Linguistics for Translators

This engaging and accessible textbook, by two leading experts, is a care-

fully crafted introduction to linguistics for translators, students, and
researchers of translation.
Starting with basic concepts and gradually moving readers to the central
questions in different branches of linguistics, examples are drawn from
English and many other languages, including German, Arabic, Kurdish,
Swahili, French, and Chinese. The key areas of linguistics are covered,
from morphology and syntax to semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis,
stylistics, sociolinguistics, and cognitive linguistics. Striking a balance
between theoretical developments and empirical investigation, readers
gain both a comprehensive overview of linguistics and how it informs their
work in translation and learn how to argue for analysis and annotate their
own answers and translations academically. Each chapter provides the
reader with an overview outlining the main points and technical words used
in the chapter as well as illustrative examples, recommended readings, and
resources and activities to test knowledge.
This is the ideal textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate students
of translation in Translation Studies, Linguistics, and Modern Languages.

Ali Almanna is Associate Professor of Translation Studies at Hamad Bin

Khalifa University, Qatar. He is the series editor of Routledge Studies in
Arabic Translation. His recent publications include Translation as a Set of
Frames (2021), The Arabic-English Translator as Photographer (2019),
and The Routledge Course in Translation Annotation (2016).

Juliane House is Professor Emeritus, Hamburg University, Germany;

Professor at the Hungarian Research Centre of Linguistics, Budapest; Past
President of the International Association of Translation and Intercultural
Studies; and Director of the PhD in Language and Communication,
Hellenic American University. Her translation-relevant publications include
Translation: The Basics (2018), Translation as Communication across
Languages and Cultures (2016), and Translation Quality Assessment (2015).
Introduction

This book arrives at a time when investigations of translation as a socio-

psychological phenomenon are gaining prominence in translation studies,
while purely linguistic aspects are relegated to the margins as outdated
and old-fashioned interests. Our aim with Linguistics for Translators
is to emphasize that the linguistic dimension of translation cannot be
overlooked, and that linguistics remains, more than ever, a contemporary
and exciting field for translators, translation researchers, and translation
students to explore.
The significance of this book lies not only in its linguistic orientation,
but also in its strong pedagogical focus. Each chapter of the book links
linguistic explanation with the process and practice of translation into a
variety of languages, providing a range of exercises and suggestions for
discussion and further research. Through this approach, the reader is con-
stantly alerted to the crucial role of linguistic knowledge and competence
in producing appropriate translations, evaluating translations, and teaching
courses on translation. The book is produced by experts in both linguistics
and translation studies, with complementary expertise in different branches
of linguistics and mastery of various languages.
This book is intended for students and researchers of translation and lin-
guistics, as well as practising translators and interested lay readers. It can be
used as a standalone course in departments of translation studies or linguis-
tics or as supplemental material for existing courses. The volume has been
carefully designed to be reader friendly. Its 12 chapters offer the reader
the opportunity to study theoretical and practical aspects of linguistics and
translation through well-thought-out exercises and discussion topics. Each
chapter begins with a highly accessible overview of formal and functional
linguistic concepts. This is followed by practical sections connecting these
concepts with translation, providing examples in various languages.
In Chapter 1, we first provide an overview of linguistics by defining
its scope, main branches, areas of study, and interdisciplinary fields. We
also introduce the notion of linguistic universals. In the second part of the
chapter, we apply these concepts to translation and provide hands-on activ-
ities and discussion topics. This introductory chapter sets the scene for the
rest of the volume.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003228028-1
2 I NTR O D U CTI O N

Chapter 2 focuses on the areas of phonetics and phonology. We begin by

distinguishing between these two areas, and then provide an overview of
the main parts of phonetics, the various stages of sound production, and the
importance of phonological features in translation.
Chapters 3 and 4 focus on morphology and morphological processes,
respectively. Chapter 3 covers the structure of the word, the classification
of morphemes and words, and the units that make up words, all illustrated
through ample examples from various languages. This theoretical presen-
tation is then related to the types of shifts that may be necessary in trans-
lation. Chapter 4 continues the discussion by explaining higher-level
linguistic analyses of morphological processes such as inflection, deriv-
ation, compounding, and affixation. Through practice activities and dis-
cussion questions, we emphasize the importance of understanding these
processes for the practice of translation.
In Chapter 5, we delve into syntax, which focuses on the structure of
phrases, clauses, and sentences. We explain the various categories at the
word level, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives, as well as categories at
the phrase level, such as the noun phrase or verb phrase. We also explore
transformation processes and constituent tests and explain their importance
for translation.
In Chapter 6, we focus on the area of semantics, discussing important
concepts such as denotation and connotation, reference and sense, semantic
roles, and principles, as well as frame semantics. We emphasize the import-
ance of understanding these concepts in relation to translation and provide
examples to illustrate their significance.
In Chapter 7, readers are introduced to discourse analysis, a branch of
usage- based linguistics that covers both social and linguistic approaches.
We explain social approaches such as conversation analysis and critical
discourse analysis, and linguistic approaches such as functional linguistics,
sociolinguistics, and cognitive discourse analysis. We also discuss other
approaches like multimodal discourse analysis and intercultural communi-
cation and their relevance to translation.
Moving on to Chapter 8, we dive into pragmatics, a discipline parm -
ticularly important for translation. We define pragmatics and provide a
brief history of the discipline. Then we discuss key concepts, such as
deixis, reference, inference, conversational implicature, and speech acts.
All of these concepts are presented with a focus on their relevance to
translation.
In Chapter 9, the topic is functional linguistics, another topic of imme-
diate relevance to translation. The chapter covers various notions such
as register, appraisal, cohesion, and coherence that are significant for
translators to understand. We explain the importance of these concepts for
the translator’s work. Additionally, the chapter includes the second author’s
model for translation quality assessment, which employs a register- based
approach to evaluate translation output.
Chapter 10 is about sociolinguistics. Here we explain basic sociolins-
guistic concepts such as code-switching, convergence, and divergence, and
we discuss their immediate relevance to translation.
 I NTR O D U CTI O N 3

Chapter 11 of the book complements the sociolinguistic focus addressed

in the previous chapter and focuses on language variation, covering
regional, social, and stylistic variation, as well as the concepts of diglossia
and polyglossia, pidgins and creoles, dialects, accents, and styles. The
chapter explores how these variations can pose challenges when translating
into different languages, as translators must consider the target audience
and the nuances of the target language in order to convey the appropriate
meaning and tone.
In Chapter 12, the final chapter of this book, we provide readers with
an introduction to cognitive linguistics. We distinguish between cognitive
grammar and cognitive semantics and explore the basic principles of cogni-
tive linguistics and various cognitive systems. We demonstrate how famil-
iarity with these concepts is beneficial for producing accurate translations
and evaluating translation quality.
In summary, this book covers a broad range of linguistic topics relevant
to translation. By exploring these topics and trying out the various practice
activities and topic discussions, readers are gradually helped into having a
deeper understanding of the translation process and the importance of lin-
guistic knowledge in facilitating it.

