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Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Palackého
Text Parameters in Translation
(Diplomová práce)
2012 Zdeňka Smutná
Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Palackého
Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Text Parameters in Translation
(Diplomová práce)
Autor: Zdeňka Smutná
Studijní obor: Anglická filologie
Vedoucí práce: Prof. PhDr. Jarmila Tárnyiková CSc.
Počet stran: 110
Počet znaků: 178737
Olomouc 2012
Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto diplomovou práci vypracovala samostatně a uvedla úplný
seznam citované a použité literatury.
V Havlíčkově Brodě dne 12.5.2012 Zdeňka Smutná
Děkuji vedoucí mé diplomové práce Prof. PhDr. Jarmile Tárnyikové CSc. za velmi
užitečnou metodickou pomoc a cenné rady a připomínky při zpracování diplomové
práce, také však za její trpělivost, inspiraci a diskuze nejen při vypracování této práce.
Paní profesorce dále děkuji za nabídku se tímto tématem zabývat a poskytnutí podkladů
a také za její cenné zkušenosti a rady, jež nám v průběhu celého studia předávala.
Moje díky rovněž patří rodině za podporu při studiu a tvorbu potřebného zázemí.
V Havlíčkově Brodě dne 12.5.2012 Zdeňka Smutná
ABSTRACT
The aim of this thesis is to examine parameters of textuality in a particular work of
fiction. Some of the parameters of textuality will be selected and examined thoroughly
in the paper. The selected standards of textuality will be examined in The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night Time written by Mark Haddon (2003). Its Czech
translation by Kateřina Novotná will serve as the basis for comparison. The book was
selected due to its unique narrative style. Therefore, the impact of the narrative style and
the character of the narrator on the analysis will also be taken into account when
analysing the text.
The analysis is hoped to reveal both similarities and differences between the two
languages - English and Czech. The main differences between English and Czech will
be examined and commented on. These findings will serve as the basis for formulating
the results.
KEY WORDS
Text, markedness, standards of textuality, cohesion, coherence, repetition.
ANOTACE
Cílem této práce je prozkoumat parametry textovosti v určitém literárním díle.
Některé z parametrů budou vybrány a detailně prozkoumány v této práci. Pozornost
bude věnována především kohezi a koherenci. Vybrané parametry budou pak rozebrány
v knize The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time napsané Markem Haddonem
(2003). Její český překlad od Kateřiny Novotné poslouží jako základ pro porovnávání.
Kniha byla vybrána na základě její příznakovosti a unikátního narativního stylu.
Z tohoto důvodu, dopad narativního stylu a povahy vypravěče na výskyt a důležitost
textových parametrů bude prozkoumán a okomentován.
Analýza, doufejme, odhalí jak shody, tak určité rozdíly mezi angličtinou a češtinou –
hlavní rozdíly mezi těmito jazyky pak budou zmíněny a okomentovány. Tato zjištění
pak budou sloužit jako základ pro analýzu.
KLÍČOVÁ SLOVA
Text, parametry textovosti, příznakovost, koherence, koheze, opakování.
CONTENT:
1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................... 1
2 TEXT LINGUISTICS .................................................................................. 4
2.1 What is “text”? ..................................................................................................5
2.1.1 Text types ....................................................................................................6
2.1.2 Text strategies .............................................................................................8
2.2 Standards of textuality.......................................................................................9
2.2.1 Cohesion....................................................................................................11
2.2.1.1 Reference ...........................................................................................13
2.2.1.1.1 Pronouns........................................................................................15
2.2.1.2 Consistent use of verbal voice ...........................................................16
2.2.1.3 Tense..................................................................................................18
2.2.1.4 Definiteness .......................................................................................19
2.2.1.5 Repetition...........................................................................................22
2.2.1.6 Synonymy ..........................................................................................23
2.2.2 Coherence..................................................................................................24
2.2.3 Intentionality .............................................................................................26
2.2.4 Acceptability .............................................................................................27
2.2.5 Informativity .............................................................................................28
2.2.6 Intertextuality ............................................................................................29
3 TOP-DOWN PROCEDURE: STANDARDS OF TEXTUALITY IN DATA
SAMPLES ...................................................................................................... 31
3.1 Background .....................................................................................................32
3.1.1 Text type....................................................................................................33
3.1.2 Text strategy..............................................................................................39
3.2 Cohesion..........................................................................................................42
3.2.1 Reference...................................................................................................45
3.2.1.1 Pronouns ............................................................................................47
3.2.2 Verbal Voice .............................................................................................53
3.2.3 Tense .........................................................................................................60
3.2.4 Definiteness...............................................................................................63
3.2.5 Repetition ..................................................................................................67
3.2.6 Synonymy .................................................................................................70
3.3 Coherence........................................................................................................73
3.4 Intentionality ...................................................................................................77
3.5 Acceptability ...................................................................................................79
3.6 Informativity ...................................................................................................83
3.7 Intertextuality ..................................................................................................87
4 CONCLUSION......................................................................................... 91
5 RESUMÉ................................................................................................. 94
6 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................... 96
7 APPENDICES ......................................................................................... 98
1
1 INTRODUCTION
The aim of this thesis is to examine parameters of textuality - as specified by de
Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) and their followers, such as M. Hoey (1996) - in a
particular work of fiction.
Therefore, the parameters - also known as standards - their definitions, and
functions will be examined and commented on.
However, only some of the text parameters will be selected and examined
thoroughly in the thesis. Particular attention will be paid to cohesion and coherence. It is
very important to stress that each text consists of all text parameters, however, only few
text parameters will be selected for the purpose of our analysis.
As some of the text parameters will be selected, they will be described and their
main characteristic features will be pointed out. Moreover, the frequency of particular
occurrences will be examined and mentioned in the analytical part.
Grammatical support for the theoretical part will be provided by many linguists,
such as Hoey (1996), Halliday and Hasan (1992), Crystal (1987), Tárnyiková (2002),
Dušková (2006), or Knittlová (2010). Paraphrase, quotation, and my own interpretation
will penetrate in the text.
Furthermore, the selected standards of textuality, based on definitions by
distinguished linguists, will be examined in a work of fiction, namely The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night Time written by Mark Haddon (2003). An acronym
CID will be used in this thesis to refer to the book. As the narrator claims, it is “a
murder mystery novel” (2003, 5) and it was selected intentionally due to its markedness.
Its Czech translation by Kateřina Novotná will serve as the basis for comparison. My
interview with Kateřina Novotná (for its transcription see Appendix 1) will be taken
into account when analysing the novel and its translation. The book was also selected
due to its unique narrative style. Therefore, the impact of the narrative style and the
character of the narrator on the analysis will also be a matter of analysis.
The book and its Czech translation will be introduced and several chapters will be
selected randomly to serve as the source text. Afterwards, the text will be examined
2
with regards to selected standards of textuality and individual patterns will be observed.
According to Tárnyiková “text theory cannot state what must happen all the time, but
rather what is likely to happen most of the time” (2002, 29). Therefore, the analysis will
play a very important role in this thesis in order to support the theoretical background.
The pieces of information will be examined in both English and Czech versions of
the book in parallel. Contrast of the two versions will be pointed out and the results will
be supported by Dušková (2006) and Knittlová (2010). Therefore, the thesis might be
considered a comparative analysis of text parameters from the point of view of their
occurrence in English and Czech versions of the same book. Particular attention will be
paid to differences between the two typologically remote languages. Standards of
textuality, such as informativity etc., which can be observed in both English and Czech
version of the book without a difference will only be analysed in the English text.
The following quotation was selected to support the analytical aim of this thesis,
comparison of a book with its Czech translation.
“The celebrated disaster of machine translation shows that a processor with only a
grammar and a dictionary can be constantly misled or entangled in alternative readings.
The processor simply couldn’t perform the problem-solving which discovers or imposes
connectivities upon language occurrences” (de Beaugrande 1981, 290). This implies that
it requires much more effort than just word-by-word translation to make a good foreign
language parallel to a source text, i.e. a book in our case. The major differences between
the two languages, and therefore possible difficulties for translators, will be highlighted,
described, and commented on.
As the issues will be examined in both versions of the text, examples illustrating it
will be generalized and a conclusion will be made.
The analysis is hoped to reveal both similarities and differences between the two
languages - English and Czech. The differences will be searched for on the basis of
standards of textuality.
Finally, the main differences between English and Czech will be examined and
commented on. These findings will serve as the basis for formulating the results.
3
The conclusion of the thesis will be based on our findings, supported by
arguments and many examples. A theoretical framework will be mostly provided by de
Beaugrande and Dressler (1981).
The results are hoped to enrich our knowledge about the processing scale ranging
from predictable text-formative prototypes to unique solutions.
The thesis will possibly be challenge for future cross language studies as it
requires very explicit analysis of English and Czech texts.
4
2 TEXT LINGUISTICS
To begin with, it is very important to provide an introduction to text linguistics as
such. Thereafter, the theoretical approaches to text must be mentioned and analysed.
The priority of this part of the thesis is to make readers familiar with the key concepts
and key definitions and use of terms that are most closely linked with text linguistics,
such as text, discourse, or standards of textuality.
In 1981, De Beagrande and Dressler claimed that “only ten years ago the notion
of “text linguistics” was familiar to few researchers, we can now look back on a
substantial expanse of work” (1981, 22). According to their assertion, it seems that in
1981, text linguistics attracted more attention than ever before. Although it seems that
linguists have been dealing with this issue recently, the term itself might not always be
unequivocal as nowadays, the term text linguistics seems not to be used very often – on
the contrary, it seems to be the term discourse analysis, which is used. For clarification
of the concept, van Dijkʼs characteristic was adopted. According to Teun van Dijk, text
linguistics designates any work in language science devoted to the text as the primary
object of inquiry (quoted by Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 22). As text will become
basis for our own analysis, the domain of text linguistics becomes crucial concept for
this thesis. This decision might also be a great challenge, as “it is much more
straightforward to decide what constitutes a grammatical or acceptable sentence than
what constitutes a grammatical or acceptable sentence sequence, paragraph, text, or
discourse (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 24).
As it is now clear that the main concept of this thesis is text, it is very important to
mention what text is. Many linguists focusing on different areas of study of language
often deal with the definition of text and other terms closely linked with it. The analysis
and description will be based on their theories and reflections. The theory will be
supported by the original ideas of several important linguists, such as de Beaugrande
and Dressler (1981), Tárnyiková (2002), or Halliday and Hasan (1989).
5
2.1 What is “text”?
As the title of the thesis indicates, mainly the study of text will help in
understanding the language. Let me try, now, to explain the notions of this term
endorsed by definitions of some other terms, such as sentence.
In general, it can be said, that a sentence is “the largest unit of syntactic
description” (Wekker and Haegeman 1996, 14). However, based on my observations,
sentence does not usually occur in isolation. On the contrary, sentences usually form a
larger organized unit, which might be called text. For better understanding, some
characteristics of text will be provided.
In this thesis, we shall mainly be concerned with description of text due to the
concept of the seven standards of textuality. Halliday and Hasan (1989, 13) characterize
text as “language that is functional”. This very simple definition, however, must be
supported by some characteristics of text to clearly understand the notion of text.
Several characteristics and ideas about text were selected for better understanding. It is
obvious that for many linguists text is characterized as:
- a communicative occurrence (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 11)
- longer stretches of discourse (Wekker and Haegeman 1996, 14)
- written communication/written interaction (van Dijk 1998, 3)
- it may be spoken (as are the vast majority) or it may be in writing (Quirk, 1997
1423)
- texts are realized in grammatical units (Quirk 1997, 1423)
- the quality of text is defined in terms of communicative functions the text
performs (Tarnyiková 2002, 21)
- text is a product (Halliday and Hasan 1989, 13)
- a stretch of language which seems appropriately coherent in actual use
(Tárnyiková 2002, 21)
- any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified
whole (Halliday 1976, 1)
- a unit of language in use (Halliday 1976, 1)
6
The above definitions imply that each linguist seems to define text slightly
differently. Nevertheless, it seems that the definitions are rather identical if it comes to
some particular characteristics of text. The notion of text as “a neatly woven texture”,
meaning sequences that are mutually interwoven, might be used to best summarize the
basic notion of text (quoted by Tárnyiková 2002, 21).
It is time to stress that this thesis will deal with both text and discourse. As these
two terms are very closely related, it might be necessary to explain the difference
between them and stress the reason why discourse will be taken into account in this
thesis as well as text. Therefore, for the sake of clarity, Virtanen’s observations will be
taken over to support this thesis and facilitate the explanation of the difference between
text and discourse. As Virtanen (1997, 3) says “it is obvious that for many linguists
discourse consists of text and its situational context; for others texts are primarily
written while discourse refers to spoken interaction; and for others still, only one of
these concepts is necessary to cover the field of their study”. It is clear that this topic
would require a more profound and interactional reading, however, for the sake of this
thesis, Virtanen’s observations will be satisfactory as it states the main difference and
leads to the decision that attention will be paid mainly to written mode, hence 'text'; but
also to peripheral excursions into spoken mode and discourse due to the presence of
passages simulating face-to-face communication (see (1)).
It should be emphasised that some definitions and descriptions might remain
rather incomplete as complete knowledge of the topic would require a more detailed and
profound treatment.
2.1.1 Text types
According to de Beaugrande and Dressler, text types are “global frameworks
controlling the range of options likely to be utilized” (1981, 141). This basic definition
might not be very useful when defining text types. However, it will prove to be very
useful and interesting when applying text types in the analytical part of this thesis.
Anyway, let us now examine text types and their classification.
“A text type is a distinctive configuration of relational dominances obtaining
between or among elements of: (1) the surface text; (2) the textual world; (3) stored
7
knowledge patterns; and (4) a situation of occurrence” (de Beaugrande and Dressler
1981, 197). The definition of a text type is clear, however, it might be more effective to
mention a classification of text types for better understanding.
De Beaugrande and Dressler mention several classifications within the framework
of linguistic typology and claims that “text typologies are forbiddingly vast and
subjective” (1981, 195). However, he comes to what Prof. Tárnyiková deals with as
traditional classification of text types highlighting functional lines. Following this
classification, text types could be classified as: argumentative texts, narrative texts,
descriptive texts, etc. (Tárnyiková 2002, 24). It might not be necessary to mention all
eight text types as these will not be defined and dealt with at all. However, it will be
important for this thesis to determine what text type The Curious Incident of the Dog in
the Night-Time is. This text type will be characterized and commented on later in this
thesis.
Prof. Tárnyiková also says that some texts are a mixture of many text types (2002,
24). What she claims is undoubtedly supported by de Beaugrande and Dressler who
mention that “description, narration, and argumentation will be found in various
combinations in the other text types” (1981, 199).
Therefore, it can be said that some texts, although within different text types, can
be very similar in some linguistic categories. This implies that assigning a text to a
particular text type might not always be easy and unequivocal. On the other hand, based
on my observations, I shall suggest that one might very often conclude what text type
particular text is due to his/her pragmatic knowledge. My observations also allow me to
claim that, put very simply, text types are texts with some typical patterns or
characteristics. This will, however, prove (or prove not to be true) later on in this thesis.
