Vyacheslav B. KASHKIN

 

GRAMMAR AS A PROCESS:

Choice Factors in Teaching and Translation

 

 

 

ABSTRACT. The pragmatic task of foreign language teaching is not so much in studying static ‘rules’, but rather in learning how to act grammatically, correlating one’s own intentions with the receiver‘s possible interpretation, via a consensual domain of foreign language. Translation combines both tasks. Strategical guidelines in chosing and interpreting grammatical means are universal and symmetrical in both coding and decoding: textual, stylistic, situational, categorial and lexical background.

 

AIMS AND TASKS. We are aiming, first, at establishing the factors that determine the choice of grammatical means (in the process of coding and trans-coding the message). Our second aim is to evaluate these factors and to position them according to their rank in the hierarchy of more/less influential and more/less universal.

Our primary task was to study the correlations of choices displayed by different languages in similar situational types (e.g. <present perfect> vs. <simple past>; <indefinite article> vs. <definite article>; <indefinite article> vs. <zero article> etc.). Next, we wanted to see at what particular points of the contextual complex the choice is made.

METHOD AND SUBJECTS. We are basing on the assumption that grammar (and language as a whole) does not exist as a static object, it displays itself as a process of grammatical actions. Thus, it is more realistic to regard grammatical phenomena as event or performance patterns in which the seemingly random and arbitrary linguistic activity of language users assumes a certain shape.

We are focusing attention on the universal component in the patterns of grammatical events, namely, on the hierarchy of factors that determine the choice of grammatical means by the acting linguistic subject. Particular subject areas under consideration are the functional fields <present perfect> and <indefinite article> in several languages (both in overt and covert grammar).

PROCEDURES. We started with a contrastive analysis of a wide corpus of parallel translations from Russian (where the overt grammar does not have special grammatized forms for the discussed functional fields) into several languages with more or less wide functional potential of the grammatical forms under consideration.

Next, we analyzed the separate constituents of the contextual complex: the form (or its absence or substitution), its relevant context and its lexematic filling.

RESULTS. The acting linguistic subject (speaker, translator, student etc.), when trying to balance what he would like to express and what he would like his counterpart (hearer) to understand, has a menu of options (choice field) at his disposal. The factors of choice constitute a hierarchy of priority and universality, and are displayed within a language-specific contextual complex, correlating with a universal grammatical integral, which serves as a unit of correlating languages in translation and teaching.

 

GRAMMATICAL CHOICE FACTORS: more influential

 

 

 

e.g. for <present perfect

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1

TEXTUAL (STYLISTIC) BACKGROUND

Besprechung // Erzählung (H.Weinrich,1977 [1])

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2

GENERAL SITUATIONAL BACKGROUND

perfect // non-perfect situation (+ subtypes)

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3

CATEGORIAL BACKGROUND

paradigmatic menu; functional menu (see Sample)

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4

CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND

restrictions (adverbials, etc.)

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5

LEXICAL BACKGROUND

restrictions (verbal types, etc.)

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↓

more language-specific

 

 

 

SAMPLE OF CORPUS: (Turgenev) Vchera v'echerom ty ne vid'el moiei sem’i: polubuis’a//

Pol. Wczoraj wieczorem nie widziałes mojej rodziny, przypatrz się , podziwiaj// Hung. Tegnap este nem láttad a családomat: gyönyörködj//

Engl. Yesterday evening you did not see my family, now you can admire them// Sp. Anoche no viste a mi famiglia; aquí la tienes//

Germ. Gestern Abend hast du meine Familie nicht gesehen, nun schau sie dir einmal an// Fr. Voici ma petite famille, tu ne l’as pas vue hier soir// It.Tu non hai visto la mia famiglia hiersera, ebbene, guardala ora//

 

CONCLUSIONS. Re-coding the message in different languages does not change the underlying universal grammatical integral. The minimal functions are redistributed within the contextual complex (form or its absence + lexical filling + context). In choosing this or that grammatical means in particular languages a language user evaluates their appropriateness following the same universal strategic guidelines, though final choices depend upon the functional potential of the grammatical means in question in a particular language. The contextual complex seems to be a more appropriate unit to serve as a base for contrasting languages (in translation and in teaching).

REFERENCES:

1. Weinrich, Harald (1977). Tempus: Besprochene und Erzählte Welt. Stuttgart; and other publications of the same author.