Aspects of difference

When it comes to teaching linguistics to translation students at the univer-

sity level, there are two main schools of thought. One camp argues that lin-
guistics should be taught independently of translation, allowing students to
become familiar with linguistic concepts and issues and make connections
to translation on their own. To this end, they may use courses not specif-
ically designed for translation students, such as The Study of Language
(Yule 1985/1996), A Concise Introduction to Linguistics (Rowe and Levine
2022), and Linguistics for Non-Linguists: A Primer with Exercises (Parker
and Riley 1994/2010), among others.
On the other hand, some believe it is important to restrict focus to the lin-
guistic concepts and issues that are of immediate relevance to translation.
This approach tailors the curriculum to the needs of translation students
and is determined by those overseeing the programme. Titles such as In
Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (Baker 1992) and Translation
and Language: Linguistic Theories Explained (Fawcett 1997) are common
examples of this approach. These titles are adopted as textbooks in many
translation programmes though they do not provide a comprehensive
enough coverage of the area they purport to address.
In Linguistics for Translators, we have taken a different approach by
connecting the dots between linguistics and translation. Each chapter
introduces the basic linguistic concepts and then proceeds to show their
relevance to translation students, researchers, and practising translators. In
doing so, we give due consideration to both opinions mentioned above.
Moreover, Linguistics for Translators discusses these linguistic concepts
and issues in the context of various languages. In addition to English, it
4 I NTR O D U CTI O N

includes French, German, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Persian, Chinese, Tok

Pisin, and Maltese, among others.
The aim of Linguistics for Translators is to provide a comprehensive
introduction to linguistics that is accessible to students of linguistics and
translation at the university level while still retaining a considerable level
of detail. The book is intended for a diverse audience, including students
of translation and linguistics, practising translators, and readers from
neighbouring disciplines who are interested in the subject. At the begin-
ning of each chapter, readers are provided with a route into the primary
literature, and the book includes connecting-the-dots sections that establish
a connection between linguistics and translation. This approach introduces
the reader to various translation theories, approaches, and models
throughout the book.

References

Baker, M. (1992). In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. London/

New York: Routledge.
Fawcett, P. (1997). Translation and Language: Linguistic Theories
Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Parker, F. and Riley, K. (1994/ 2010). Linguistics for Non- Linguists: A
Primer with Exercises. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Rowe, B. M. and Levine, D. P. (2022). A Concise Introduction to Linguistics
(6th edn). London/New York: Routledge.
Yule, G. (1985/ 1996). The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Setting the scene 1

This chapter provides the reader with a general overview of the discip-
line of linguistics. It introduces linguistics along with its main branches.
Further, it touches on translation universals. It tries to answer the
following questions:

• What is ‘language’?
• What is the difference between a ‘linguist’ and a ‘native speaker’ of
the language?
• What is ‘linguistics’? And what are its main branches?
• What is ‘formal linguistics’? And what are its main areas?
• What is ‘interdisciplinary linguistics’?
• What are the ‘linguistic universals’?
• What are the main types of ‘linguistic universals’?
• What are the main types of ‘translation universals’, if any?

Language and communication

In order to express your opinions or feelings, tell somebody about some-

thing, ask somebody about something, thank somebody for doing some- How would you
define ‘language’?
thing, promise somebody to do something, and so on, you need to
communicate with people in one way or another. In this regard, Baker and
Hengeveld (2012: 5) state:

Using a natural language, humans can in principle communicate with

each other about anything in their world, from talking about the wea-
ther to writing or reading a scientific article about global warming.
Depending on the subject a different jargon may be used – when talking
about football, people in a café use words that are quite different from
those used in a parliamentary debate about health insurance costs.
These different jargons are, however, part of the language as a whole.
Also, to a very large extent, they employ the same grammar. What is the diffe-
rence between
One may observe here that we are talking about linguistic communication. ‘linguistic com-
munication’ and
This is because we can communicate without using any language as we can ‘non-linguistic
smile to express pleasure or approval, we can laugh to express happiness communication’?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003228028-2
 6 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E

or disrespect, and so on. These are examples of non-linguistic communica-

tion. Building on this, communication can be linguistic communication
when a language is used. Otherwise, it is non-linguistic communication.
Language, accordingly, can be defined as a system of communication based
upon the use of words in a structured and conventional way.

Linguistics

Linguistics can be defined as the scientific study of language. It is

How would you
define ‘linguistics’? concerned with “the nature of language and linguistic communication”
(Akmajian et al. 2010: 5). Knowledge of linguistics, however, is different
from knowledge of a language. A speaker of a language can use language
without being able to analyse it. Like a person who is able to drive a car
without understanding how the engine of the car works, a language user
What is the diffe- can use language without any conscious knowledge of its internal structure.
rence between
a ‘linguist’ and a Conversely, a linguist can know and understand the internal structure
‘native speaker’? of a language without actually being able to speak it. Linguists do work
on specific languages, but their primary goal is to understand the nature of
language in general.

Scope of linguistics

Linguistics covers a wide range of areas, such as ‘phonetics’, ‘phonology’,

What are the
main branches of ‘morphology’, ‘semantics’, ‘pragmatics’, ‘discourse analysis’,
linguistics? ‘stylistics’, ‘sociolinguistics’, and ‘psycholinguistics’, to mention only the
most well-known areas. These areas can be divided into different branches
of linguistics, such as ‘formal linguistics’, ‘usage- based linguistics’, and
‘interdisciplinary linguistics’, as partially shown in the following diagram:

As we can see, inside the circle, there are five areas: ‘phonetics’, ‘phon-
What is the diffe- ology’, ‘morphology’, ‘syntax’, and ‘semantics’. These five areas are
rence between the main areas of ‘formal linguistics’; they “are the ‘bread and butter’
‘formal linguistics’
of linguistics” (Aitchison 1999/ 2003: 9). When ‘semantics’ is excluded,
and ‘usage-based
linguistics’? then we have what is called ‘structural linguistics’. However, when only
‘morphology’ and ‘syntax’ are studied, then we talk about what is called
 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E 7

‘grammar’. As for ‘pragmatics’ and ‘discourse analysis’, they are outside

the scope of ‘formal linguistics’. This is because pragmatics focuses on the
study of what is not explicitly said and the role of context in interpreting the
speaker/writer’s intended meaning while discourse analysis examines how
smaller linguistic forms relate in larger linguistic units, such as conversa-
tional exchanges or written texts.