Although one may not provide clear borderlines between individual text types,
effort will be made to assign a particular text type to the novel by Mark Haddon, and
this text type will be defined and examined thoroughly in the analytical part of this
thesis. The influence of this text type on particular categories will be mentioned and
commented on.
8
2.1.2 Text strategies
The concept of text strategies is not very easy to define because many linguists
treat this term differently. Therefore Prof. Tárnyikováʼs classification was selected to
support the theoretical background dealing with text strategies due to its transparency
and clarity. It will be mentioned and followed in this thesis.
Prof. Tárnyiková links text strategies to “the reflection of the order of some
aspects of the world in the linear order of the text and the information arrangement, i.e.
whether we have old information first, crutial information first, crutial information
only, etc.” (2002, 26). According to her, there are four strategies: temporal, locative,
participant-oriented, and actional strategy (2002, 27-28). It might be very important to
define these strategies to be able to ascribe at least one of them to the novel by Mark
Haddon.
Temporal strategy is used in texts “through which there runs e.g. referential chain
of chronologically ordered adverbials of time and/or temporal adverbial clauses”
(Tárnyiková 2002, 27).
Locative strategy is “typically realised by a chain of adverbials of place, locative
adverbial clauses and/or other locative expressions, e.g. locative post-modifiers”
(Tárnyiková 2002, 28).
Participant-oriented strategy is “typical of narratives in general: a sequence of
events is associated with one (very often the central) character, who is the potential
agent in those events. Hence the repeated references to such a character” (Tárnyiková
2002, 28). As for the above definition, it can be assumed that it will be the major
strategy used in CID. This assumption will be proved/disproved in the analytical part of
this thesis.
Actional strategy is the strategy in which “a sequence of rapid actions dominates
the textual world, the participants are as it were back-grounded (because situationally
well defined) and foregrounded are rapid changes of actions” (Tárnyiková 2002, 28).
It is clear that the central aspects of these strategies are the elements they focus
on, namely time, place, character, or action. Therefore, it might not be very difficult to
ascribe particular text strategy to a text due to the presence of the previously mentioned
9
aspects. On the other hand, it might not always be unequivocal to determine only one
aspect as more of them might be present in a text – in this case, the most dominant one
must be selected.
It is obvious that all the above mentioned terms and their concepts are very
closely interconnected and another proof of such dependence and connection might be
just the term standard of textuality. It is obvious that one needs to understand the term
text to be able to examine its aspects in more detail. The term standard of textuality will
be dealt with in the following, individual, chapter as it is the most important term and it
must be defined and commented on thoroughly. Individual chapters will consequently
be dedicated to several particular standards of textuality.
2.2 Standards of textuality
Before anything else, we shall outline the terms that are used to refer to the
concept of standards of textuality. The term refers to individual standards which will be
examined later in this chapter, however, there are several terms used to refer to the same
concept, namely: standards of textuality, parameters of textuality, and text parameters.
We shall call these simply standards, or parameters in this thesis in order to avoid
repetition. However, it is important to know that the above mentioned terms all refer to
the same concept.
In our everyday communication, we use texts in different situations. However, as
linguists might point out, one may find some shared features that the texts must fulfil to
be considered texts. The number of parameters that individual linguists might use to
define text differs a lot. One particular definition was selected to serve the purpose of
this thesis. According to de Beaugrande and Dressler (1981, 11) “a text will be defined
as communicative occurrence which meets seven standards of textuality. If any of these
standards is not considered to have been satisfied, the text will not be communicative”.
It might be important to mention that de Beaugrande treats non-communicative texts as
non-texts. Therefore, the concept of the seven standards of textuality might be
considered an essential and inseparable part of each text.
10
We shall outline the standards easily by mentioning and briefly defining each of
them and then, individual chapters will be devoted to particular text parameters and
specific pieces of information will be dealt with thoroughly for better understanding of
the consequent analysis. Following is a survey of standards of textuality as defined by
de Beaugrande and Dressler (1981).
The first standard is called cohesion and it “concerns the way in which the
components of the surface text [...] are mutually connected within a sequence” (de
Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 11).
The second standard of textuality is called coherence and it might be briefly
defined as a parameter which “concerns the way in which the components of the textual
world, i.e., the configuration of concepts and relations which underlie the surface text,
are mutually accessible and relevant” (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 12).
The third standard is intentionality, which is described by de Beaugrande as a
parameter “concerning the text producer´s attitude that the set of occurrences should
constitute a cohesive and coherent text instrumental in fulfilling the producer´s
intentions, e.g. to distribute knowledge or to attain a goal specified in a plan” (1981,
14).
The following parameter is called acceptability and it concerns “the text receiver´s
attitude that the set of occurrences should constitute a cohesive and coherent text having
some use and relevance for the receiver, e.g. to acquire knowledge [...]” (de Beaugrande
and Dressler 1981, 15).
The fifth standard is informativity and it deals with “the extent to which the
occurrences of the presented text are expected vs. unexpected or known vs.
unknown/certain” (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 16).
The penultimate standard is called situationality and it “concerns the factors
which make a text relevant to a situation of occurrence” (de Beaugrande and Dressler
1981, 16).
The last standard, intertextuality, deals with “the factors which make the
utilization of one text dependent upon knowledge of one or more previously
encountered texts (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 17).
11
We have dwelt rather long on de Beaugrande´s definitions of the seven standards
of textuality. However, the above mentioned definitions are not explained and
characterized sufficiently to support the analysis adequately. Therefore, it is time to
stress individual standards and examine them more thoroughly.
2.2.1 Cohesion
In order to balance the theoretical and analytical part of the paper, particular
attention will be paid to cohesion, especially to particular terms, and devices, which will
be consequently examined in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time –
hereafter referred to as CID – and its Czech translation.
To be able to examine cohesion in the text, it must be defined, and particular
definitions and characteristics pointed out to support the analysis. It might also be
important to mention that cohesion is a very extensive topic and that only individual
concepts will be dealt with in this thesis. As individual linguists define cohesion, and
particular devices referring to it, very differently and the survey would require much
more detailed examination, only several definitions will be selected and applied in the
analysis. The whole analysis will be dealt with in a similar way – particular pieces of
information being selected, defined, and analysed.
The part played by cohesion in texts will become clearer if we continue to explain
its use and define it properly. It is now time to stress the major definition of cohesion.
However, it must be said that there is not only one definition of cohesion - see below.
As mentioned in 2.2, cohesion “concerns the way in which the components of the
surface text, i.e. the actual words we hear or see, are mutually connected within a
sequence” (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 11).
“Cohesion may be crudely defined as the way certain words or grammatical
features of a sentence can connect that sentence to its predecessors (and successors) in a
text” (Hoey 1991, 3). For definition of sentence and its relation to text see 2.1.
De Beaugrande and Hoey’s definitions of cohesion might be sufficient for basic
understanding the concept cohesion. However, for the goal of our thesis, cohesion will
12
be examined in detail as it comprises many important components of our future
analysis.
According to Hoey, “a text is in part organized, in part created, by the presence in
each sentence of these elements that require the reader to look to the surrounding
sentences for their interpretation” (1991, 4).
Another definitions of the elements mentioned by Hoey will confirm what has
been said here of the basic notion of cohesion.
Halliday and Hasan (1976, 4) associate text organization with the term cohesive
ties. According to them, there might be one, or more cohesive ties present in a sentence.
They claim that “the concept of a tie makes it possible to analyse a text in terms of its
cohesive properties, and give a systematic account of its pattern of texture.” They divide
the cohesive ties into 5 classes. The classes are: reference, substitution, ellipsis,
conjunction, and lexical cohesion (1976, 4). Each of these classes includes sub-classes
which enables us to examine the whole range of cohesion. Some particular classes and
sub-classes will be dealt with later on in this chapter.
Due to the fact that Hoey does not agree with some elements that Halliday and
Hasan concentrate on within their description of cohesive ties and due to the fact that
their division of cohesive ties is rather complex, their classification will not be used as a
background to cohesion in this thesis. Hoey’s remarks might be pointed out and his
definitions might be used to deepen Halliday and Hasan’s definition of individual
cohesive ties and their sub-classes. However, the basic classification of cohesion that
will support this chapter will be that used by Tárnyiková (2002). She offers a simpler
classification mentioning three levels: lexical, grammatical, and lexico-grammatical
cohesion. Particular effort will be made to analyse all three levels.
To put it simply, some concepts will be selected and defined in the following
chapters. Special attention will be paid to concepts mentioned by all Tarnyiková,
Halliday and Hasan, and Hoey. It is obvious that not all concepts might be mentioned,
therefore, a rather random selection will be made.
From this point on, attention will be paid to particular cohesive ties defined by
Halliday and Hasan, Tárnyiková, Hoey, and other linguists. Cohesive ties and other
13
concepts which will not be analysed in CID will not be commented on in this part of
thesis either.
2.2.1.1 Reference
To begin with, the basic concept must be examined to understand the notion of
reference. Hoey claims that reference “is a semantic relation and occurs whenever an
item indicates that the identity of what is being talked about can be retrieved from the
immediate context” (Hoey 1991, 5).
The following illustration by Halliday and Hasan (1976, 33) was selected to
understand the sub-classes of reference.
Fig. 1
REFERENCE
EXOPHORA ENDOPHORA
ANAPHORA CATAPHORA
Halliday and Hasan (1976, 33) use this illustration and explain the terms
exophora, endophora, etc. using expressions referring to it, namely:
Fig. 2
exophora → situational reference
endophora → textual reference
anaphora → reference to preceding text
cataphora → reference to following text
They also support the illustration with definitions of these types of references (see
Halliday and Hasan 1976, 33).
14
Tárnyiková (2002, 31) clarifies exophoric reference by claiming that “with
exophoric reference, the interpretation lies on the referent outside the text, in the context of
situation. Thus, for example in Look at that (pointing to the sun), the identification of the
referent outside the text is dependent on the non-verbal communication, i.e. on the gesture of
pointing to the sun, so that the referent word that can be identified with the appropriate referent
– and interpreted as the sun” (Tárnyiková 2002, 31).
My observations supported by Tárnyiková’s definition led to the conclusion that
the following instance selected from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
might be a very good and demonstrative example of exophoric reference.
(1)“And he said, ʽIn there,ʼ and he pointed and there was a big room with a
glass window on the other side of the train station door, and then he said, ʽNow,
are you sure you know what you’re doing?ʼ“ (Haddon 2003, 188)
The instance is supported by the character’s explanation of the situation and
additional comments – and he pointed [...] – which enables the reader understand and,
most importantly, imagine the situation. Therefore, one identifies the referent as ʽa big
room with a glass windowʼ.
Let us now move to the other type of reference, endophoric reference, which can
be further divided into anaphoric and cataphoric reference.
According to Tárnyiková, “with endophoric reference, the clue to the
interpretation lies within the text” (2002, 31). As it now comes to the location of the
referent in relation to referential words, the terms anaphora and cataphora must be
explained.
Tárnyiková claims that in case of anaphoric reference, one has to look backwards
in the text to identify the referent. On the other hand, in case of cataphoric reference,
one has to look forwards in the text to identify the referent (2002, 32).
The above definition of both types of endophoric reference is brief, however, clear
and appropriate. Some examples might help us understand these types of reference and
their location. The following instances were selected from CID. These and many other
examples will be analysed and commented on in the analytical part of this thesis in
greater detail.
(2)I went through Mrs Shearsʼ gate, closing it behind me. (2003, 7)
15
It is obvious that the above instance illustrates anaphoric reference as one has to
look backwards in the text for the referent.
Another instance was selected to illustrate cataphoric reference. In the following
extract, one has to look forwards in the text to identify the referent.
(3)I stroked Wellington and wondered who had killed him, and why. My name is
Christopher John Francis Boone. (2003, 1-2)
As it is now clear that a text is very often shaped in a context of reference and this
also influences the final product, longer stretches of texts will be examined in the
analytical part of this thesis and examined in detail to support the above mentioned
definitions.
“What is essential to every instance of reference whether endophoric (textual) or
exophoric (situational) is that there is a presupposition that must be satisfied; the thing
referred to has to be identifiable somehow” (Halliday and Hasan 1976, 33). The
identification of referents will be dealt with in the analysis of standards of textuality in
the analytical part of this thesis.
As it is generally known, reference mainly rests on the use of/substitution by
pronouns. Therefore, in the following sub-chapter, pronouns will be listed with special
focus on personal and possessive pronouns.
2.2.1.1.1 Pronouns
As English pronouns are very close to the category of reference, as mentioned
above, they will be briefly introduced below and some of them consequently analysed
in the analytical part of this thesis.
According to Quirk (1997, 345), pronouns comprise “a varied class of closed-
class words with nominal function”. To illustrate subclasses of pronouns, Quirkʼs
(1997, 345) categorisation was used.
16
Fig. 3
For the purpose of our thesis, frequency of personal pronouns occurring in the text
and possessive pronouns will be examined due to characteristics of the typologically
remote languages, English and Czech. The difference might be obvious when analysing
personal and possessive pronouns. Attention will be paid only to central determiners, as
classified by Quirk (1997, 361).
It is generally known that English possessive pronouns are very often over-used,
especially in comparison to Czech language. For this reason, possessive pronouns, next
to personal and reflexive, will be examined to verify this claim and to examine the
translator’s strategy when dealing with them.
In the following sub-chapter we shall be discussing another type of cohesive
relation.
2.2.1.2 Consistent use of verbal voice
This category, focusing on grammatical level of cohesion, was selected
intentionally. The reason for its selection is clear in case one has the possibility to
examine this category in both English and Czech texts. It is generally known that the
active voice is used in dynamic texts, stressing the actions. The aim of the analysis is to
find out whether the active voice is used consistently in the CID or not. Passive voice
and its translation into Czech will also be examined even if not used consistently in the
thesis. The concept of passive voice was selected to support the cross-linguistic study,
17
i.e. dissimilarity of its usage in English and Czech texts. It might be very interesting to
examine this element in CID and its Czech translation.
It must also be said that there is a category called semi-passive (or medio-
passive), which are verb-like in having active analogues, such as in (4) (Quirk 1997,
168).
(4)The results encourage us to go on with the project.
(5)Linguistics interested Leonard. (Quirk 1997, 168)
Semi-passive will only be taken into account if occurring frequently in the
analysed text.
As “the consistent use of the same verbal voice seems to have a multiple textual
role of cohesive links and contribution to the information structure of the text”
(Tárnyiková 2002, 36), the aim of the analysis will be to examine the use of both, active
and passive, voice and its distribution within the text. The frequency of usage of both
voices will be commented on.
In the texts, in which one wants to suppress the agent/s due to the fact that it is
e.g. generally known, or, on the other hand, unknown, or in case we want to stress
'events' rather than 'actors', we use the passive voice. This might contribute to
depersonalization of the text (Tárnyiková 2002, 36). The agent might very often be
back-grounded deliberately. Therefore, it is now obvious that selection of voice is a
rather intentional process with a clear result.
