekstitysten analyysissa. Marja Jäniksen artikkeli antaa yleiskuvan yleisradion venäjä-suomi-tekstityskulttuurissa tapahtuneista muutoksista 1970-luvulta aina nykypäivään saakka. Kokoelman kolmannen osan artikkelit käsittelevät kotouttamista ja vieraannuttamista teoreettisesta näkökulmasta. Päivi Pasasen lähestymistapa edustaa terminologista tutkimusta. vaikka terminologi ei joudukaan soveltamaan käännösstrategioita tekstiin, ovat kotouttaminen ja vieraannuttaminen käyttökelpoisia käsitteitä myös termistötyössä. artikkelikokoelman päättää hannu Kemppasen analyysi kotouttamisen ja vieraannuttamisen käsitteiden käytöstä venäläisessä käännöstutkimuksessa. tutkimuksessa tuodaan esille myös muita käännösstrategioihin viittaavia käsitteitä, joita venäläiset käännöstutkijat ovat käyttäneet kotouttamisen ja vieraannuttamisen sijaan. Seminaarin ja tämän julkaisun rahoittajana toimi Suomen akatemia. haluan kiittää lämpimästi kaikkia tämän julkaisun valmistumiseen vaikuttaneita henkilöitä: dosentti v Marja Jänistä, yliopistonlehtori Jukka Mäkisaloa, yliopisto-opettaja Grigory Gurinia, tohtorikoulutettavia alexandra Belikovaa ja Juha Långia. erityisen suuri kiitos lankeaa artikkelien kirjoittajille, joita ilman toimituskunta olisi jäänyt vaille kiinnostavaa tehtäväänsä. Kiitokset kuuluvat myös Kirjokannelle onnistuneesta taittotyöstä ja Kopijyvälle laadukkaasta painojäljestä. Hannu Kemppanen projektinjohtaja, venäjän kielen ja kääntämisen ma. professori Itä-Suomen yliopisto, Joensuu
The year 2007 has been-as usual-a very busy one. The number of submissions has continued its grad... more The year 2007 has been-as usual-a very busy one. The number of submissions has continued its gradual increase. Although this means more work for the editors, it also means that the number of publishable papers is increasing. Consequently, the competition for getting one's paper published in SKY Journal of Linguistics is becoming harder. Although we are naturally concerned about the increased amount of work involved in editing the journal, we are at the same time delighted with the quality of the published papers. We therefore thank our contributors for a job well done. Editing a small journal is not just work done by us editors. Throughout the year we contact the members of the editorial board and external reviewers, and ask their willingness to read and review submitted papers. What is so striking is that almost every time we contact a language expert with our request, the response is friendly and positive. For a small journal this is extremely important, because the quality of the papers is improved significantly by the reviewers' help, input and suggestions. Consequently, we-again-want to express our sincere gratitude to the members of the editorial board and all the referees for the past year. We wish that the positive cooperation will also continue in the coming years. This year, the publisher of SKY Journal of Linguistics, The Linguistic Association of Finland, celebrated its 30 th birthday. During its 30-year existence, the Association has surely witnessed many challenges that linguistics as a field has faced, and changes that it has undergone. These challenges were the theme of the anniversary symposium that was held in Helsinki in February 2007. One specific challenge for linguistics, which in turn was discussed in a special theme session organized by the Association in the annual Finnish Conference of Linguistics (May 2007, University of Oulu), is inter-and cross-disciplinary research. Linguistics has never been an introspective field. It has influenced and been influenced by various disciplines ranging from sociology and anthropology to mathematics and technological sciences. It seems, however, that at present the amount of interand cross-disciplinary research between linguistics and other disciplines is increasing, and also becoming more challenging. These challenges have not gone unnoticed by us editors, either. During the recent years we have witnessed an increase in the number of interdisciplinary papers that deal with linguistic phenomena but rely on theories and methodologies from other nonlinguistic disciplines.
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Conference Presentations by Jukka Mäkisalo
In cognitive linguistics, Figure–Ground alignment and Force Dynamics are among the main construals, that is linguistic operations based on general cognitive processes. Talmy (2000) lays the foundations of major conceptual structuring in language at the sentence level to be (1) configurational structuring (space and motion), (2) attention (figure and ground, time and event-related structures) and (3) force and causation (force dynamics and causation). We argue that the Figure–Ground distinction and the Force Dynamics provide one tool for describing the aspects of this cognitive level.
Our project Cognitive Description in Translation aims at constructing a systematic and empirically based description of translation at the sentence level, mainly following the theoretical framework developed by Leonard Talmy and William Croft. In this poster, we sum up our findings in Figure-Ground alignment and Force Dynamics with the addition of spatial cognitive structures of Space configuration. Construing spatial structures is one of the very basic configurations in human perception, and in translation it is retained more often than other structures at the cognitive level. In addition to our previous studies, we widen the selection of language pairs to Polish‒Finnish and Swedish‒Finnish.
Papers by Jukka Mäkisalo
In cognitive linguistics, Figure–Ground alignment and Force Dynamics are among the main construals, that is linguistic operations based on general cognitive processes. Talmy (2000) lays the foundations of major conceptual structuring in language at the sentence level to be (1) configurational structuring (space and motion), (2) attention (figure and ground, time and event-related structures) and (3) force and causation (force dynamics and causation). We argue that the Figure–Ground distinction and the Force Dynamics provide one tool for describing the aspects of this cognitive level.
Our project Cognitive Description in Translation aims at constructing a systematic and empirically based description of translation at the sentence level, mainly following the theoretical framework developed by Leonard Talmy and William Croft. In this poster, we sum up our findings in Figure-Ground alignment and Force Dynamics with the addition of spatial cognitive structures of Space configuration. Construing spatial structures is one of the very basic configurations in human perception, and in translation it is retained more often than other structures at the cognitive level. In addition to our previous studies, we widen the selection of language pairs to Polish‒Finnish and Swedish‒Finnish.