Formal linguistics

Formal linguistics, as hinted at above, focuses on studying the structures

What are the main
and processes of language, paying particular attention to how language is areas of ‘formal
organized and how it works. The goal of formal linguists is to identify the linguistics’?
common elements among the available structures under consideration in an
attempt to discover the most efficient way to describe language in general.
Formal linguistics includes five main areas of study.

Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of formal linguistics that studies how sounds are
produced by the vocal apparatus (the lungs, vocal cords, tongue, teeth,
etc.), thus providing a framework for sound classification. Phonetics, more
accurately ‘auditory phonetics’, studies how sounds produced by people
are heard, perceived, and then interpreted. In another area of phonetics
called ‘acoustic phonetics’, the focus of attention is shifted towards the
frequency, duration, or intensity of the sound.

Phonology
Phonology is another branch of formal linguistics that studies how sounds What is the diffe-
function in a code (be it a language or dialect) or across these codes. To rence between
explain, in English, the sound / p/ has two phones or sounds depending ‘phonetics’ and
‘phonology’?
on its position in a word. In words like ‘put’, ‘place’, and ‘park’, it is
pronounced with a stronger burst of air than a / p/ in words like ‘spin’,
‘apple’, and ‘grape’.

Morphology
Morphology is a branch of formal linguistics that deals with the struc-
ture of words. Morphologists “study minimal units of meaning, called
What are the main
‘morphemes’, and investigate the possible combinations of these units in dimensions of
a language to form words” (Almanna 2016: 5). The word ‘carelessness’, grammar?
for instance, is made up of three smaller units called ‘morphemes’. They
are the root ‘care’ and two suffixes ‘– less’ and ‘– ness’. The root ‘care’ is
transformed into an adjective by the effect of the suffix ‘–less’, which is, in
turn, transferred into a noun by virtue of the suffix ‘–ness’. For more details
on morphology, see Chapters 3 and 4 of this book.
 8 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E

Syntax
Syntax is a branch of formal linguistics that deals with how smaller units,
such as words, are put together to form larger units, such as phrases or
clauses. The sentence ‘Our manager travelled to London yesterday’ is
made up of six words. The first two words, ‘our’ and ‘manager’, are
put together to form a larger unit called a ‘noun phrase’, whereas the
other four words are pieced together to form a larger unit called a ‘verb
phrase’. To round it off, the above simple sentence is made up of two
main phrases. The first phrase, syntactically called a ‘noun phrase’, is
made up of two words: ‘our’ (determiner) and ‘manager’ (noun). The
second phrase, called a ‘verb phrase’, however, is made up of three
phrases: ‘travelled’ (finite verb), ‘to London’ (preposition phrase), and
‘yesterday’ (adverbial phrase).

Semantics
Semantics is another branch of formal linguistics that is concerned with
the meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and clauses. In semantics, the
relationship between the referring expressions, such as words or phrases,
and what they stand for is given adequate consideration. In other words, the
focus in semantics is on “what the words conventionally mean, rather than
on what a speaker might want the words to mean on a particular occasion”
(Yule 1985/1996: 114).

Interdisciplinary linguistics

Why is Interdisciplinary linguistics, like any other interdisciplinary subject,

‘sociolinguistics’, for involves at least two different, but somehow related, disciplines, for
instance, an inter-
example ‘society’ and ‘language’. The common branches of interdiscip-
disciplinary sub-
ject? Discuss. linary linguistics include:

● ‘sociolinguistics’ (studying the relationship between language and

society);
● ‘psycholinguistics’ (studying the relationship between language and
mind);
● ‘ethnolinguistics’ also known as ‘anthropological linguistics’ or
‘cultural linguistics’ (studying the relationship between language and
culture);
● ‘computational linguistics’ (studying how to apply computers to the
analysis and comprehension of texts);
● ‘historical linguistics’ (studying language change);
● ‘philosophical linguistics’ (studying the relationship between language
and logical thought);
● ‘forensic linguistics’ (studying the relationship between language and
law).
 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E 9

Linguistic universals

Linguistic universals (also known as ‘language universals’) are “those

categories and rules that all human languages, past and present, have in
common” (Parker and Riley 1994/ 2010: 149). Examples of linguistic
universals include:

● all languages have the categories ‘noun’ and ‘verb’;

● all languages have ‘vowels’ and ‘consonants’;
● all languages have ‘pronouns’;
● most languages belong either to SOV, SVO, or VSO type.

To make this point clear, let us translate this English sentence ‘I like your
car’ into some other languages:

Language Example
Arabic .‫أحبّ سيارتك‬
Swahili Naipenda gari yako.
Malay Saya suka kereta kamu.
German Ich finde dein Auto gut. Or: Ich finde Ihr Auto gut.
Filipino Gusto ko ang koste mu.
Tok Pisin Mi laikim Ka bilong yu.
Chinese 我喜欢你的车 (Wo xihuan ni de che)
French J’aime ta voiture. Or: J’aime votre voiture.

In French or German, as can be noticed, ‘status’ as a social dimension is

given serious consideration when we use sentences of this kind. To explain,
‘J’aime ta voiture’ or ‘Ich finde dein Auto gut’ meaning ‘I like your car’
is used when we talk about a car owned by a person who is not superior
to us, i.e. a friend or a family member. However, ‘J’aime votre voiture’ or
‘Ich finde Ihr Auto gut’, which has the same meaning in English, i.e. ‘I like
your car’, is used just to show respect when we talk about a car owned by
a person who is superior to us, such as a boss.
Now, let us use the following table to see whether or not all these
languages have nouns, verbs, pronouns (including possessive adjectives),
and tenses.