(6)And I said a white lie because I knew that Father didn’t want me to be a
detective. (2003, 62)
(7)But mother was cremated. This means that she was put into a coffin and burnt
and ground up and turned into ash and smoke. (2003, 43)
The above instances were selected to illustrate verbal voice – both active and
passive. The first instance was selected due to the active forms of all verbal groups. The
verbal groups were underlined for better orientation. The second instance illustrates
passive voice due to the presence of a form of 'be' and a lexical verb in the passive
participle form. The agent is not mentioned as it might seem to be redundant to
introduce the agent into the textual world.
18
However, as verbal voice is highly cohesive and forms chains, it is necessary to
examine a longer stretch of text to identify which voice is used consistently in the text.
The difference between English and Czech verbal groups and the presence/absence of
passive voice and its effect will be highlighted. Dušková (2006) and Knittlováʼs (2010)
observations will be used to support the parallel. Therefore, a more collaborate analysis
will be shown.
2.2.1.3 Tense
To begin with, one might say that the English tense system is very complex. For
this reason, it might be interesting to examine the differences between instances
illustrating English tense system and their Czech translations. This will be stressed in
the analysis.
According to Halliday and Hasan, one of the two basic rules applying to English
tense system is that “there is a choice of past, present and future” (1976, 186). However,
it is generally known that each of these tenses is accompanied by some aspects, and this
is what makes the English tense system complex.
However, as we are concentrating on cohesion, it might be said that the tense
system helps us sharpen the text in the context of time. According to Tárnyiková “most
texts have consistent temporal perspective” (2002, 35). She supports this claim by
mentioning some aspects that might be observed in a text to help us examine the
temporal layers, such as temporal adverbials or conjunctions, and by saying that “the
consistent use of identical tense (e.g. past tense in narration), signalled by verb forms –
and very often supported by the co-occurrence of compatible temporal adverbs, creates
a very strong cohesive network” (Tárnyiková 2002, 36). Therefore, it is obvious that a
longer stretch of text must be analysed to observe its temporal layers.
According to Dušková (2006, 214), English tense system expresses temporal
categorization of the plot. It concerns the narrator’s point of view or the temporal layers
and their interrelation. However, the translation of this category might not be as easy as
it seems. Knittlováʼs observations will be mentioned to highlight the difficulties
concerning tense system of English language.
19
Knittlová (2010, 122) claims that the English tense system might not always be
very easy to translate due to absence of the same category in Czech. Therefore, it is
necessary for the translator to understand the English tense system and in case of
absence of Czech equivalent, he/she ought to substitute this category by some other
means. Thus, it is necessary to examine the text to identify the way the translator deals
with such problems.
Considering the above characteristics, it might not only be important to examine
the verb forms, but it will also be necessary to examine the temporal conjunctions, or
adverbials.
Tárnyiková (2002, 35) claims that “a text can be modeled within the same
temporal perspective or have different temporal perspectives.” Thereafter, the analysis
will also be dealing with the consistency of tense in the CID.
To sum up, the identical use of tense ought to be preserved as it supports cohesion
of the whole text. Verb forms and other signals of English tense system will be
examined and difficulties will be mentioned and dealt with in the analytical part of this
thesis.
2.2.1.4 Definiteness
It is generally known that this category supports the linguistic or situational
context as it contributes to the information packaging of the text.
Despite the fact that definiteness might also be indicated by demonstratives and
other means, attention will only be paid to determiners, particularly to definite and
indefinite articles in order to do an elaborate research and in order not to be confusing
and overly detailed.
The most common determiners are certainly articles – definite and indefinite. The
following table by Quirk (1997, 253) illustrates the distribution of articles in English.
20
Fig. 4
COUNT UNCOUNT
SINGULAR definite
indefinite
the book
a book
the furniture
furniture
PLURAL definite
indefinite
the books
books
It is obvious from the above table that the definite article might precede all
singular and plural, and countable and uncountable nouns. On the other hand, the
indefinite article might only precede singular, countable nouns. It is a widespread rule
that every single countable noun must be preceded by an article in English. Therefore,
one may deduce that articles are very often used in English. For this reason and for the
fact that the category of definiteness is missing in Czech, it will be very interesting to
observe the distribution of articles in the English text and its translation into Czech. The
analysis will rely on Dušková and other linguistsʼ observations.
Definiteness is a grammatical category which considerably contributes to
cohesion. However, not the whole concept of definiteness will be dealt with in this
thesis. As for the basic categorization, articles might represent either generic or specific
reference. To illustrate the difference between these two types of reference, Duškováʼs
(2006, 62) instances will be used:
(8)A doctor has great responsibility. (Generic reference)
(9)What did the doctor prescribe? (Specific reference)
To highlight the importance of text linguistics, particularly the role of context in a
text, specific reference will be focused on when analysing articles in this thesis. What
might also be a determining factor when making such decision is the fact that the use of
articles, particularly use of the indefinite article, is very often restricted in a generic
context (Dušková 2002, 63). Therefore, articles specified by context and situation might
be examined before anything else.
As articles function as determiners, and there is no such category as articles in
Czech, it might be interesting to observe the translator’s effort when dealing with
articles.
21
As for their use, indefinite articles are perceived as “instructions to activate new
spaces rather than the already activated ones” (Tárnyiková 2002, 38). On the other hand,
definite articles denote “co-reference with the whole preceding macro-proposition”
(Tárnyiková 2002, 38).
Due to the fact that definiteness is an important grammatical category in English
and that it is very well-known, it does not need very detailed introduction. What might
be much more interesting is the analysis of the text and consequent examination of the
parallel Czech text. This will be dealt with in the analytical part of this thesis.
As it were means of grammatical cohesion dealt with up to now, it is time to focus
on lexicology. Let us now pay some attention to means of lexical cohesion to balance
the theoretical framework of cohesion.
Linguists focusing on lexical cohesion might find it important to stress some
concepts, such as repetition (Hoey, 1991), synonymy, etc.
Among the lexical cohesion, categories defined by Halliday and Hasan (1984)
require a brief mention. Consequently, several concepts will be selected, defined, and
analysed.
Tárnyiková (2002, 44) summarized Halliday and Hasan’s categorization of lexical
cohesion as follows:
Fig. 5
General: repetition
synonymy
antonymy
hyponymy
meronymy
Instantial: equivalence
naming
semblance
22
The above division might serve as an outline of the key concepts. However, as the
reasons might be partly predictable, only several concepts will be selected and defined
to meet the aim of this thesis, however, not to make the analysis overly detailed. The
concepts will be introduced in the following sub-chapters.
2.2.1.5 Repetition
To begin with, it might be necessary to mention that repetition might be one of the
key concepts of the thesis as it seems to occur very frequently in CID due to the
character of the narrator.
To understand the notion of repetition and specify what can be labelled as
repetition in the analytical part of this thesis, Hoeyʼs classification will be mentioned.
Firstly, simple lexical repetition must be defined. It occurs when “a lexical item
that has already occurred in a text is repeated with no greater alteration than is entirely
explicable in terms of a closed grammatical paradigm” (Hoey 1991, 53). It is obvious
that such repetition only allows alterations such as those within singular or plural
paradigm; however, it does not allow formal differences or grammatical functions.
Tárnyiková (2002, 46) examines repetition of lexical items from another point of
view – concerning its dynamics and scale of reference and claims that it can be divided
into total and partial repetition, giving the following examples to illustrate these
categories.
(10) The Prime Minister recorded her thanks to the Foreign Secretary.
The Prime Minister was most eloquent.
(11) “There it is. The white letter box,” said Alison. Had it not been for the
letter box, the entrance could have easily been missed.
It is obvious that the former instance illustrates what Tarnyiková calls total
repetition and the latter instance illustrates partial repetition, with one word being
omitted. Both aspects will be examined in the analytical part of this thesis.
Moreover, Hoey defines complex lexical repetition as a concept which occurs
when “two lexical items share a lexical morpheme, but are not formally identical” or
23
when “they are formally identical, but have different grammatical functions” (Hoey
1991, 55). As for complex lexical repetition, it seems that it concerns e.g. parts of
speech. It seems that this type of repetition deals with what Tárnyiková (2002, 39) calls
recurrence, therefore “a supportive technique of how to avoid a monotonous repetition
of lexical items.” She gives the following example of recurrence: the adjective
separated echoed by the noun separation, or the verb to separate. This type of
repetition will be taken into account when analysing CID.
As the most important part of this chapter was already mentioned, recursiveness
remains to be mentioned in order to make the analysis more complex and diverse due to
the fact that repetition might be a very frequent element in CID.
Tárnyiková (2002, 40) quotes Crystal who defines recursiveness as a term used
“to refer to RULES which are capable of repeated application in generating a
SENTENCE.” Tárnyiková gives example of recursiveness as e.g. sequence of object
clauses. This concept will also be examined in the practical part.
To sum up, simple repetition will be analyzed in the analytical part of this thesis
with emphasis on both totally and partially repeated structures. Moreover, complex
repetition will be analysed and examples will be pointed out. Lastly, recursiveness will
be examined in CID and its Czech translation to find out whether whole structures are
also repeated.
2.2.1.6 Synonymy
The term 'synonymy' and its meaning is generally known and the basic definition
of synonymy is very simple, viz. “the relationship of ʽsamenessʼ of meaning” (Crystal
1987, 105).
However, what might not be so widespread is the fact that “lexemes rarely (if
ever) have exactly the same meaning. There are usually stylistic, regional, emotional, or
other differences to consider. And context must be taken into account” (Crystal 1987,
105). The following claim might not also be the first one to come to one’s mind when
dealing with synonymy: “Two lexemes might be synonymous in one sentence but
different in another: range and selection are synonyms in: What a nice --- of
24
furnishings, but not in Thereʼs the mountain ---.” (Crystal 1987, 105). These two
specifications might make synonymy worth analysing as the results and their
comparison to Czech parallel might be very interesting.
Synonymy is a constituent of lexical cohesion, as defined by Halliday and Hasan
(1976, 318) and therefore is very important as a component of the text that is connected
within the sequence. For this reason, it might be very interesting to examine synonymy
and the way it emerges in CID. Due to the fact that the text is rather extraordinary and
the narrator is usually very precise when defining things, one may suppose that
synonymy will not be very frequent in the examined text. On the other hand, it might be
inferred that repetition will be one of the most frequent lexical component in the text.
As for cohesive devices which are frequently applied in texts, all the above
mentioned elements are expressed explicitly in the text. Therefore, they importantly
contribute to connectedness of text. However, it must be pointed out that next to explicit
devices such as synonymy, there are also many implicit devices, e.g. ellipsis. Such
devices rest on lexical and grammatical ellipsis, whereas lexical ellipsis might be
inferred from context and grammatical ellipsis depends on one’s knowledge of
grammar. It would be very interesting to examine such devices in text - this suggestion
might possibly be challenge for future language studies.
So far, cohesion was examined. Let us now concentrate on some other standards
of textuality, such as coherence.
2.2.2 Coherence
“Coherence is primarily the feature of an underlying structure of the text and is
usually characterised as the underlying logical/semantic connectedness of the text units,
based on such concepts and relations as cause-and-effect, sequencing of events into
identical temporal frames, logical deduction, entailment, prediction, etc.” (Tárnyiková
2002, 55).
According to Tárnyiková, “a text need not always be cohesive but must be
coherent” (2002, 55).
25
To put it simply, the text must be logical and make sense. De Beaugrande and
Dressler (1981, 84) claim that “many expressions have several virtual meanings, but
under normal conditions, only one sense in a text.” This statement expresses the nature
of coherence perfectly. Therefore, the intended sense must be clear if conveying a
message.
“It is not texts that have coherence but rather speakers/hearers who ascribe
meaning, force and coherence to a text” (Tárnyiková 2002, 56). This definition implies
that it is not only the text that is necessary for understanding the message; it is also our
knowledge, and experience.
The effect of this sub-chapter rests on knowledge of some terms, such as frame,
plan, and script.
De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981, 163) claims that “knowledge can be viewed
as an ARRAY in which elements are ARRANGED such that access of potentially
relevant elements is provided.” He calls this perspective frame. He gives example of a
'house'-frame, including e.g. parts that houses have, for better understanding.
Tárnyiková makes it easier for learners and claims that frames are “global patterns
of concepts that belong together”. She also gives an example of a restaurant scene and
claims that the writer does not have to mention the fact that there are chairs in the
restaurant, and that one usually orders, eats, and pays for his food (2002, 58). This
example implies that frame often rests on reader’s knowledge and previous experience.
Another term will confirm what has been said here of the importance of
coherence.
Schema is “a PROGRESSION in which elements OCCUR during actualization”
(de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 164). To be more specific, schemas are “ordered
sequences of events and states (usually linked by time proximity or causality)”
(Tárnyiková 2002, 59). This concept will become clearer as soon as it is examined and
analysed. Several extracts from Mark Haddonʼs novel will be copied and its schema
will be pointed out and commented on.
Script in which “elements are INSTRUCTIONS to PARTICIPANTS about what
they should say or do in their respective ROLES” (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981,
164) might also be examined in some particular situations, such as restaurant.
26
The above mentioned terms will become clearer in the analytical part of this
paper. The term plan and some other important terms closely related to cohesion will be
explained in the following chapter dealing with intentionality.
2.2.3 Intentionality
This standard of textuality concerns “the text producer’s attitude that the set of
occurrences should constitute a cohesive and coherent text instrumental in fulfilling the
producerʼs intention, e.g. to distribute knowledge or to attain a goal specified in a plan”
(de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 14). To highlight this claim, the terms goal and plan
must be explained. It will become clear that the terms are very closely interconnected.
As de Beaugrande and Dressler (1981, 43) claim, “the producer has the intention
of pursuing some goal via the text, e.g. distributing knowledge or obtaining compliance
with a plan”.
As for goals, one may recall conversations directed by goals, e.g. persuading
people. For this reason, discourse will be examined to confirm or disprove the goals of
face-to-face communication as it can be assumed that each conversation will have its
own major goal. Furthermore, the story as a whole must be analysed to examine the text
producer’s goal, although these might not be so clear. The contrast will be highlighted
between individual characters’ goals and the text producer’s goal. Based on my
observations, it might be said that the characters’ goals depend on the producer’s goal as
without fulfilling the producer’s goals, the text might not be clear – and therefore the
characters and their goals could be misunderstood.
It will also be examined whether all intentions are fulfilled as in case a problem is
reached and the text receiver is not able to understand the text or its message any more,
the reader might try to progress toward the goal unsuccessfully.
Considering the previously mentioned characteristics and definitions, it might be
assumed that the text production was the author’s basic goal. Therefore, the language
structure was intended to be a text. Another very important goal might be the following,
supporting our previous claim.
27
De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981, 14) claim that “to some degree, cohesion and
coherence could themselves be regarded as operational goals without whose attainment
other discourse goals may be blocked.” Some other goals will be examined and
commented on in the analytical part of the thesis.
As for plans, they “are global patterns of events and states leading up to an
intended goal” (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 89). Plan might, thus, be understood
as a sequence of actions taken intentionally in order to reach a goal. Therefore, it will
become very important in this thesis to distinguish plans from goals.