Language Noun Verb Pronoun Tense If languages do not

English car like I yes have a grammatical
category of ‘tense’,
Arabic ‫سيارة‬ ّ‫حب‬ ‫ك‬ yes how do its speakers
talk about the past
Swahili gari penda nai, yako yes or future?
Malay kereta suka saya, kamu no
German auto finde ich, dein yes
Filipino kotse gusto ko, mu yes
10 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E

Language Noun Verb Pronoun Tense

Tok Pisin ka laik mi, yu no
French voiture aime Je, ta/votre yes
Chinese 车(che) 喜欢(xihuan) 我 (wo)/ 你 ni。 no

As we mentioned above, all languages have nouns, verbs, and pronouns,

but not all of them have tenses. Languages such as Malay, Chinese,
and creole languages like Tok Pisin do not have tenses. To take the
discussion a step further, let us raise this question: Do all languages
belong to the Subject–Verb–Object pattern? The answer is ‘No’ as some
languages, such as Arabic, Swahili, and Filipino, start with the verb
ّ‫أحب‬, ‘naipenda’ and ‘gusto’, respectively, as can be seen above. Others,
such as English, German, Malay, French, Chinese, and Tok Pisin, on
the other hand, start with a subject ‘I’, ‘Ich’, ‘Saya’, ‘Je’, 我 (wo),
and ‘Mi’, respectively. In addition, in some of these languages, such
as Filipino, the noun does not change its form to indicate whether it is
singular or plural, but the determiner ‘ang’ and ‘mga’ used before the
noun will see to this, as in:

Gusto ko ang koste mu (I like your car).

Gusto ko mga koste mu (I like your cars).

Now, let us shift our focus of attention to determiners and their position
in noun phrases. Do they always precede nouns? The answer is ‘No’
as in some languages, such as Filipino, Malay, Swahili, and Arabic, to
mention but a few, some determiners come after the noun. To explain,
the noun phrase ‘your car’ can be discussed in the above- mentioned
languages. In English, and some other languages, such as German ‘dein
Auto’ and French ‘ta voiture’, the possessive adjective, which is a deter-
miner, comes before the noun. However, in languages such as Filipino,
Malay, Swahili, and Arabic, the possessive adjective comes after the
noun, as shown below:

Language Noun phrase

Filipino Kotse = car mu = your
Malay Kereta = car kamu = your
Swahili Gari = car yako = your
Arabic ‫ = سيارة‬car ‫ = ك‬your

Unlike English, some languages and creoles, such as Malay, Swahili, Tok
Pisin, Arabic, and French, distinguish between a possessive adjective that
refers to singular and a possessive adjective that refers to plural. Therefore,
when one says ‘your car’ in these languages, ‘the car’ could belong to one
person or more, as shown below:
 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E 11

Types of linguistic universals

Linguists distinguish between two kinds of universals: ‘absolute universals’
Why are some
and ‘implicational universals’. Absolute universals apply to every known
universals called
language and are quite few in number. For example, all languages have ‘implicational
pronouns, verbs, nouns, and the like. Implicational universals, on the other universals’?
hand, apply to languages with a particular feature that is always accom-
panied by another feature. For instance, if a language requires a subject–
verb inversion for ‘yes– no questions’, then it also requires a subject– verb
inversion for ‘wh-questions’. To make this point clear, consider the
following sentence in English:

He will travel to France soon.

In this sentence, there is an auxiliary verb ‘will’ after the subject of the sen-
tence ‘he’. To form a ‘yes–no question’ in English, a transformation known
as ‘inversion’ is needed. In the example we are considering, the auxiliary
‘will’ is moved from the Infl (short for ‘inflection’) to the left of the subject,
as shown in the following tree:

This ‘yes–no question’ is formed by applying the inversion transformation

to the deep structure ‘He will travel to France soon’ to produce a surface Try to learn the
differences
structure of the following kind: ‘Will he travel to France soon?’. between ‘deep
To form a ‘wh- question’ in English, in addition to the inversion trans- structures’ and ‘sur-
formation discussed above, another transformation called ‘wh-movement’ face structures’.
 12 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E

is used that can move the ‘wh- phrase’ from its normal position (indicated
by the symbol ‘e’ that stands for the word ‘empty’) to a position at the
beginning of the sentence, as shown below:

He will travel to France soon.

As shown above, in English, ‘wh-questions’ cannot be formed without

What about
applying the inversion transformation, i.e. moving the auxiliary from its
other languages?
Do they need Infl position to the left of the subject. This can be considered as an example
‘inversion’ trans- of an implicational universal as the ‘wh-movement’ transformation is
formation and ‘wh-
accompanied by the ‘inversion’ transformation.
movement’ to form
‘wh-questions’?

Connecting the dots: Translation universals

From a functional- linguistic perspective, ‘universals’ can be defined as

“those properties that are necessarily common to all human languages”
(Comrie 2003: 195). Here a claim is made about the potential of human lan-
guage where universals are assumed to exist because of how human beings
are made, and the physical and cognitive limitations they are subjected to.
Thus, for example, certain sounds may not be possible given the nature of
the human body, and they are thus universally absent from human language.
Another major group of universals relates to the functions of language. The
two essential functions of language are (1) to convey information and (2) to
establish and maintain social relations between human beings.
The universals posited in the functional approach are used to represent
exclusively bottom-up generalizations across languages. Their explanatory
potential includes general cognitive, social- interactional, processing,
and perceptual, as well as possibly other human faculties. The emphasis
is here on empirical cross- linguistic comparison and on the relationship
between linguistic forms and language functions. One important functional
approach is the systemic-functional one, which places particular emphasis
on the relationship between form and function, and which has proved to be
most useful for the study of translation.
About the same time as Greenberg and Chomsky came up with their
suggestions of linguistic universals, Halliday (1961, 1973) proposed that
language as a system of ‘meaning making’ has a universal meaning poten-
tial, which evolved around three motifs that he called ‘metafunctions’: the
ideational metafunction, the interpersonal metafunction, and the textual
metafunction (for more details, see Chapter 9 of this book). Ideationally,
How many language reflects our human experience, our interpretation of all that goes
processes are on around us, outside and inside, mapping systems of meaning into lan-
in this complex guage such that human beings can capture and construe their individual
sentence?
‘ “I’ll give him a call and collective experiences of the world. Interpersonally, language is a way
later”, she says’. of initiating and maintaining social relationships, and of construing human
 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E 13

language learners and users as personal and collective beings. Textually,

language involves the creation of information: it creates discourse, that
is, the patterned forms of wording that constitute meaningful semiotic
contexts. The textual function has an enabling, facilitative force, which
allows the other two functions to operate.
The ideational function contains a general category of process split into
material, mental, and relational processes. Processes are happening to, or
are being enacted by, human agents in time and space, past or future, real or
imaginary, here or there. The interpersonal function is a mode of enacting
personal relationships of different kinds, exchanges of speech roles, real-
izing discourse functions, and implying systems and resources of mood
and modality. The textual function is intrinsic to language itself, refer-
ring to the resources any language must have for creating discourse and
ensuring that each instance of text makes contact with its environment.
This ‘environment’ includes the context of situation (Malinowski 1935),
the context of culture, and other instances of text. The resources tapped
into here are potentially higher than clauses or clause complexes, setting
up relationships which create not only semantic cohesion, but also contrib-
uting to the overall grammar of the clause. A typical way of construing the
clause as a ‘message’ is as a combination of two perspectives: that of the
speaker and that of the listener, which lead to different types of information
flow. All languages display some form of textual organization of the clause.
However, how far the tension between the speaker– listener perspectives
are weighted one against the other in the languages of the world is far from
clear. The textual metafunction also provides for the creation of ‘cohesion’
of five kinds: reference (or ‘phora’ [e.g. anaphoric, cataphoric] to distin-
guish it from reference as defined in the philosophy of language), ellipsis,
substitution, conjunction, and lexical cohesion (Halliday and Hasan 1976).
In systemic-functional theorizing, it is at this ‘deep’ metafunctional level of
language that we can say ‘universality’ exists.
Now what might these functional universals mean for translation?
Various ‘translation universals’ as universal tendencies of the trans-
lation process, laws of translation, and norms of translation have
been suggested in the literature (e.g. Blum- Kulka 1986; Baker 1993;
Laviosa- Braithwaite 1998; Toury 2012); see also the contributions to
the volume on Translation Universals: Do They Exist? (Mauranen and
Kujamäki 2004). Toury (2012), in an attempt to formulate probabilistic
‘laws’ of translation that would hopefully lead to translation universals,
has proposed two laws, namely:

(1) The law of growing standardization, referring to the modification of

the textual relations of the original text while translating in favour of
more “habitual options offered by the target repertoire”.
(2) The law of interference, referring to the adaptation of the lexical and Is there any diffe-
rence between
syntactic features of the original text in the target language. ‘explicitation’ and
‘explicitness’ in the
As prime candidates for translation universals, the following operations field of translation
studies?
have been suggested: explicitation, simplification, disambiguation,
 14 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E

conventionalization, standardization, levelling out, avoidance of repetition,

and over- or underrepresentation of source or target language elements, as
well as the general manifestation of a so- called ‘third code’, i.e.
translations as opposed to original non-translated texts.
Many researchers who posited translation universals have relied on cor-
pora, the assumption being that through the technical possibilities corpus
methodology affords, universals can be found. However, the question we
have to ask ourselves is the following: Can there be something like ‘trans-
lation universals’ at all? (House 2008, 2018). Unlike the linguistically
based quest for universals of language, the quest for translation universals
is, in essence, futile, as there can be no universals at the level of perform-
ance, i.e. no proper translation universals, for the following four reasons:

(1) Translation is undeniably an act that operates on language, so

universals proposed for language must necessarily also apply to
translation. But: these are then NOT universals of translation per se,
or sui generis universals, but simply universals of language that also
Can you imagine an
English-translated apply to translation.
text without, for (2) Obviously, however, translation is not identical to language, let alone
instance, verbs? If to the two linguistic systems involved in translation. Translation
not, can we con-
sider this as a trans- can be described as an act of performance, of parole, specific to a
lation universal? certain language pair. This is, of course, reflected in the nature of
Discuss. translation: it is inherently language specific. This language- pair
specificity of translation cannot really be offset, such that even
corpus- based multi- pair comparisons remain agglomerations of
different pairs. Only detailed linguistic analyses of the particular
phenomenon suggested to be universal can help us to prove the
validity of the claim.
(3) Closely related to the language- pair specificity of translation is the
issue of directionality in translation. This means that candidates of
universality suggested for one particular translation direction need not
necessarily be candidates for universality in the opposite direction.
What about the
language-pair House (2004) has shown on the basis of a corpus of translations of
that you are children’s books from English into German and vice versa that, for
familiar with? example, procedures of explicitation common in translations from
English into German are not traceable in the reverse translation direction
at all. In fact, a body of earlier contrastive analyses of many different
genres (House 2006) suggested that explicitation holds for translations
into German but not the other way round. But even this hypothesis can
be disconfirmed if we take the passage of time into account, as was
done in the Hamburg research project ‘Covert translation’ (summary
in House 2014). Baumgarten (2007), for instance, has shown that the
use of the German sentence-initial coordinative conjunction ‘und’, i.e.
‘and’, has significantly increased over the last 25 years in German
academic discourse under the influence of translations from English,
which can be taken as indicating an increase of implicitness and
vagueness, i.e. a decrease in explicitness regarding this particular
functional category.
 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E 15

(4) Another consideration that militates against the very assumption

of translation universals, is genre specificity and the dynamic
development of genres over time. In the project ‘Covert translation’,
English original texts, translations from English into German,
French and Spanish, and comparable texts in these languages were
compared with a focus on how the phenomena ‘subjectivity’ and
‘addressee- orientation’ are realized linguistically and how they
change over time under the influence of global English. While there
is a tendency for explicitation (use of elaboration, extension, and
enhancement) in the German translations of popular science texts,
this is not the case to the same degree for the different genre of
economic texts.

Given the above four arguments, there is no justification at the present time
for assuming the existence of translation universals. But the quest needs
to go on!

Exercises and discussion

Exercise 1: Mark the following statements as true (T) or false (F).

(1) ‘All languages have pronouns’ is an example of an

absolute universal.
(2) ‘All languages have vowels’ is an example of an impli-
cational universal.
(3) ‘All languages have the category noun’ is an example
of an implicational universal.
(4) Absolute universals take the form of ‘if …, then …’.
(5) ‘If a language has adjectives for shape, then it has
adjectives for colours’ is an example of an implica-
tional universal.
(6) All languages have a grammatical category of ‘aspect’.
(7) All languages have a grammatical category of ‘duality’.
(8) All languages belong to the SVO type.
(9) Formal linguistics covers five main areas. They are
phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and
pragmatics.
(10) Usage-based linguistics covers two main
areas: pragmatics and semantics.
(11) Ethnolinguistics is a branch in linguistics that studies
the relationship between language and logical
thought.
(12) Computational linguistics studies how computers
simulate languages and their workings.
16 SETTI NG TH E SCE N E

Exercise 2: Before translating the following three sentences into a lan-

guage you know, comment on them by referring to Halliday’s three
metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual.

(a) The girl asked this question.