Tárnyiková (2002, 59) claims that “knowledge of the global patterns, schemata,
plans, etc. enables us to understand why even less cohesive text can be accepted by the
reader as a coherent piece of information; i.e. the reader can associate the events
described in the text with some “scenarios” he knows from his life experience.” It will
probably not be the case of our text that it is less cohesive; however, some situations
will be examined and compared to our life experience. Markedness of the text might
make these concepts even more interesting as the narrator, Christopher, perceives many
things very differently.
2.2.4 Acceptability
This standard of textuality concerns “the text receiver’s attitude that the set of
occurrences should constitute a cohesive and coherent text having some use or
relevance for the receiver, e.g. to acquire knowledge or provide co-operation in a plan”
(de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 15).
Thus, it is obvious that this standard of textuality concerns not only the text
producer’s effort, but also the text receiver’s contribution to encoding the message. In
this case, markedness of the text becomes very important again as the content might
very often influence the form.
Tárnyiková (2002, 66) claims that “a language configuration must be intended to
be a text, and accepted as such.” She also claims that “very often it is the case that
acceptability depends on the context of situation, which functions as a supportive means
in text-processing” (2002, 67). Thereafter, it might very often depend on the reader’s
28
willingness and ability to accept a text as such. This standard probably enables the
reader to understand a text that might not be fully coherent, or grammatically correct.
Tárnyiková (2002, 67) highlights this standpoint by saying that we simply believe that
the text producer wanted to convey something and we tolerate and accept his message
even if not fully coherent and cohesive. Based on my observations, one may also very
often rely on his knowledge of similar texts, so called intertextuality, or one may be able
to infer the meaning the producer wanted to convey. The whole concept of acceptability
might therefore seem to require some cooperation between the text producer and its
receiver. This might be supported by the following claim.
“Text producers often speculate on the receiverʼs attitude of acceptability and
present texts that require important contributions in order to make sense” (de
Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 15).
This standard of textuality might seem more important for the purpose of this
thesis than some other standards due to the fact that markedness of the text might
influence the form, which might not be expected.
In the analytical part of this thesis, attention will be paid to text samples which
might not match our expectations, however, which will be acceptable.
2.2.5 Informativity
“Informativity is above all a notion applied to the content of the text, its semantic
load and the way it can be recovered” (Tárnyikova 2002, 71). Tárnyiková also claims
that informativity concerns the extent to which the text event is known vs. unknown, or
predictable vs. unpredictable (2002, 71). It is generally known that with some texts, the
degree of information density is higher and with some other text types, it is very low,
e.g. phatic communication (for more detail see Tárnyiková 2002, 72). In this thesis, we
will only be concerned with CID. To understand the term better, some other
characteristics were selected to support Tárnyikováʼs definition.
“The term INFORMATION can be taken to designate not the knowledge that
provides the content of communication, but rather the aspect of newness or variability
that knowledge has in some context” (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 103).
29
“If the actualization of a text system is constituted by a configuration of
OCCURENCES, then the INFORMATIVITY of a particular occurrence is its relative
PROBABILITY (likelihood and predictability) as compared to other
ALTERNATIVES. The lower the probability of the occurrence, the higher the
informativity” (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981, 103).
This standard of textuality will be examined in both the text as such, and in
relation to the narrator and other participants.
2.2.6 Intertextuality
Intertextuality is, most basically, the “factor which makes the utilization of one
text dependent upon knowledge of one or more previously encountered texts” (de
Beaugrande and Dressler 1981 17).
De Beaugrande and Dressler claim that it is especially prominent in some text
types, such as parodies, and critical reviews (1981 17). What he means is most probably
the fact that the text receivers will need, more than any other time, some familiarity with
the original texts to understand the parody.
My observations are supported by the framework provided by Prof. Tárnyiková
and other linguists and it allows me to briefly summarize intertextuality as a device
which relies on reader´s knowledge of other texts.
Tárnyiková perceives intertextuality in two ways: “first, as our previous
experience with other texts of a similar kind; second, as the way in which one text
echoes or refers to another text” (2002, 69).
Evidently, the concept of intertextuality is based on two types of texts. It is very
important to name these texts to be able to recognize them later on. The background is
provided by Tárnyiková who calls them pre-text and active text, pre-text being the
original, source text, and active text being the current one which refers/alludes to the
former (Tárnyiková 2002, 70).
It might be inferred that the use of a pre-text text in an active text depends on
several factors, such as time, or awareness. Evidently, the presence of a pre-text in an
active text would only cause a reader´s confusion if he was not aware of its existence
30
and meaning. It might also be clear that a source text that may be very old and rather
unknown, or unfamiliar to the reader could also lead to incomprehension.
As for the terms pre-text and active text, the latter will be used in this thesis to
refer to CID. On the other hand, the former will be used to refer to any text or piece of
information found within the active text and referring to extrinsic knowledge.
Let us now illustrate this using a particular example which was selected found in
the analysed text, CID.
(12) She said that it was usually people who were killed in murder mystery
novels. I said that two dogs were killed in The Hound of the Baskervilles, the
hound itself and James Mortimer’s spaniel [...]. (Haddon 2003, 6)
(13) And in the Bible it says Thou shalt not kill but there were the Crusades and
two World Wars and the Gulf War and there were Christians killing people in
all of them. (Haddon 2003, 38)
The part played by intertextuality might now become clearer as we illustrated it
on examples. It is obvious that references to other texts, so called pre-texts are present
in the active text. The narrator enables the reader understand the reference by
mentioning the name of the pre-text, especially in the second example. However, it is
obvious that one may not be able to understand the role of the inserted text properly
without being familiar with the pre-text.
To put it simply, references to some other texts appear in CID. The role of the
references, their importance, and their parallel to the Czech translation of this book will
be examined in greater detail in the analytical part of this thesis. The chapter dealing
with intertextuality in the analytical part of this thesis will be supported by above
mentioned information.
31
3 TOP-DOWN PROCEDURE: STANDARDS OF TEXTUALITY IN
DATA SAMPLES
To support the theoretical background of this thesis, the defined terms and
concepts will be analysed in CID and commented on in this part of thesis.
As the narrator claims, it is “a murder mystery novel” (Haddon 2003, 5) and it
was selected intentionally due to markedness and uniqueness of its language. Its Czech
translation will serve as the basis for comparison. The book and its unique character will
be commented on in the following sub-chapter.
Standards of textuality will be examined in both English and Czech versions of
the book in parallel. Contrast of the two versions, will be pointed out and the results will
be confronted with Duškováʼs (2006) and Knittlováʼs (2010) findings. Particular
attention will be paid to instances illustrating the differences between the two
languages.
The novel was translated into Czech by Kateřina Novotná, who was interviewed
(for transcription of the whole interview, see Appendix 1). She was asked several
questions dealing with text parameters in translation in order to support/disprove the
results of this thesis. Particular pieces of information provided by Kateřina Novotná will
be mentioned in relevant chapters of the analytical part.
“A central domain of translation studies is CONTRASTIVE LINGUISTICS” (de
Beaugrande 1980, 291). De Beaugrande goes into detail and claims that it is human
beings and their ability to examine not only surface tendencies that make translation
possible (1980, 291). However, due to my knowledge and observations supported by
many important linguists, I dare say that such ability is still not a guarantee that the final
result will be identical in both languages. The differences between languages often
make it very difficult for one to make a text sound as good as the original version. For
this reason, this thesis focuses on the differences between Czech and English linguistics
and examines the translator’s effort and the way she deals with problems. The results
are hoped to enrich our knowledge about the processing scale ranging from predictable
translation prototypes to unique solutions, and hopefully it will challenge further cross
32
language studies. Tentative generalizations will be proposed as emergent from the
comparison.
3.1 Background
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a novel written by Mark
Haddon. The text supporting the analysis was selected intentionally due to the
markedness and uniqueness of its language. The book is very extraordinary and
exceptional and therefore, one might be wondering whether standards of textuality can
be easily analysed in such text, or whether markedness of the text influences use of
some grammatical devices.
The story is narrated by fifteen-year-old Christopher who suffers from Aspergerʼs
Syndrome. The narrator is very often clear and precise about what he says. He supports
his ideas by examples and explanations because he likes lists, patterns, and truth. He
does not like particular colours, being touched, and changes. All these virtues make the
story very unique and interesting. The author of the book partly relies on pragmatic
context of shared knowledge. Therefore, a cause-and-effect schema is often activated
and the reader is supposed to rely on his pragmatic knowledge. It is obvious that the
story is very much influenced by the character of the narrator and it is also one of the
reasons why the book was selected to support the analysis of this thesis.
It can be said that the text is heterogeneous as it comprises of written text and
simulations of face-to-face communication. It also contains several pictures, diagrams,
maps, etc. These elements also influence the macro-structure and support the notion of
the book as highly marked.
The cover picture is included to illustrate the nature of the book and its
extraordinary character.
33
Fig. 6
The above cover pictures, particularly the English version, support the claim that
the book is extraordinary. The dog, which is upside down and the absence of capital
letters contribute to the mysterious and exceptional nature of the book.
Several issues related to text linguistics will be examined in the book. Particular
linguistic devices will be examined within randomly selected chapters from the book.
Its Czech translation will support the analysis as means of a parallel in a different
language. The devices will be examined and differences between them will be pointed
out.
3.1.1 Text type
As it was mentioned in the initial, theory-based, chapters, there are eight text
types that de Beaugrande (1980, 197-8) defines, namely descriptive, narrative,
argumentative, literary, poetic, scientific, didactic, and conversational (for details, see
de Beaugrande 1980, 195-199).
CID might be labelled as literary text due to some of the characteristics mentioned
by de Beaugrande (1980, 198).
“In LITERARY texts, the textual world stands in a principled alternativity relationship to
matchable patterns of knowledge about the accepted real world. The intention is to motivate, via
contrast and rearrangements, some new insights into the organization of the real world. From
the standpoint of processing, the linkages within real-world events and situations is
34
PROBLEMATIZED, that is, made subject to potentional failure, because the text-world events
and situations may (though they need not) be organized with different linkages. The effects
would be an increased motivation for linkage on the side of the text producer, and increased
focus for linkage on the side of the receiver. This problematized focus sets even “realistic”
literature (reaching extremes in “documentary” art) apart from a simple report of the situations
or events involved: the producer intends to portray events and situations as exemplary elements
in a framework of possible alternatives” (de Beaugrande 1980, 198).
The above definition might be sufficient to support my decision that the text
might be classified as literary. To comment on reflection of the above definition into my
decision, it can be said that there might be found many matchable patterns of knowledge
about the real word in CID. It can also be said that CID really brings some insight into
the organization of the real word that the reader might not have been aware of before
reading the novel.
Beaugrandeʼs (1980, 198) claim that the linkages within real-world events is
problematized as the text-world events are organized differently might be supported by
markedness of the text, i.e. the fact that many situations and events really are organized
very differently due to Christopher’s illness. Therefore, the reader tries to understand
the textual world to be able to identify with the narrator and the possible perception of
the real world.
His claim that “the producer intends to portray events and situations as exemplary
elements in a framework of possible alternatives” (de Beaugrande 1980, 198) might
also perfectly match CID as Christopher’s syndrome might be perceived as an
alternative view of the real world. Therefore, many exemplary situations and events are
introduced to the reader to help him understand the alternative view.
To sum up, considering classification of text types, CID might be labelled as
literary due to its features and presence of particular elements mentioned above.
However, observing the text more closely within the literary text type, it can be
said that the text is narrative. This claim will be supported by de Beaugrande (1980,
197) and his definition will be examined closely and applied to CID.
“In NARRATIVE texts, the control centres in the textual world are in the main event and
action concepts which will be arranged in an ordered directionality of linkage. The link types of
cause, reason, enablement, purpose, and time proximity will be frequent. The surface text will
35
reflect a corresponding density of subordinative dependencies. The most commonly applied
global knowledge pattern will be the schema” (de Beaugrande 1980, 197).
In order to identify the text type with certainty, one needs to examine the patterns
to find some clues that would enable us assign the text to this text type. According to
the definition above, schema is a common pattern in the narrative text types. Therefore,
this pattern will be examined in order (not) to be assigned to this text. As mentioned in
the theoretical part (2.2.2), schema is an ordered sequence of events/progression. It must
also be examined whether these events are linked by time proximity or not.
It is obvious that CID is a dynamic text as the verbs denote dynamic rather than
stative meanings (for details see Quirk 1985, 177-181). This can be illustrated on a
randomly selected stretch of text.
(14)When we came in through the front door, I went into the kitchen and got a
carrot for Toby and I went upstairs and shut the door of my room and I let Toby
out and gave him the carrot. Then I turned my computer on and played 76
games of Minesweeper and did the Expert Version in 102 seconds, which was
only 3 seconds off my best time which was 99 seconds. (2003, 27)
The above extract illustrates the dynamic meaning of the verbs used. As the book
deals with Christopher’s investigation, it is full of actions and activities. Although
Christopher occasionally mentions his abilities and knowledge, such as in (15), the
stative meaning of verbs do not occur regularly in the book. Therefore, it can be said
that the dynamic meaning of verbs is predominantly used in the book.
(15)I know all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime
number up to 7,507. (2003, 2)
As for CID, it can be said that schema, as an ordered sequence of events, can be
assigned to this text as a pattern as the book primarily deals with actions and events,
covering Christopher’s investigation.
It is now time to examine whether these events are linked by time proximity.
To examine time proximity, Quirk’s (1985, 176) figure might be used to illustrate
the semantic level of interpretation of time; particularly past, present and future.
36
Fig. 7
According to Quirk (1985, 176), by using the past tense, one does not commit
himself to continuation of the past state of affairs into the present. This claim is the
major difference which will be dealt with in this part of this chapter. CID can be divided
into two parts, which however penetrate in the book, one dealing with the investigation
of the murder of Wellington in the past tense, and the other one describing Christopher
and his life and character, often in the present tense. As for the murder investigation
chapters, Christopher uses the past tense, describing something that happened. He very
often adds time expressions when describing the events, such as in (16) and the other
instances.
(16)It was 7 minutes after midnight. (2003, 1)
(17)It was 1:12 a.m. when Father arrived at the police station. I did not see him
until 1:28 a.m. but I knew he was there because I could hear him. (2003, 21)
(18)The next day was Saturday and there is not much to do on a Saturday unless
Father takes me out somewhere [...]. (2003, 45)
(19)When I got home Father was sitting at the table in the kitchen and he had
made my supper. (2003, 62)
(20)That night I wrote some more of my book and the next morning I took it into
school so that Siobhan could read it and tell me if I had made mistakes with the
spelling and the grammar. (2003, 94)
(21)The time was 11:16 p.m. (2003, 153)
Considering the chapters dealing with Christopher’s habits and his character,
these are often narrated in present tense as well as past, such as in (22).
37
(22)All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I’m not meant to call
them stupid, even though this is what they are. I’m meant to say that they have
learning difficulties or that they have special needs. (2003, 56)
However, it can be said that these situations/descriptions are linked by time
proximity, very often by either present or past. The narrator does not use the tenses so
that they are misleading. He usually describes present events, such as habits, or general
truth, in present tense, and situations that occurred in past are narrated in past tense.
Moreover, he describes his plans and intentions in future tense, such as in (23).