(b) The stupid girl asked this embarrassing question.
(c) It is the girl who asked such a question.

Exercise 3: Select any text from BBC News and:

(a) translate it into any language you know;

(b) comment on your translation by referring to such notions as
‘explicitation’, ‘simplification’, ‘disambiguation’, ‘conventionalization’,
‘standardization’, ‘levelling out’, ‘avoidance of repetition’,
‘over-representation of source language elements’, and
‘underrepresentation of target language elements’.

Discussion and research points

(1) Are procedures of explicitation common in translations between
English and your own language or another language which you know
and from and/ or into which you can translate, or it is influenced by
the directionality of translation? Discuss.
(2) It is argued by Frawley (1984) that a so- called ‘third code’ is
different from both the original language and target language
as it is a result of the combined impact of the original text and
the linguistic and stylistic norms of the target language. Do
you agree?
(3) What are the main hypotheses regarding translation universals?
(4) When you translate into your own language, do you have the
tendency to make your sentences shorter or longer than the
sentences used in the original text regardless of the text type
and genre?
(5) Toury’s (2012) law of growing standardization refers to the selection
of certain linguistic and stylistic options that are more common
in the target language at the expense of the patterns used in the
original language. With this in mind, carry out a descriptive study
to identify some examples in which the translator opted for what is
commonly used in the target language, thus modifying the patterns
used in the original text while translating.
(6) Carry out a descriptive study of any translated book to answer the
following questions:
(a) What generalizations can you make about the translation
process?
(b) What hypotheses can you propose?
(c) How would you seek to investigate them?
Phonetics and phonology 2

This chapter is an introduction to phonetics, phonology, and the main

differences between them. It also familiarizes you with the main branches
of phonetics, such as ‘articulatory phonetics’, ‘acoustic phonetics’, and
‘auditory phonetics’. Further, the main stages of sound production,
such as ‘respiration’, ‘phonation’, ‘oro-nasal process’, and ‘articulation’
are explained in this chapter. Added to this, phonological features are
discussed in a direct link to translation.
After studying this chapter, you should be able to (1) define phones,
phonemes, and allophones; (2) identify vowel and consonant sounds in
English; (3) identify the place of articulation and manner of articulation;
(4) describe voiced and voiceless consonants; (5) distinguish simple
vowels from diphthongs; and (6) assess the phonological features that
should be reflected while translating between languages.

Phonetics and phonology (from the word ‘phone’, meaning ‘sound’) are
the branches of linguistics that study sounds but from different perspectives
What is the diffe-
(for more details, see Ladefoged and Johnson 2010). While phonology rence between
focuses on how sounds function in relation to each other in a certain lan- ‘phonetics’ and
guage, phonetics concentrates on how sounds are produced by speakers’ ‘phonology’?
vocal apparatus, transmitted by atmospheric air, and perceived by listeners’
auditory system. It thus provides “methods for their description, classifica-
tion, and transcription” (Crystal 1980/2008: 363).
On this principle, phonetics can be classified into three main branches:

● ‘Articulatory phonetics’ studies how the vocal organs (lips, tongue,

teeth, etc.) are used to produce speech sounds.
● ‘Acoustic phonetics’ investigates the physical properties of speech
sounds in terms of duration, frequency, intensity, and quality.
● ‘Auditory phonetics’ focuses on how people perceive speech sounds,
i.e. how the listener’s eardrum is activated by the sound waves on the
one hand, and how messages are carried to the brain in the form of
What about the
nerve impulses on the other. other languages
that you are
familiar with?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003228028-3
 2 0 P H O N E T I C S A N D P H O N O LO GY

While the English alphabet is comprised of 26 letters, the sound system of

Why are there more
sounds than letters English contains 44 sounds. This is because:
in English?
(1) the same sound may be represented by many letters or combination of
letters, for example the long vowel / iː/ is presented by the letters ‘e’,
Discuss these ‘ey’, and ‘ee’ in such words as ‘he’, ‘key’, and ‘see’;
points in other (2) the same letter may refer to a variety of sounds, such as the letter ‘a’ in
languages.
words like ‘cake’, ‘father’, and ‘village’;
(3) a combination of letters may stand for plenty of sounds, such as the
letters ‘ch’ in words such as ‘character’ and ‘church’ or the letters ‘th’
in words like ‘either’ and ‘through’;
(4) a single letter may represent a great deal of sounds, such as the letter
‘c’ in such two words as ‘car’ and ‘receive’;
(5) there may be no letter to represent a sound that occurs in a word, such
as the sound /j/ in words like ‘cute’ and ‘use’.

Phone, phoneme, and allophone

A ‘phone’ (from the Greek word ‘phone’, meaning ‘sound’ or more accur-
ately ‘voice’) is defined as “the smallest perceptible discrete segment of
sound in a stream of speech” (Crystal 2008: 361). A ‘phoneme’, however,
is the smallest unit that can bring about a change in meaning; it includes all
the phonetic specifications of phones. To explain, let us consider the sound
/t/ in the words ‘team’ and ‘stem’ as a phoneme. The slight difference in the
realization of this phoneme is that the /t/ in ‘team’ is aspirated [th], i.e. there
is a puff of air following the release of / t/ , while the / t/ in ‘stem’ is non-
aspirated [t]. Phones that belong to the same phoneme, such as [t] and [th]
How would you for English /t/, are called ‘allophones’, as shown in the following diagram:
define an ‘aspirated
sound’?

Sound production

To produce speech, we use our vocal tract, which consists of the pas-
What are the main sageway between the lips and nostrils on the one hand, and between the
stages of sound lips and the larynx on the other. As such, speech is produced by pushing
production?
air from the lungs up through the vocal tract (the first stage) where the
vocal folds convert the air into audible sound (the second stage). Then,
these audible sounds are distributed to the oral cavity or nasal cavity by
the soft palate (the third stage). Finally, these sounds are transformed into
intelligible speech sounds with the help of the organs of speech (the fourth
 P H O N E T I C S A N D P H O N O LO GY 2 1

stage). Building on this, the stages of sound production are classified into
four stages, as shown and explained below.

● Respiration: the air is pushed from the lungs up through the vocal
tract.
● Phonation: the vocal folds convert the air into audible sounds.
● Oro-nasal process: these audible sounds are distributed to the oral
cavity or nasal cavity by the soft palate (velum).
● Articulation: these sounds are transformed into intelligible speech
sounds with the help of the speech organs by manipulating the lips,
tongue, teeth, velum, pharynx, and vocal cords.