(23)This will not be a funny book. I cannot tell jokes because I do not
understand them. (2003, 10)
To sum up, it can be said that schema is very dominant in this book and that
majority of the events are linked by time proximity, narrated predominantly in past
tense. The book seems to be based on events and actions.
As for link types, such as cause (and effect), reason, etc., these should be frequent
in narrative texts. Apparently, due to Christopher’s character, many situations are based
on the cause-and-effect pattern. As he is very strict about some given rules, he usually
reacts very emotively. Several rules that Christopher calls behavioural problems are
mentioned in 3.5, however, some of them will be illustrated on examples consequently.
(24)The policeman took hold of my arm and lifted me onto my feet. I didn’t like
him touching me like this. And this is when I hit him. (2003, 8-9)
(25)The policeman looked at me for a while without speaking. Then he said, 'I
am arresting you for assaulting a police officer.' (2003, 11)
The above examples illustrate Christopher’s behavioural problem C = not liking
being touched (Haddon 2003, 59). It seems that the cause of the conflict is the
policeman touching Christopher. As this situation happens at the beginning of the book,
the effect might seem exaggerated to some readers. However, text receivers accustomed
to Christopher’s character and habits might expect an emotive reaction in this situation.
Such expectations might become activated pragmatically based on knowledge of
Christopher’s syndrome and his traits. In this case, pragmatic context becomes very
important.
38
Another example of cause-and-effect pattern might be illustrated on the following
example.
(26) Father banged the table with his fist really hard so that the plates and his
knife and fork jumped around and my ham jumped sideways so that it touched
the broccoli so I couldn’t eat the ham or the broccoli any more. (2003, 63)
The above instance illustrates another behavioural problem Christopher has,
which is “not eating food if different sorts of food are touching each other” (Haddon
2003, 59). As his behavioural problems were mentioned several pages before the
incident, one understands the reason why the event caused such effect. Throughout the
book, one becomes accustomed to experience with the cause-and-effect situations and
therefore understands, and even expects some effects if something that Christopher
likes/dislikes happens. Therefore, pragmatics becomes more applicable towards the end
of the book as it becomes more obvious how context contributes to the meaning.
Therefore, it is not only linguistic knowledge that rests in the text receiver’s memory,
but also context, intention of the text producer, etc. Many situations therefore become
clearer and understandable.
To summarize narrative type, it seems that all characteristics of narrative type
mentioned by de Beaugrande at the beginning of this chapter can be very easily applied
to the text. As the text was analysed and the principles were applied, it can be said
without hesitations that the text can be marked as narrative. However, there are many
passages simulating face-to-face communication within the narrative text type which
might seem to disrupt the whole notion of the text as narrative.
As the text is heterogeneous, it can be said that there are many passages
simulating face-to-face communication inserted into the narrative text. Therefore, it can
be said that the text is rather narrative with some communicative interruptions.
To conclude, it can be said that considering classification of text types, CID is a
literary text. Furthermore, within the framework of literary texts, it can be labelled as
narrative with passages of face-to-face communication inserted in it.
39
3.1.2 Text strategy
As the analysis will be based mainly on Tárnyikováʼs (2002, 26-28) definitions,
four types of text strategies will be examined, namely temporal, locative, participant-
oriented, and actional.
Firstly, temporal strategy will be examined. As for this strategy, CID must be
divided into two parts, firstly, chapters dealing with the crime investigation, and
secondly, chapters concerning Christopher’s life.
Temporal strategy is very strong within actions describing Wellington’s murder as
it is narrated in the past tense and very often joined with time expressions. Examples
illustrating time expressions were mentioned in 3.1.1. Apparently, the events are
ordered chronologically. Even if a time expression is not mentioned, it is clear that the
event follows the events mentioned before.
As for the other parts of the book, describing Christopher’s life and habits,
temporal strategy might not project in the text so evidently. As present and past tenses
penetrate in these extracts, temporal adverbials might also be important, however, not so
frequent. The following instances were selected to illustrate temporal strategy within
particular chapters not focusing on the crime investigation.
(27)Eight years ago, when I first met Siobhan, she showed me this picture.
(2003, 2)
(28)Mother died 2 years ago. (2003, 28)
(29)I used to think that Mother and Father might get divorced. (2003, 59)
(30)Chapters in books are usually given the cardinal numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and
so on. (2003, 14)
(31)The Reverend Peters makes a funny ticking noise with his tongue sometimes
when he is thinking. (2003, 42)
(32)And some years there are lots of frogs in the pond, and some years there are
very few. (2003, 126)
(33)I see everything. And that is why I don’t like new places. (2003, 174)
40
(34)I am going to prove that I’m not stupid. Next month I’m going to take my A
level in Maths and I’m going to get an A grade. (2003, 56)
(35)I think I would make a very good astronaut. To be a good astronaut you
have to be intelligent and I’m intelligent. (2003, 65)
As for the above examples, they illustrate past, present, and future tenses. It is
obvious that the narrator does not focus on a particular tense. He very often uses past
tense when he describes important moments in his life, or gives examples from past
when describing something. Moreover, he uses present tense to describe what his life is
like and to talk about things he likes, does, or general facts. Lastly, he uses future tense
to describe his intentions and plans. Therefore, it is evident that the temporal strategy is
rather interrupted by the choice of events described.
Secondly, locative strategy will be examined to find out whether a chain of
adverbials of place might be present and what its purpose is.
This strategy might become apparent due to the narrator’s character. He is
accustomed to describing things in detail. Therefore, parts of town, house, school and
other places are sometimes described in CID. However, it can be assumed that the
strategy is not by far as frequent as in e.g. guide-books. It can be said that this strategy
is rather developed, however, only within descriptions and in particular situations, as in
(36) and (37).
(36)'There. That building. Says Signal Point at the top. There’s a British Rail
sign on the other end. The station’s at the bottom of that.' (2003, 171)
(37)And I said, 'Is this London?'
And she said, 'Indeed it is.'
And I said, 'Itʼs 451c Chapter Road, London NW2 5NG. And sometimes you can
write it 451c Chapter Road, Willesden, London NW2 5NG.'
Ant the lady said to me, 'Take the tube to Willesden Junction, honey. Or
Willesden Green. Got to be near there somewhere.' (2003, 211)
41
Thirdly, participant oriented strategy was examined to prove/disprove the
assumption that it is the most developed, important and frequent strategy in CID.
It is clear that majority of the events and actions in CID are associated with
Christopher, who is very often the agent. Some actions relate to several other important
characters, such as Father, Mother, Siobhan, Mrs Alexander, Mrs Shears, and some
minor characters, such as policemen or passers-by. However, it can be said that the
book mainly deals with Christopher and his life, investigation, school, hobbies, etc. In
case it deals with some other people, it is usually in relation to Christopher. Reference
to this character is very often repeated. Christopher’s name might not be mentioned very
frequently as the text is narrated from the 1st person singular perspective, therefore the
personal pronoun I and the possessive pronoun my are very frequent. Personal pronoun
we is also used when referring to Christopher and some other people. Therefore, it can
be said that the book is very strongly participant-oriented and that this strategy prevails.
As for the structure of the book, it might very strongly influence the strategies.
The chapters dealing with Christopher and his life and character are very strongly
participant oriented, where action might be backgrounded due to Christopher-oriented
information which is being conveyed. On the contrary, chapters dealing with the crime
investigation stress both the actional and the participant-oriented strategies.
As for the actional strategy, it might be characterized by “sequence of rapid
actions” (Tárnyiková 2002, 28) where the participants are as if were back-grounded. As
mentioned above, this strategy might seem rather dominant in some crime-investigation
parts of the book. However, the narrator remains very important and although he might
not carry the central attention within some parts of the text, he is not back-grounded.
To sum up the text strategies, it can be said that all strategies are used within the
whole novel. However, based on my observations, it is the participant-oriented strategy
which prevails in the text even though the actional strategy projects very intensively in
the text. This claim might be supported by the macro-structure of the story as it mainly
deals with Christopher and his syndrome. Therefore, it is obvious that the text must be
participant-oriented and that the central attention of the story rests on Christopher.
42
3.2 Cohesion
Let us now illustrate the definitions mentioned in the theoretical part of this paper
using particular examples which, due to the aim of this paper, were taken from both
English and Czech versions of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Firstly, longer stretch of text was selected randomly to show the interaction of
several cohesive devices. The text will be analysed and particular concepts will be
examined in the text.
(38) This meant that Mr Shears was my Prime Suspect.
Mr Shears used to be married to Mrs Shears and they lived together until two years
ago. Then Mr Shears left and didn’t come back. This was why Mrs Shears came over
and did lots of cooking for us after Mother died, because she didn’t have to cook for Mr
Shears any more and she didn’t have to stay at home and be his wife. And also Father
said that she needed company and didn’t want to be on her own.
And sometimes Mrs Shears stayed overnight at our house and I liked it when she did
because she made things tidy and she arranged the jars and pans and tins in order of
their height on the shelves in the kitchen and she always made their labels face
outwards and she put the knives and forks and spoons in the correct compartments in
the cutlery drawer. But she smoked cigarettes and she said lots of things I didn’t
understand, e.g. 'I’m going to hit the hay,' and, 'It’s brass monkeys out there,' and,
'Let’s rustle up some tucker.' And I didn’t like it when she said things like that because I
didn’t know what she meant.
And I don’t know why Mr Shears left Mrs Shears because nobody told me. But when
you get married it is because you want to live together and have children, and if you get
married in a church you have to promise that you will stay together until death do us
part. And if you don’t want to live together you have to get divorced and this is because
one of you has done sex with somebody else or because you are having arguments and
you hate each other and you don’t want to live in the same house any more and have
children. And Mr Shears didn’t want to live in the same house as Mrs Shears any more
so he probably hated her and he might have come back and killed her dog to make her
sad.
I decided to try and find out more about Mr Shears. (2003, 54-55)
43
Firstly, the referential chain with the referent Mr and Mrs Shears will be analysed
to examine the means of referring to them. For the referential chain with the referents in
bold, see Appendix 2 in 7. As for the couple, they are not very often referred to as they,
to be more specific, they are referred to as they only once. In the rest of the extract, they
are treated separately, therefore, only the names Mr Shears or Mrs Shears are
mentioned. The exact term Mr Shears is mentioned 7 times throughout the extract. He is
only twice referred to as he. On the contrary, there are only 5 occurrences of the name
Mrs Shears in the text and there are 12 occurrences of the pronoun she referring to Mrs
Shears. There are also some other cohesive devices which might support the referential
chain, such as possessive pronouns referring to both of them in the text, i.e. her, his, or
other expressions, such as the adverb together. The reason why Christopher uses the
pronoun she so frequently when referring to Mrs Shears is clear when the extract as a
whole is examined – there is a paragraph which only concentrates on Mrs Shears and
what she did. For this reason, Christopher only describes the actions of one referent and
therefore it is not necessary to mention her name again. On the contrary, the opening
paragraph deals with both Mr and Mrs Shears and therefore the referents must be
introduced again to avoid misunderstanding. As more characters are involved in the
extract, such as Father, Mother, Christopher (I, us, etc.), it is necessary to remind the
reader that Christopher concentrates on Mrs Shears again and therefore mention her
name, nor just personal pronoun.
As for the referential chain, it seems to be based on repetition, particularly
repetition of the two names and personal pronouns which refer to it. Therefore, it can be
said that the chain is very cohesive and does not cause misunderstanding of the text.
Reference not only contributes to cohesion of the referential chain, but also to the
whole extract. The narrator repeats terms which were already mentioned, such as the
verb to stay. However, repetition of this verb is partly disrupted by the use of do as
substitution for the verb. Therefore, three occurrences of the verb to stay can be found
in the extract and one occurrence of the verb to do, substituting it.
What also unifies and supports the referential chain is tense. It might be very
interesting to examine the parts of the extract where the referents occur – these parts are
all narrated in past tense. On the contrary, the part which does not concentrate on the
44
referents (which was underlined in Appendix 2) is narrated in present tense. Therefore,
it can be said that it is also actions of the referents what unifies them.
Moreover, it is verbal voice what unifies the extract as it is obvious that the active
voice is consistent in the extract. As the narrator does not use both active and passive
voice alternately, but uses the active voice consistently, the extract seems to be rather
homogenous and unified, which, of course, supports cohesion of the text.
There are also some structural stereotypes in the text which very significantly
contribute to cohesion of the whole extract, such as the structure: she + verb in past (+
object or some other sentence elements) which is repeated several times within one
paragraph. Based on my observations, such structural stereotypes occur very frequently
in the text and very considerably contribute to cohesion of the whole text. These
stereotypes seem to be translated into Czech following the same pattern, thus, the Czech
translation does not disrupt the importance of the stereotypes and their contribution to
cohesion.
Moreover, the narrator often assesses situations, or expresses his opinions or
ideas, which seems to fore-ground him very often, such as in:
(39) And sometimes Mrs Shears stayed overnight at our house and I liked it
when she did because she made things tidy [...]. (2003, 54)
The narrator very often evaluates and mentions his opinion, such as saying that he
does not understand something and why. Cohesion is, therefore, supported by the
evaluating expressions.
To summarize the above analysis, it can be said that not only lexical cohesion, but
cohesion as such is very significantly supported in the text by many cohesive devices.
Moreover, all the devices seem to interact in the novel and it might be said that without
the other devices, individual ones would not create such strong cohesion in the text. On
the contrary, the devices create mutual interaction as without consistent use of tense, the
structural stereotypes would not be cohesive, etc. Therefore, particular devices influence
or even depend on one another. Based on my observations, the text even seems to be
more cohesive than some other, ordinary, novels. However, several novels would have
to be analysed to prove/disprove this claim.
45
Let us now examine particular cohesive devices which occur in the text. These
devices will be analysed separately.
3.2.1 Reference
As suggested in the theoretical part - 2.2.1.1, several types of reference, such as
anaphoric and cataphoric, will be examined. The following instances were selected to
illustrate the former type of reference within the text, with which we refer to the
preceding text.
(40) Mr Jeavons asked me whether this made me feel safe, having things always
in a nice order and I said it did. Then he asked if I didn’t like things changing.
(2003, 32)
(41) The Reverend Peters makes a funny ticking noise with his tongue
sometimes when he is thinking. And he smokes cigarettes and you can smell
them on his breath and I don’t like this. (2003, 42)
(42) No one has ever taken an A level at our school before and the headmistress,
Mrs Gascoyne, didn’t want me to take it at first. She said they didn’t have the
facilities to let us sit A levels. (2003, 56)
All above examples illustrate anaphoric reference in the text and were selected
randomly. As Christopher usually makes himself understood, he names things and
people, and then refers to them by personal pronouns. Therefore, everything is clear and
understandable and in case of reference, the reader usually knows who the referent is.
Lots of similar examples could be found within the text and it can be said that anaphoric
reference is very frequently used in the text and that it supports its lexical cohesion.
It might now be interesting to examine the use of cataphoric reference in the text
as it might often cause tension or uncertainty/doubts about who the referent is. This type
of reference might not seem to correspond with Christopher’s character.
As mentioned in 2.2.1.1, with cataphoric reference one has to look forward in the
text to identify the referent.
46
(43) Mr Jeavons asked me whether this made me feel safe, having things always
in a nice order and I said it did. (2003, 32)
The following example, mentioned in the theoretical part, is a very nice, and
probably a very typical, example of cataphoric reference.
(44) I stroked Wellington and wondered who had killed him and why. My name
is Christopher John Francis Boone. (2003, 1-2)
Within the first chapter, the narrator is referred to as I, and the reader does not
know who the narrator is. To identify the referent, one needs to look forward,
particularly to the second chapter, where the narrator is named and described. Closer
descriptions of the narrator follow in many more chapters, for example in chapter 73.
As for cataphoric reference, it is not very frequently used in the book. On the
contrary, it can be said that there are very few examples of this kind of reference. This
might be caused by the narrator’s preciseness and lucidity. As he is usually clear about
what he says, he gives things their names – very often at the first moment when
mentioning them. Moreover, he seems not to want to cause communicative tension by
postponing the identities of the referents.
As for definite articles referring to an element mentioned later in the text, the
following instance was selected.
(45) It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying in the grass in the
middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. (2003, 1)
(46) The dog was called Wellington. It belonged to Mrs Shears who was our
friend. She lived on the opposite side of the road, two houses to the left.
Wellington was a poodle. Not one of the small poodles that have hairstyles, but
a big poodle. (2003, 1)
As for the above examples, they concern cataphoric reference. The first instance -
(45) - was copied from the very beginning of the first chapter – first page of the book.
On the other hand, the second example was copied from the end of the page; therefore
the reader learns much information before learning the dog’s name and description. In
this case, one needs to look forward to identify the dog as a poodle called Wellington,
belonging to Mrs Shears.
47
Similar instances can be found rather frequently within the text as it obviously
does not cause communicative tension and does not disrupt understanding and the
overall meaning.
To sum up, it can be said that some types of reference are rather frequent within
the text, however, cataphoric reference resting on personal pronouns is not frequent at
all – on the contrary, it can be said that it is hardly ever used. On the other hand,
anaphoric reference is very frequent in the text and as there are not many characters in
the book, there is no need for avoiding personal pronouns when referring to them. It
seems that Christopher only uses the types of reference which do not cause
misunderstanding or disrupt intelligibility of the text.
Before dealing with another cohesive device, it might be interesting to observe
one more aspect linked with reference – scope of reference. In this case, it might be
interesting to observe the pronoun I as Christopher only narrates the story from 1st
person perspective. Therefore, throughout the whole story, the pronoun I refers to
Christopher, who is introduced in the second chapter of the story. As he frequently
describes his character and personality, the referent is very often reminded within the
text and is therefore stored in addressee’s memory for a long time – throughout the
whole story. He occasionally includes some other people, e.g. his classmates, and the
referent thus sometimes changes to we.
As there are approximately 5 major characters in the book, except from
Christopher, the referents must be mentioned quite often in order to avoid
misunderstanding. It is obvious that she could stand for Mother, Siobhan, Mrs
Alexander, or Mrs Shears in the story, not taking into account some other, minor,
characters. For this reason, the referents’ names/other means of identification must be
mentioned very often to make the text clear. Therefore, when changing the topic or
dealing with another person, Christopher usually mentions a name before referring to
the person as he/she.
3.2.1.1 Pronouns
To begin with, pronouns and their frequency in the text will be analysed to
examine their contribution to cohesion in the text, attention will be paid mainly to
48
central pronouns mentioned in the theoretical part (see 2.2.1.1.1) – personal, reflexive,
and possessive.
Firstly, personal pronouns will be examined in a long stretch of text as they
considerably contribute to cohesion. Due to the fact that narrators in novels are very
often represented by personal pronouns, it can be assumed that pronouns will be very
frequently used in both English and Czech versions of the book. What might also be
pointed out is that there are not many characters in the book and therefore, it might not
be necessary to mention their names and repeat them. On the contrary, it can be said that
they might often be represented by personal pronouns as the reader usually knows who
the character actually is. Let us now examine the frequency of occurrence of personal
pronouns and find out whether their use is unusual in some aspects or not. The
following stretch of text was selected randomly with only the strategy of avoiding the
analysis of some of the first chapters of the book as the distribution of personal
pronouns might not be so frequent due to unfamiliarity of readers with the characters
and therefore necessity to introduce them by names.
(47) When I got to the police station they made me take the laces out of my
shoes and empty my pockets at the front desk in case I had anything in them that
I could use to kill myself or escape or attack a policeman with.
The sergeant behind the desk had very hairy hands and he had bitten his nails so
much that they had bled. This is what I had in my pockets [...].
I was also wearing my watch and they wanted me to leave this at the desk as
well but I said that I needed to keep my watch on because I needed to know
exactly what time it was. And when they tried to take it off me I screamed, so
they let me keep it on. They asked me if I had any family. I said I did. They
asked me who my family was. I said it was Father, but Mother was dead. And I
said it was also Uncle Terry but he was in Sunderland and he was Father’s
brother, and it was my grandparents, too, but three of them were dead and
Grandma Burton was in a home because she had senile dementia and thought
that I was someone on television.
Then they asked me for Father’s phone number.
49
I told them that he had two numbers, one for at home and one which was a
mobile phone and I said both of them.
It was nice in the police cell. It was almost a perfect cube, two metres long by 2
metres wide by metres high. It contained approximately 8 cubic metres of air. It
had a small window with bars and, on the opposite side, a metal door with a
long, thin hatch near the floor for sliding trays of food into the cell and a sliding
hatch higher up so that policemen could look in and check that prisoners hadn’t
escaped or committed suicide. (2003, 17)
It is obvious that all first person singular pronouns refer to the narrator who
introduces himself as Christopher John Francis Boone in the second chapter of the book
and from this point on uses the personal pronoun to refer to himself. Other characters
sometimes call him Christopher; therefore, his name is reminded several times in the
book and the personality of the referent is reminded. It might also be said that what
identifies Christopher as narrator of the book might be his actions, as they seem to be
rather unique and unexpected. For this reason, the reader is permanently reminded who
the narrator is, the character not being back-grounded.
The referent I is used throughout the whole book and it can be said that it is very
frequent and that it considerably contributes to cohesion due to its distribution. It might
be assumed that I is the most frequently used personal pronoun in the text and whenever
this particular pronoun is used, the reader activates his knowledge of the main character
and foregrounds him.
There are lots of other means of lexical cohesion linked with the character in the
above text, such as possessive or object pronouns, however, only personal pronouns will
be the matter of analysis now.
Personal pronoun they is also very frequently used in the text. However, it is
necessary to examine the context to find out who it actually refers to – the police station
= the policemen. It is not only Christopher who helps us identify the referent of the
pronouns, it is also the FRAME – which very much contributes to coherence of the text.
As the reader knows that Christopher was taken to a police station for questioning,
he/she can assume that there are policemen who make Christopher empty his pockets,
50
etc. For this reason, it could be, probably, derived from the context – based on frame -
who the referents are.
Moreover, it seems that Christopher is rather consistent in mentioning a
name/proper referent and only then using personal pronouns, such as Grandma Burton –
she, Uncle Terry – he, Father – he, police cell – it. For this reason, personal pronouns
occur very frequently in the text and it can be said that it is always clear who they refer
to. The use of pronouns, therefore, does not cause communicative tension or any other
intentional disruption of the text.
To summarize the above extract, it can be said that personal pronouns, or rather
pronouns in general, are very important in the text and very much contribute to lexical
cohesion. Christopher seems to use them systematically and therefore does not cause
confusion or misunderstanding.
As for comparison with the Czech version of the book, it can be said that the
frequency of occurrence of personal pronouns is insignificant in the Czech version of
the book. It is generally known that an English sentence MUST have a subject (proper
noun, pronoun, etc.). Due to the fact that the languages are typologically remote, the
position of subject in sentences is also very different where English grammar is very
strict concerning position of subject and its representation in the sentence. On the
contrary, WO in Czech is rather loose and subject does not need to be explicitly
expressed in the text (by nouns, pronouns, etc.) at all – it is always recoverable from the
form of verb. For this reason it is not necessary to mention the subject at all in Czech
sentences and therefore the frequency of personal pronouns, which often represent
subject in sentences, decreases in Czech texts.
Translation of (47) was examined and occurrences of personal pronouns in both
English and Czech versions of the book were compared. For the analysed extracts see
Appendix 3, chapter 7. Personal pronouns nearly disappeared in the Czech version as
not many of them are expressed directly in the text. As for comparison of both versions,
personal pronouns occur very frequently in the English text (i.e. I – 17 occurrences, they
– 8 occurrences, etc.) and occur rather rarely in the Czech version (i.e. já – no
occurrence, oni – 1 occurrence).
51
To conclude distribution of pronouns in English and Czech texts, it can be said
that due to characteristics of both languages, frequency of personal pronouns differs a
lot. Although personal pronouns occur very frequently in the English version, they
occur very rarely in the Czech translation of the same book. This claim might be
supported by some generally known rules, such as loose word order in Czech, or
absence of subject which is recoverable from context (inflections, etc.) in many
sentences.
Furthermore, the same stretch of text was copied from CID to illustrate the
distribution of possessive pronouns in the English version. It is generally known that
possessive pronouns are very frequently used in English. Let us now illustrate this claim
on the following example. The instance was selected randomly.
(48) When I got to the police station they made me take the laces out of my shoes
and empty my pockets at the front desk in case I had anything in them that I
could use to kill myself or escape or attack a policeman with.
The sergeant behind the desk had very hairy hands and he had bitten his nails so
much that they had bled. This is what I had in my pockets [...].
I was also wearing my watch and they wanted me to leave this at the desk as
well but I said that I needed to keep my watch on because I needed to know
exactly what time it was. And when they tried to take it off me I screamed, so
they let me keep it on. They asked me if I had any family. I said I did. They asked
me who my family was. I said it was Father, but Mother was dead. And I said it
was also Uncle Terry but he was in Sunderland and he was Father’s brother,
and it was my grandparents, too, but three of them were dead and Grandma
Burton was in a home because she had senile dementia and thought that I was
someone on television.
Then they asked me for Father’s phone number.
I told them that he had two numbers, one for at home and one which was a
mobile phone and I said both of them.
52
It was nice in the police cell. It was almost a perfect cube, two metres long by 2
metres wide by metres high. It contained approximately 8 cubic metres of air. It
had a small window with bars and, on the opposite side, a metal door with a
long, thin hatch near the floor for sliding trays of food into the cell and a sliding
hatch higher up so that policemen could look in and check that prisoners hadn’t
escaped or committed suicide. (2003, 17)
The above instance implies that personal pronouns are used rather frequently,
especially when the narrator describes something, involving himself and his property.
Seven occurrences of the possessive pronouns my could be found. On the contrary, only
1 occurrence of the same possessive pronouns could be found in the Czech version of
the same stretch of text.
Therefore, it can be assumed that possessive pronouns are more frequent in
English language than in Czech. To support this claim, first three chapters were
examined. All possessive pronouns were counted in both English and Czech versions
and their frequency compared. The following graph illustrates the frequency of use of
possessive pronouns in English and Czech versions of CID.
Fig. 8
It is obvious that possessive pronouns were much more frequent in the English
version of the same book. Attention was paid only to pronouns which have
determinative function – my, our, your, his, her, its, their.
English pronouns include instances such as: its eyes, my hand, our friend, my
name, my arms, my hands, my ears, etc. It is obvious that pronouns are generally very
frequent and therefore were used in the text. Only some of the above possessive
pronouns were translated into Czech, namely: naše přítelkyně, and mýmu psovi.
53
The following example was selected to illustrate the use of possessive pronouns in
the analysed text. This sentence was selected intentionally due to the high frequency of
occurrence of analysed phenomenon.
(49)I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes and rolled forward till I
was hunched up with my forehead pressed onto the grass. (2003, 4)
(50)Zakryl jsem si uši rukama a zavřel jsem oči a předkláněl se dopředu, až ze
mě bylo klubíčko s čelem přitlačeným do trávy. (2003, 11)
As for reflexive pronouns, these seem to occur very rarely in the text, especially
compared to the other central pronouns – personal and possessive. An instance of
reflexive pronoun can be illustrated by the following example.
(51) When I got to the police station they made me take the laces out of my shoes
and empty my pockets at the front desk in case I had anything in them that I
could use to kill myself or escape or attack a policeman with. (2003, 17)
However, it must be said that this class of pronouns might rather represent an
outskirt issue and therefore cannot be considered a frequently used element in the text.
To summarize pronouns, it can be said that they occur very frequently in the text;
moreover, they are used much more frequently in the English version compared to its
Czech translation. Therefore, distribution of Czech pronouns is rather insignificant in
comparison with English pronouns. As for frequency of individual pronouns, it seems
that personal pronouns are used the most frequently – especially first person singular
which refers to the main character. Possessive pronouns are also used very frequently;
however, their distribution within the text might not be as frequent as the personal
pronouns. As for reflexive pronouns, they are used rather rarely in the text, especially
compared to the other pronouns.
3.2.2 Verbal Voice
To begin with, the consistency of individual voices must be mentioned. As
outlined in the theoretical part (2.2.1.2), English voice system might be classified as:
54
active, medio-passive, and passive. The frequency of occurrence of active and passive
voice was examined to illustrate their consistency in the text. Medio-passive will not be
analysed as there were no instances of this category found within randomly selected
stretches of text. A long stretch of text was used for the purpose of this aim, specifically
first two chapters.
As mentioned in the introduction (1), it might be assumed that the dominant voice
in CID will be the active voice. Due to the genre of the book and the fact that the main
character, Christopher, tells the reader about his own life, the story is full of actions and
the agent is very often just Christopher. However, before moving to the analysis of the
text and revealing which voice is used more often, it might be necessary to examine
some extracts.
Firstly, several stretches of text were copied to illustrate the use of voice in CID.
The extracts were selected from the English version and were selected randomly.
(52)When I got to the police station they made me take the laces out of my shoes
and empty my pockets at the front desk in case I had anything in them that I
could use to kill myself or escape or attack a policeman with. (2003, 16)
(53)I came home from school one day and no one answered the door, so I went
and found the secret key that we keep under a flowerpot behind the kitchen door.
I let myself into the house and carried on making the Airfix Sherman Tank model
I was building. (2003, 28)
(54)Lots of people wrote to the magazine to say that Marilyn vos Savant was
wrong, even when she explained very carefully why she was right. 92% of the
letters she got about the problem said that she was wrong and lots of these were
from mathematicians and scientists. (2003, 79)
(55)And Grandmother has pictures in her head, too, but her pictures are all
confused, like someone has muddled the film up and she can’t tell what
happened in what order, so she thinks that dead people are still alive and she
doesn’t know whether something happened in real life or whether it happened
on television. (2003, 99)
The above extracts illustrate the use of verbal voice in English extracts. It is
obvious that what prevails is certainly the active voice. However, longer stretch of text
55
must be analysed so that we may say that the active voice is consistent in the English
version of the book.
Dušková (2006, 254) claims that the agent is usually the one who does the action
or who is, at least, affected by the action. She also claims that the active voice is the
basic one in English. This supports the hypothesis and hopefully the analysis findings.