Place of articulation

As stated earlier, in the fourth stage, the audible sounds are transformed
into intelligible speech sounds with the help of the speech organs by
manipulating the lips, tongue, teeth, velum, pharynx, and vocal cords. In
the articulation stage, the vocal tract is constricted at one of the following
points, as shown in the following table:

Speech organ Sound Place of articulation

at the lips /b, p, m, w/ bilabial Be familiar with
the main points of
between the lower articulation.
/f, v/ labiodental
lips and upper teeth
between the tongue
/θ, ð/ (inter)dental
and upper teeth
 2 2 P H O N E T I C S A N D P H O N O LO GY

Speech organ Sound Place of articulation

between the tongue
/t, d, s, z, n, l/ alveolar
and the alveolar ridge
between the tongue
/dʒ, tʃ, ʃ, ʒ, j, r/ palatal
and the palate
between the tongue
/k, g, ŋ/ velar
and the velum
at the glottis /h/ glottal

Manner of articulation

We have seen that in the fourth stage, i.e. articulation, the vocal tract is
How would you constricted at one of the seven points. Now special attention is paid to the way
divide consonants
according to in which the vocal tract is constricted, which can be classified into (1) com-
their manner of pletely blocked and (2) partially blocked, as explained in what follows.
articulation?

(1) Completely blocked

Oral stops
In some sounds such as / p, b, t, d, k, g/ , the flow of air through the vocal
What are the ‘oral tract is completely blocked because the two articulators are brought
stops’ in your own
language?
together. These sounds, called (oral) ‘stops’ (more recently they have been
called ‘plosives’), can be classified into three groups depending on the
articulators used:

Two articulators Sounds

- the two lips are brought together; /p, b/
- the tip of the tongue pressed against the alveolar ridge; /t, d/
- the back of the tongue pressed against the velum. /k, g/

How many ‘nasal Nasal stops

stops’ can be In some other sounds such as /m, n, ŋ/, the flow of air through the mouth is
identified in your completely blocked but the velum is lowered, thereby forcing the air to go
language?
through the nose; hence they are called ‘nasal stops’ or just ‘nasals’.

(2) Partially blocked

Fricatives
What about the In sounds such as /f, v, s, z, θ, ð, ʃ, ʒ, h/, the flow of air through the vocal tract
other languages or is impeded, but it is not completely blocked because the two articulators are
dialects that you brought near each other. Here, the air escapes through a narrow passage,
are familiar with?
Do you have these thus making a hissing sound. To hear these hissing sounds, try to put your
sounds? hand very close to your mouth and say these sounds one by one.
 P H O N E T I C S A N D P H O N O LO GY 2 3

Affricates Do you have these

In sounds like / dʒ, tʃ/ , the flow of air through the vocal tract is com- affricates in your
own language or
pletely blocked (like the stops / d, t/ ), but ends with a narrow opening
dialect?
in the vocal tract (like the fricatives / f, v, s, z/ ). It is worth noting that
‘affricates’ are quite common around the world, though less common
than ‘fricatives’.

Approximants
‘Approximant’ is a term used to cover ‘glides’ and ‘liquids’ where there
is some or very little obstruction. To begin with ‘glides’, the flow of air
through the vocal tract is constricted, but not enough to block or impede
the flow of air, as in: / w, j/ . However, in ‘liquids’, the flow of air through
the vocal tract is constricted, but neither enough to block the flow of air nor
to cause friction, as in: /l, r/.
Note that unlike the liquids (/ l, r/ ), which are produced with some
obstruction of the airstream, the glides (/w, j/), which are sometimes called
‘semivowels’, are produced with very little obstruction and are always
followed by a vowel.

Voicing

‘Voicing’ is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech

sounds (usually consonants). Consonants can be described as either
‘voiceless’ (also called ‘unvoiced’; − voice) or ‘voiced’ (+ voice), as shown
in the following table:

Voiced Voiceless
/b, d, g, v, z, ð, r, l, w, ŋ, y, m, n, ʒ, dʒ/ /p, t, k, f, s, h, θ, ʃ, tʃ/

Note that nasals (/ m, n, ŋ/ ), glides (/ w, j/ ), and liquids (/ r, l/ ) are all In Arabic, as there
voiced. To explain how we can distinguish between voiced and voiceless is no /p/ sound,
sounds, try to place your finger(s) on the voice box (i.e. the location of the Arabs sometimes
pronounce ‘park’
Adam’s apple in the upper throat) and say (1) ssssssssssssssss and then and ‘bark’ in a
(2) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. What do you feel? Is there any vibration? If yes, similar way. Which
then the sound is a voiced sound; otherwise, it is a voiceless sound. To put sound is missing in
your language?
it differently, at the phonation stage, to produce a voiced sound such as /z/,
the vocal folds are brought together fairly tightly. However, to produce a
voiceless sound like /s/, the air passes through the glottis as the vocal folds
are set apart.

Vowels

Unlike consonants, vowels “are produced in a smaller area of the vocal

How many vowels
tract – the palatal and velar regions” (Davenport and Hannahs 2010: 39). are there in your
To produce vowels, people use their tongue, lips, and jaw. As such, in own language?
2 4 P H O N E T I C S A N D P H O N O LO GY

describing and classifying the vowels, full consideration is given to these

three speech organs. It is worth noting that the most difficult task in
describing the vowels is to identify the position of the tongue as it changes
its position from one vowel to another without touching any place of articu-
lation (such as teeth, alveolar ridge, palate, velum, or glottis) discussed in
the previous section. With this in mind, in producing vowels, there will be
no obstruction to the air flow through the mouth. However, the position of
the lips and jaw will not cause a big problem as it can be identified by the
person without the aid of any instrument.
To begin with, let us try to pronounce these two vowels:

● /iː/ in ‘see’
● /ɒ/ in ‘watch’

Try to pronounce them slowly and then speed up. Now, can you identify
the position of (1) your tongue horizontally and vertically, (2) your lips,
and (3) your jaw?
Let us begin with the position of the jaw; it is characterized by
closeness in / iː/ and openness in /ɒ/ . What about the lips? Are they
rounded, relaxed/neutral, or spread? They are spread in /iː/ and rounded
in /ɒ/, as shown here:

/iː/ as in ‘he’, ‘we’, etc. /ɒ/ as in ‘water’, ‘watch’, etc.