Due to the fact that the analysed text is a work of fiction dealing with Christopher’s life,
it might not be necessary to suppress the agent.
Not to examine stretches of text only, first three chapters of the English book were
analysed with the emphasis on verbal voice. There are nearly no passages simulating
face-to-face communication, therefore, the results show the occurrence of active and
passive voice in text, not in discourse, in the English CID. Two stretches of face-to-face
communication occurring in the text were not included into the analysis. As three
chapters were examined, only the verbs determining the plot were analysed. Some back-
grounded verbs could be found within the text, however, these were not analysed, such
as:
(56) I went through Mrs Shears’ gate, closing it behind me. (2003, 1)
As for the analysis of verbal voice in the text, it is obvious that active voice is
much more common in CID and it can be said that active voice is used consistently in
the book. For the analysed extract, see appendices (7). Before commenting on use of
passive voice in first three chapters, the importance of context when analysing verbal
voice must be mentioned.
The following instance might be pointed out to highlight the importance of
context when examining verbal voice in English.
(57) The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs
Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the
way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. (2003, 1)
The verb form reminds us of English passive voice due to presence of the verb to
be and a verb in past participle. However, this interpretation would mean that someone
closed the dog’s eyes, with the agent unknown or back-grounded.
56
Another interpretation of the above clause suggests that the dog was lying there
with its eyes closed, where closed is understood as adjective - not open. Therefore, the
verb to be is a lexical verb in past, followed by an adjective.
Based on my observations of the macro-structure of the text and context, I decided
to take into account the second possible interpretation – lexical verb + adjective closed.
As Christopher often mentions things as they are, he probably describes the dog as he
can see it – with its eyes closed. He would, probably, not consider the fact that
somebody closed its eyes. Context is also very important in this case as the preceding
and following clauses are also descriptive.
As for the analysed extracts, it must be said that only three verbs in passive voice
occurred in the text. The instances were copied to illustrate the use of passive voice in
the text, albeit inconsistent.
(58) I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not
see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork
into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer, for example, or a
road accident. (2003, 1)
(59) The dog was called Wellington. (2003, 1)
(60) Her toenails were painted bright pink and she had no shoes on. (2003, 4)
The above instances were the only occurrences of passive voice within three
chapters of the book. Therefore, it can be said that this voice is not used consistently in
the book.
To comment on use of active voice and its consistency in the text, several
instances must be copied from the first, second, and third chapters of the book.
(61) I walked onto her lawn and knelt beside the dog. I put my hand on the
muzzle of the dog. It was still warm. (2003, 1)
(62) When I first met Siobhan she showed me this picture
(2003, 2)
(63) I do not like people shouting at me. It makes me scared that they are going
to hit me or touch me and I do not know what is going to happen. (2003, 4)
57
The above instances were selected randomly from the analysed text. For more
instances or distribution of active voice within the text, see appendices (7). However, it
is obvious even from a few instances that some action is described with Christopher
being the agent. For this reason, it is not necessary to back-ground him or omit him
entirely from the extract. As Christopher is the main character and the book deals with
his character and the investigation he initiates and continues throughout the whole book,
he cannot be back-grounded. Consistent use of active voice therefore seems to be an
intentional strategy used to reach particular aims, such as highlighting Christopher as
the main character, particularly his traits, behaviour, and actions.
It is evident that a continuous text was selected for illustration of the consistency
of active voice in the story. Although discourse was not included in the illustrative
extracts, it was also examined and analysed. Several instances will be mentioned
consequently to illustrate the use of verbal voice in the simulation of face-to-face
communication.
(64)'Would you like to tell me what’s going on here, young man?'
I sat up and said, 'The dog is dead.'
'I’d got that far,' he said.
I said, 'I think someone killed the dog.'
'How old are you?' he asked.
I replied, 'I am 15 years and 3 months and 3 days.'
'And what, precisely, were you doing in the garden?' he asked.
'I was holding the dog,' I replied.
'And why were you holding the dog?' he asked. (2003, 7)
(65)'Why were you holding the dog?' he asked again.
'I like dogs,' I said.
'Did you kill the dog?' he asked.
I said, 'I did not kill the dog.'
'Is this your fork?' he asked.
58
I said, 'No.'
'You seem very upset about this.' he said. (2003, 8)
The above extract from the fifth chapter of CID illustrates passages simulating
face-to-face communication, and it is evident that the prevailing verbal voice is active as
well. However, not to conclude the analysis without concentrating on a longer stretch of
text, and therefore more examples, it was necessary to examine several chapters and
include discourse to come to a convincing and correct conclusion.
Chapters 11, 17, and 31 were analysed to examine use of verbal voice within
communication. These chapters were selected due to the presence of passages dealing
with face-to-face communication. Obviously, the active voice is very dominant in
discourse as well as in text. In chapter 11, no occurrence of passive voice was found.
The following instances occurred in chapters 17 and 31.
(66) 'I strongly advise you to get into the back of the police car because if you
try any of that monkey-business again, you little shit, I will seriously lose my
rag. Is that understood?' (2003, 11)
(67) He was shouting 'I want to see my son,' and 'Why the hell is he locked up?'
(2003, 21)
However, considering number of verbs in the extracts, it can be said that the
active voice is, again, dominant in all chapters and that it is used consistently. To
examine the occurrences in chapters 11, 17, and 31, see appendices (7).
Now, it can be said that the active voice is very consistent in both text and
discourse as similar situation can be examined throughout the whole book. It evidently
supports cohesion of the text. However, it might be interesting to examine whether the
verbal voice is preserved in the Czech version of the same book or not. Let us now
concentrate on the passive voice and answer the question if the verbal voice remains the
same in the Czech translation.
The background should be supported by instances from the text. Particular
attention was paid to passive voice. The instances were selected randomly.
(68)The deerstalker hat was invented by a man called Sidney Paget who did the
illustrations for the original books. (93)
59
(69)Loveckou čepici vymyslel muž jménem Sidney Paget, který původní knihy
ilustroval. (2003, 62)
(70)Sherlock Holmes and Watson are followed when they are in London by a
man in a coach with a black beard. (2003, 91)
(71) Sherlocka Holmese a Watsona, když jsou v Londýně, sleduje v drožce muž s
černým plnovousem. (2003, 61)
(72)And a murder is usually committed by someone known... (2003, 63)
(73) A vraždu obvykle spáchá někdo, koho... (2003, 44)
(74)This means that she was put into a coffin and burnt and ground up and
turned into ash and smoke. (2003, 43)
(75) To znamená, že ji uložili do rakve a spálili a roztloukli a přeměnili na popel
a kouř. (2003, 33)
The above examples illustrate use of passive voice in English. However, the
translator avoided translating passive voice in the above instances. Therefore, English
passive voice is transformed into active voice in the Czech version of the same book. It
must be pointed out that passive voice in English and Czech language might often be
very easy to form, and therefore translate. For this reason, translator might often be
tempted to translate the voice as it is, i.e. active as active and passive as passive in
Czech. However, this might not always be correct.
The translator’s decision not to observe the verbal voice all the time might be
supported by Knittlová (2010, 123) who claims that the passive voice is almost never
used in fiction. She also claims that especially the beginning translators are tempted to
translate texts mechanically and therefore adopt the English passive structures. (2010,
123) The previous claim very much supports the translator’s decision not to translate
verbal voice mechanically.
As Kateřina Novotná, translator of CID, mentioned in the interview, she did not
observe particular rules. Her translation was determined by Czech language, so that she
concentrated on the Czech translation and its meaning and sense.
However, it is not always possible to take no notice of verbal voice and translate
the whole text using the active voice. Knittlová (2010, 123) claims that in case the
60
author avoids expressing the agent explicitly, passive voice is used. Therefore, special
effort was made to find instances of passive voice in both English and Czech version.
(76)And if heaven was on the other side of a black hole dead people would have
to be fired into space on rockets to get there, and they aren’t, or people would
notice. (2003, 42)
(77) A kdyby nebe bylo na druhé straně černé díry, museli by mrtví být
vystřelováni do mimozemského prostoru v raketách, aby se tam dostali, a to
nejsou, protože toho by si lidé všimli. (2003, 32)
(78) I said that two dogs were killed in The Hound of the Baskervilles, the hound
itself, and James Mortimer’s spaniel, but Siobhan said they weren’t the victims
of the murder, Sir Charles Baskerville was. (2003, 6)
(79) Řekl jsem, že ve Psovi baskervillském byli zabiti dva psi, ta doga a
kokršpaněl Jamese Mortimera, ale Siobhan řekla, že tohle nebyly oběti vraždy,
to že byl sir Charles Baskerville. (2003, 12)
The above instances illustrate Knittlováʼs claim that in case the author avoids
mentioning the agent, passive voice is used even in fiction (2010, 123). The above
instances highlights the fact that in some situations, the agents are not known. It seems
that in this case it is not necessary to know the agents and therefore, they are suppressed
by the use of passive voice.
To summarize the use of verbal voice in CID, the active voice is consistently used
throughout the whole story in both text and discourse in English and Czech versions of
CID. The frequency of active and passive voice in both texts is not precisely the same,
as the translation is not done mechanically. Therefore, it can be said that it is very often
the translator who adjusts the grammatical categories to make the text more suitable.
3.2.3 Tense
Knittlová (2010, 122) claims that it is often misinterpretation of English tenses
and categories that Czech language does not have what is very problematic for
translators. The translator might also often fail in their compensation, such as in case of
the present perfect tense. Therefore, it might be very interesting to examine the
61
translation of some complicated structures, such as present perfect tense or conditional
mood.
As Kateřina Novotná mentioned in the interview (Appendix 1), she did not have
any problem when dealing with the category of English tense system when translating
the book.
She, naturally, examines the context and then translates the English text using
Czech equivalents considering important aspects such as context, type of the verb, and
time sequence in the story.
Let us now examine her strategy more closely using examples.
(80) I do not like strangers because I do not like people I have never met before.
(2003, 45)
(81) Cizí lidi nemám rád, protože nemám rád lidi, které jsem ještě nikdy neviděl.
(2003, 33)
(82) That is why I am really good at remembering things, like the conversations
I have written down in this book, and what people were wearing, and what they
smelled like, because my memory has a smelltrack which is like a soundtrack.
(2003, 96)
(83) Proto si taky všechno tak dobře pamatuju, třeba rozhovory, které jsem v
knize popsal, a co měli lidi na sobě, a jak voněli, protože moje paměť má
čichovou stopu, což je totéž co zvuková stopa. (2003, 64)
(84) I do not know. Nor does Father. Nor do Siobhan or Mr Jeavons. I have
asked them. (2003, 5)
(85) Nevím. Neví to ani táta. Ani Siobhan, ani pan Jeavons. Ptal jsem se jich.
(2003, 11)
(86) And this is why everything I have written here is true. (2003, 25)
(87) A proto všechno, co tady píšu, je pravda. (2003, 23)
Many other examples of present perfect tense in the English book could be found,
it seems that this tense is rather frequent. However, compared to past simple tense, it is
insignificant.
62
According to Knittlová (2010, 122), translators often interpret English tenses -
which Czech language does not have - incorrectly, or they very often fail in
compensating them properly e.g. by adverbials – especially in case of present perfect
tense.
In our interview, Kateřina Novotná said that she translates present perfect tense by
either past or present tense into Czech, depending on context.
Three out of four previous verbs in present perfect tense were translated using
past tense in Czech and one verb was translated using present tense as its Czech
equivalent. In the first example - (81), she supported translation of present perfect tense
using past tense in its Czech equivalent by Czech adverb ještě (yet). However, this
adverb might have been used due to presence of before in the English version.
Therefore, it is not clear whether the translator used the adverb to support the original
present perfect tense or it was used to compensate the English expression before.
To support the translator, it must be said that there seems to be no need to
highlight the original use of present perfect tense by e.g. doposud, or už. Based on my
observations, the only difference would be the emphasis put on the time sequence,
which might often seem unnecessary.
Knittlová (2010, 122) also claims that translators often fail in compensating some
time sequences e.g. by “a pak”. Let us now analyse several uses of past perfect tense in
English and its translation into Czech to examine the time sequence.
(88) I had been hugging the dog for 4 minutes when I heard screaming. (2003,
4)
(89) Choval jsem psa 4 minuty, když jsem zaslechl ječení. (2003, 11)
(90) I said that I wanted to write about something real and I knew people who
had died but I did not know any people who had been killed, except Edward’s
father from school, Mr Paulson, and that was a gliding accident, not murder,
and I didn’t really know him. (2003, 6)
(91) Řekl jsem,že chci psát o něčem skutečném a že znám lidi, co umřeli, ale
neznám nikoho, kdo byl zabitý, kromě pana Paulsona, otce Edwarda z naší
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školy, a to že byna nehoda při plachtění a né vražda a vlastně jsem ho ani
neznal. (2003, 12)
(92) I said that I hadn’t seen her and he went downstairs and started making
some phone calls. (2003, 28)
(93) Řekl jsem, že neviděl, a on šel dolů a začal telefonovat. (2003, 24)
(94) I had not been into hospital to see her but Father had taken in lots of food
from Marks and Spencer’s. (2003, 35)
(95) Já jsem za ní na návštěvě v nemocnici nebyl, ale táta tam donesl spoustu
jídla od Markse a Spencera. (2003, 28)
(96) Father had never grabbed hold of me like that before. Mother had hit me
sometimes because she was a very hot-tempered person, which means that she
got angry more quickly than other people and she shouted more often. (2003,
103)
(97) Nikdy předtím mě takhle nepopadl. Máma mě občas uhodila, protože byla
temperamentní, což znamená, že se rozzlobila rychleji než ostatní lidé a častěji
křičela. (2003, 68-69)
As for past perfect tense, it is obviously not supported by an adverb, such as then
(a pak) in its Czech translation to highlight the use of past perfect in the English version.
However, it must be said that inserting such adverbs might sound unnatural and could
disrupt the text as such. The translator highlighted the use of past perfect in the last
instance as it seems to be very important to stress that it actually happened for the first
time. On the contrary, she did not stress the time sequence in any of the preceding
examples. She obviously relies on context and makes the Czech translation sound
natural. It seems that the translation perfectly matches ordinary Czech language with
emphasis on casualness.
3.2.4 Definiteness
Dušková (2006, 59) claims that definiteness is expressed by various means, such
as articles, and pronouns. However, attention in the source text will only be paid to
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articles due to the fact that this category is missing in Czech language. This absence and
the way translator deals with it might make the analysis much more interesting.
As mentioned in the theoretical part of this thesis (2.2.1.4), specific reference will
be examined in the English CID and compared to its Czech version.
(98) It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the
middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. [...] But the dog was not
running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of
the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way through the dog and
into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. (2003, 1)
(99) Bylo 7 minut po půlnoci. Uprostřed trávníku před domem paní Shearsové
ležel pes. [...] Pes ale neběžel ani nespal. Pes byl mrtvý. Trčely z něho vidle.