Now, let us identify the position of the tongue. Horizontally, it is

front in /iː/and back in /ɒ/. Vertically, however, it is high in /iː/ and low
in /ɒ/.
Building on this, to distinguish one vowel from another, we need to pay
extra attention to:

(1) the horizontal position of the tongue (be it ‘front’, ‘centre’, or

‘back’);
(2) the vertical position of the tongue (be it ‘high’, ‘mid’, or ‘low’);
(3) the position of the lips (be it ‘rounded’ or ‘relaxed’, also called
‘neutral’, or ‘spread’);
(4) the position of the jaw (be it ‘close’, ‘mid’, or ‘open’).

Added to these positions, the length of the vowel (be it ‘short’ or ‘long’)
can be given serious consideration while describing vowels. The diffe-
rence between short and long vowels resides in length: long vowels are
given symbols written with (ː), as in / iː/ or / aː/ , while short vowels are
 P H O N E T I C S A N D P H O N O LO GY 2 5

given symbols without (ː) like /ɪ/ or / e/ (for more details, see Underhill Do you have this
1994: 5). Further, English vowels can be classified into two main complex system of
types: ‘monophthongs’ (also known as ‘pure vowels’) and ‘diphthongs’. vowels in your own
language?
The former phonetically refers to those vowels which remain constant and
do not glide, whereas the latter represents those which are composed of a
glide from one vowel to another one.

As one may observe, the vowels in the words ‘sit’, ‘speak’, ‘book’,
‘cup’, and ‘bed’ are examples of monophthongs (pure vowels). However,
the vowels in the words ‘may’, ‘kite’, ‘toy’, ‘near’, ‘dare’, ‘cure’, ‘cold’,
and ‘mouth’ are examples of diphthongs.
The question that may arise here is: Why is the letter ‘o’ in ‘dog’
considered a monophthong while it is a diphthong in ‘go’? This is because
the vowel phoneme in ‘go’ exhibits some changes where the tongue
What about the
moves from one position to another, thus showing a change in quality. two words ‘boat’
However, the vowel phoneme in ‘dog’ does not show changes in quality and ‘poet’? Do
as the tongue does not move from one position to another. By quality they have the
same vowel?
(more accurately ‘sound quality’), it is meant that vowels show consider-
able differences in three phonetic parameters: tongue shape, tongue pos-
ition, and lip position.
Building on this discussion, pure vowels can be classified according
to the horizontal position of the tongue into (1) front vowels, (2) central
vowels, and (3) back vowels. The following table shows vowels from
Standard Southern British English:

• front vowels
●high front /iː/ as in ‘seat’, ‘feat’, etc.
/ɪ/ as in ‘sit’, ‘fit’, etc.
●mid front /e/ as in ‘left’, ‘bed’, etc.
 2 6 P H O N E T I C S A N D P H O N O LO GY

●low front /æ/ as in ‘cap’, ‘bad’, etc.

• central vowels
●mid central /ə/ as in ‘the’, ‘teacher’, etc.
●low central /ʌ/ as in ‘cup’, ‘bus’, etc.
• back vowels
●high back /uː/ as in ‘food’, ‘rude’, etc.
/u/ as in ‘boot’, ‘pull’, etc.
/ʊ/ as in ‘good’, ‘push’, etc.
●mid back /ɔː/ as in ‘snore’, ‘law’, etc.
●low back /ɒ/ as in ‘dog’, ‘want’, etc.
/ɑː/ as in ‘far’, ‘car’, etc.

As regards the diphthongs in Southern Standard British English, they are

classified into eight vowels, as shown below:

(1) /ɪə/ as in ‘beer’, ‘fear’, ‘here’, ‘idea’, ‘beard’, etc.

Note that the word
‘moor’ has three (2) /ʊə/, as in ‘sure’, ‘moor’, ‘tour’, ‘obscure’, etc.
pronunciations: (3) /eə/, as in ‘there’, ‘where’, ‘chair’, ‘dare’, ‘stare’, etc.
/mɔ:/ UK, /mʊə/ UK, (4) / eɪ/ , as in ‘cake’, ‘make’, ‘take’, ‘say’, ‘pain’, ‘they’, ‘vein’, ‘vain’,
/mʊr/ US.
‘weight’, ‘wait’, ‘way’, etc.
(5) /ɔɪ/, as in ‘boy’, ‘toy’, ‘enjoy’, ‘voice’, ‘avoid’, etc.
(6) / aɪ/ as in ‘eye’, ‘tie’, ‘die’, ‘high’, ‘buy’, ‘bye’, ‘by’, ‘might’, ‘cry’,
‘shy’, ‘try’, etc.
(7) /əʊ/, as in ‘go’, ‘goal’, ‘snow’, ‘hello’, ‘although’, ‘home’, etc.
(8) /aʊ/, as in ‘house’, ‘loud’, ‘down’, ‘how’, ‘bough’, etc.

The best way to memorize them is to divide them into groups, as shown in
this diagram (after Roach 2009):
 P H O N E T I C S A N D P H O N O LO GY 27

The English-based creole of Papua New Guinea, Tok Pisin, takes most of its
words from English, but they are used in different domains and pronounced
quite differently. Unlike the lexifier language, i.e. English, Tok Pisin has a What is a ‘lexifier
limited number of vowels. It only has five vowels (/i/, /o/, /a/, /u/, and /e/). language’?
This results in a great number of examples of homophones, which are
words pronounced in a similar way. Examples of homophones in Tok Pisin
are the word ‘was’ resulting from ‘watch’ and ‘wash’, and ‘sip’ resulting
from ‘ship’ and ‘sheep’.
Further, sounds such as /θ/ , /ʃ/ , / d/ , and / f/ are conflated, as shown in
this table:

• from /θ/ to /t/ or /s/

thank tenk
teeth tit
something samting
mouth maus
• from /ʃ/ to /s/
show so
shop sop
wash was
ship sip
• from /d/ to /t/
blood blut
• from /f/ to /p/
finish pinis
flight pait
fly plai
afternoon apinun
enough inap

Further, the sound / r/ is not pronounced in many words, such as ‘wok’

meaning ‘work’, ‘woksop’ meaning ‘workshop’, ‘apinun’ meaning ‘after-
noon’, ‘bepo’ meaning ‘before’, and ‘moning’ meaning ‘morning’.

Connecting the dots: Phonological features and

translation

Phonologically speaking, each language has its own sounds and some
of these sounds are shared by many languages. However, these shared
sounds are in an arbitrary relationship with the meanings of the words
formed by those sounds, except for a limited number of words. As such,
there is no correspondence between any language pair at the phono-
logical level, and content therefore should be given priority at the