Nepokácely se, takže jejich hroty musely projít psem skrz naskrz a zapíchnout se
do země. (2003, 9)
The above extract (98) illustrates the category of definiteness in English text. Both
definite and indefinite articles were highlighted to make the category of definiteness
more evident and the frequency of articles in English more noticeable. It is obvious that
this category is very frequent in English. Specific reference might be highlighted when
examining the reference to the dog and the garden fork in the text. Both indefinite and
definite articles refer to a subject which is unambiguously determined it the context of
the situation. The garden fork is introduced by indefinite article at first. Then, it is
referred to as 'the fork' due to the situational context and the fact that readers already
know what garden fork is exactly being mentioned. The dog is, on the other hand,
referred to by definite article from the very beginning of its introduction and its identity
is revealed later on in the text.
The second instance illustrates the Czech version of the same book. It is obvious
that the translator simply left the articles out and did not use any other means to
translate them. The specific reference is, therefore, very strongly highlighted in English.
On the other hand, lack of articles in the Czech version seems to suppress the role of
cohesion in the text in contrast with the English version. One may agree that e.g.
demonstrative pronouns could be used in the Czech version of the book to support
cohesion and stress the presence of definite articles in the English version.
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Knittlová (2010, 121) might support the translatorʼs decision to take no notice of
definite and indefinite article in this extract by claiming that there is usually a
possibility of using lexical means to translate a grammatical category which is missing
in the target language, however, the meaning might be unnecessarily highlighted, such
as in: She was wearing a ring. Měla na ruce jakýsi prsten.
Some other examples of definiteness in English fiction were selected. However,
attention was paid to examples that might have an equivalent in Czech that is translated
using pronouns or some other means that substitute English determiners.
(100)'Let go of the dog, ' she shouted. 'Let go of the fucking dog for Christ’s
sake.' (2003, 4)
(101)“Nech toho psa,” křičela. “Nech toho zatracenýho psa, prokristapána.”
(2003, 11)
(102)That is why I started with the dog. I also started with the dog because it
happened to me and I find it hard to imagine things which did not happen to me.
(2003, 5)
(103)A proto jsem začal psem. Tím psem jsem začal taky proto, že tohle se mi
stalo a já si dokážu těžko představit věci, které se mi nestaly. (2003, 12)
(104)I said that two dogs were killed in The Hound of the Baskervilles, the
hound itself, and James Mortimer’s spaniel, but Siobhan said they weren’t the
victims of the murder, Sir Charles Baskerville was. (2003, 6)
(105)Řekl jsem, že ve Psovi baskervillském byli zabiti dva psi, ta doga a
kokršpaněl Jamese Mortimera, ale Siobhan řekla, že tohle nebyly oběti vraždy,
to že byl sir Charles Baskerville. (2003, 12)
According to the previous instances, the translator occasionally decides to
translate the definite article by demonstrative pronoun to highlight its function and
specific reference. However, it seems that the translator includes these substitutes very
rarely. To illustrate the frequency of translated definite and indefinite articles, a graph
will be created to show the consistency of this tendency.
The first chapter of the book was examined and both definite and indefinite
articles were counted. Their Czech equivalents were also analysed in the first chapter of
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the Czech translation of CID and the frequency of occurrences is illustrated in the
following graph.
Fig. 9
The above graph illustrates occurrence of definite and indefinite articles in
English and their presence/absence in the Czech version. None of the indefinite articles
was translated into Czech as, e.g. jakýsi, or nějaký (as suggested by Knittlová 2010,
121).
Considering the definite article, four out of thirty-seven English definite articles
were translated into Czech using possessive and demonstrative pronouns. The four
instances are the following: jejich hroty (the points of the fork), těmi vidlemi (the fork),
těm malým pudlům (the small poodles), and ten kousek papíru (the original piece of
paper). It is obvious that all four cases when the translator decided to highlight
definiteness represent specific reference. Therefore, it is evident that the translator relies
on the context and translates English articles only if necessary to highlight them.
To sum up occurrence of definiteness in English texts, attention was only paid to
definite and indefinite articles, and mainly to specific reference. The analysis was not
very easy due to the non-existence of this grammatical category in Czech language. The
articles very often occur in English texts. According to the analysis, it is the definite
article which occurs more often in English. As for their Czech equivalents, they were
not translated at all in majority of the cases. In case the translator decided to translate
articles, she used possessive and demonstrative pronouns.
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3.2.5 Repetition
It can be assumed that repeated items will occur very frequently in the text as the
narrator very often seems to be specific, defining terms precisely, and therefore seems
not to use synonymy very often but rather repeat the items as they were defined. Several
instances were selected to illustrate this claim.
(106) I do not like proper novels. In proper novels people say things like, 'I am
veined with iron, with silver and with streaks of common mud.' (2003, 5)
(107) I said that I liked things to be in a nice order. And one way of things being
in a nice order was to be logical. Especially if those things were numbers or an
argument. But there were other ways of putting things in a nice order. (2003,
31)
(108) Iʼm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have
special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties
because learning to speak French or understanding Relativity is difficult, and
also everyone has special needs, like Father who has to carry a little packet of
artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his coffee to stop him
getting fat, [...]. (2003, 56)
It is obvious that the above instances represent what Tárnyiková calls total
repetition as the narrator keeps repeating the whole expressions. He could, of course,
omit at least some parts of the expression, however, he would probably not express
himself precisely and therefore, he does not omit e.g. the adjective (which could
represent partial repetition).
(109) But I do like murder mystery novels. So I am writing a murder mystery
novel. In a murder mystery novel someone has to work out who the murderer is
and then catch them. (2003, 5)
The above instance represents what Hoey (1996) calls simple lexical cohesion
with only very slight changes allowed when repeating the expression – which can be
perfectly represented by alternation in singular and plural paradigm (therefore presence
of –s suffix in the repeated expression). Except from the alteration (which is explicable
in terms of a closed grammatical paradigm), there is no greater change. In case there
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was greater alternation, the instance would have to be labelled as complex repetition. To
examine this class, let us now mention some examples and comment them on.
As for complex lexical cohesion, it can also be found within the text, such as in:
(110) Iʼm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have
special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties
because learning to speak French or understanding Relativity is difficult, and
also everyone has special needs, like Father who has to carry a little packet of
artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his coffee to stop him
getting fat, [...]. (2003, 56)
(111) Siobhan said that when you are writing a book you have to include some
descriptions of things. I said that I could take photographs and put them in the
book. But she said the idea of a book was to describe things using words so that
people could read them and make a picture in their own head. And she said it
was best to describe things that were interesting or different. [...] So I decided to
do a description of the garden. (2003, 85)
As for recursiveness based on multiple introduction of a clause, or repetition of a
structure, it occurs very frequently in CID. Several instances were selected to illustrate
this claim.
(112) Then I listened to the sounds in the garden and I could hear a bird singing
and I could hear traffic noise which was like the surf on a beach and I could
hear someone playing music somewhere and children shouting. And in between
these noises, if I listened very carefully and stood completely still, I could hear a
tiny whining noise inside my ears and the air going in and out of my nose.
(2003, 87)
(113) And I said, 'I have been out.' This is called a white lie. A white lie is not a
lie at all. It is where you tell the truth but you do not tell all of the truth. This
means that everything you say is a white lie because when someone says, for
example, 'What do you want to do today?' you say, 'I want to do painting with
Mrs Peters,' but you donʼt say 'I want to have my lunch and I want to go to the
toilet and I want to go home after school and I want to play with Toby and I
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want to have my supper and I want to play on my computer and I want to go to
bed.' (2003, 62)
(114) They asked me if I had any family. I said I did. They asked me who my
family was. I said it was Father, but Mother was dead. [...] They asked me for
Father’s phone number. (2003, 17)
It seems that in case of the above instances, the structures are totally repeated,
such as in (113). There also seems to be a repeating pattern in what follows the total
repetition – verb in infinitive form. These verbs are also very often repeated, such as go
(three occurrences), have (two occurrences), or play (two occurrences). The above
instances seem either to represent memorising, or sequence of events. It can be said that
the above instances of recursiveness very strongly support cohesion of the paragraph,
and the whole book.
The first and the second instances of recursiveness were translated into Czech by
Kateřina Novotná following nearly the same pattern – copying recursiveness within the
paragraph. However, the second example was not translated in the same way:
(115) Tomuhle se říká dobře míněná lež. Dobře míněná lež není vůbec lež. Je to,
když říkáte pravdu, ale neříkáte celou pravdu. To znamená, že všechno, co
řeknete, je dobře míněná lež, protože když někdo například řekne “Co budeš
dnes dělat?” vy řeknete, “Budu s paní Petersovou kreslit,” ale neřeknete
“Budu obědvat a půjdu na záchod a ze školy půjdu domů a budu si hrát s
Tobym a povečeřím a zahraju sin a počítači a půjdu spát.” (2003, 43)
Although repetition is very strong in the above instance, recursiveness that the
English instance was based on was not observed. It can be said that simple repetition
represents what was represented by recursiveness in the English version – preciseness
within listing. It might not always be possible to observe all patterns that were used in
the English version as the translator must also be aware of the structure of Czech
language and translate the original text with respect to Czech language and the readers.
To sum up, it can be said that all simple, partial, total, complex repetition, or
recursiveness occur very frequently in the text. As there is often only one precise
expression when defining things, Christopher decides to use it, even repeatedly, and
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does not replace it by synonymy. However, not to conclude the category of synonymy
without analysing it, it will be examined in the following sub-chapter.
3.2.6 Synonymy
As for this support of lexical cohesion, it was selected intentionally due to the
attributes of the text. As mentioned above (for details see 3.1), the narrator of CID is
very accurate about what he says. Therefore, it might be very difficult to find some
synonyms in the text as he only uses precise definitions of things. He often repeats the
same term many times in a row which might suppress use of synonyms. Thereafter, it
might be assumed that synonymy will only be very rarely used in the text. However, to
prove this claim, the text must be examined and potential occurrences must be analysed
to highlight the frequency of synonyms in the text/discourse.
(116)Then she showed me this picture
(2003, 2)
(117)I got Siobhan to draw lots of these faces and then write down next to them
exactly what they meant. (2003, 3)
(118)But it was very difficult to decide which of the diagrams was most like the
face they were making because people’s faces move very quickly. (2003, 3)
The above examples illustrate one of very few instances of synonymy in the book.
These terms are distributed within two pages, i.e. within the whole chapter; therefore,
some of the terms are repeated several times. To be precise, the term picture is repeated
three times. In case its synonyms, faces and diagrams, were not used, the term would be
repeated five times, not considering the fact that it is very often substituted by personal
pronoun it. It must also be said that the above example of synonymy is not very typical.
On the contrary, face might not normally be considered a proper synonym to picture.
Therefore, it can be said that there are not many proper synonyms, such as range and
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selection. An example of rather common synonymy might be illustrated by the
following example.
(119)I put my hands over my ears and closed my eyes and rolled forward till I
was hunched up with my forehead pressed onto the grass. (2003, 4)
(120)I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again
and made the noise that Father calls groaning. (2003, 8)
The above examples might be easily associated, although they have different
meanings.
Lexical cohesion is also supported by synonymy in discourse. Christopher is very
often one of the two participants and he speaks in the same manner as in the text.
However, the other participants of the dialogues speak differently. They are not so
precise and specific, therefore, instances of synonymy can be found in the parts
simulating face-to-face communication. The following instances were selected to
illustrate the use of synonymy in discourse.
(121)Father said, 'I told you to keep your nose out of other people’s business.'
(2003, 63)
'I know you told me not to get involved in other people’s business Mrs Shears is
a friend of ours.' (2003, 63)
(122)'I’m not allowed to talk to you.' (2003, 70)
'Having a chat is just being friendly, isn’t it?' (2003, 70)
(123)And she said, 'Did it make you upset to find out that your mother and Mr
Shears had an affair?' (2003, 94)
But sometimes we get sad about things and we don’t like to tell other people that
we are sad about them. (2003, 94)
It can be said that these instances selected from simulation of face-to-face
communication represent lexical cohesion, namely synonymy. It is obvious that due to
the fact that the people might observe different grammatical rules and have different
vocabulary, they express their thoughts differently. Therefore, examples of synonymy
can be found in these extracts. However, the frequency of synonymy in text compared
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to discourse might not be contrasted due to unequal size of examined material. What is
also very interesting is the fact that the narrator himself often seems to adapt
expressions used by other people, such as “I was poking my nose into other people’s
business” (2003, 63). This expression was evidently adopted from Christopher’s father.
The narrator would probably use the words 'I got involved', which are more formal.
Therefore, it might be said that the narrator is often influenced by other people and the
use of synonymy by Christopher might get increased towards the end of the book.
Nevertheless, the phrases must evidently be used frequently by both Christopher and the
other person for him to adopt them.
To sum up, synonymy might be observed in both text and discourse in the text.
However, frequency of occurrence of synonymy in text and discourse might not be
compared. Discourse is very often represented by questions and answers only, therefore,
longer stretches, which would offer more possibilities for including synonym, produced
by other people are almost missing in the book.
Frequency of synonymy in the text, however, seems not to be very high.
Thereafter, it can be said that there is lack of synonyms in some parts of the text. On the
other hand, to be more precise, different texts would have to be examined and compared
to this one for one to dare say that synonymy is less frequent in this text than in some
other texts narrated by an ordinary person. Therefore, it must be satisfactory to conclude
that instances of synonymy can be found within the text; however, there is not
abundance of them. The absence of synonyms in some parts of the text can be easily
clarified due to the character of the narrator. Moreover, based on my observations, it can
be said that repeated expressions/structures occur more frequently in the text than
synonyms. It seems that the narrator prefers repeating terms to their replacement by
synonyms.
As for the Czech translation of synonymy, it can be said that the translator
observed synonymy of the original text. Therefore, the above mentioned instances of
synonymy could identically serve as instances of lexical cohesion in the Czech version
of the same book.
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3.3 Coherence
As the mutual connectedness of the components of the text was examined up to
now, it is time to stress the underlying structure – the text and its logical connectedness.
To begin with, it must be said that the text makes sense as Christopher is used to
expressing things directly and clearly. The fact that he probably perceives things
differently does not disrupt the text and its understanding. It might only influence our
prediction. As one does not know Christopher and his syndrome properly, mainly at the
beginning of the book, he might not be able to predict his actions. However, this
improves as one reads the novel and gets to know the character. It can be said that he
might gradually become easily understood and his actions predictable.
Several instances from the book were selected to illustrate the above mentioned
claims about prediction.
(124) Instead, she started screaming again. I put my hands over my ears and
closed my eyes and rolled forward till I was hunched up with my forehead
pressed onto the grass. The grass was wet and cold. It was nice. (2003, 4)
(125) [...] 4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day, which is a day when I
don’t speak to anyone and sit on my own reading books and don’t eat my lunch
and Take No Risks. (2003, 31)
The above situations illustrate Christopher’s actions and logics that the reader
might not understand or be able to associate with Asperger Syndrome at first. As for the
first instance, his reaction to screaming might not be understood as the reader might not
know that Christopher does not like people shouting because it makes him scared that
the person is going to touch him. It is not until page 59 in the book when the reader
finds out that one of Christopher’s behavioural problems is actually “not liking being
touched” (Haddon 2003, 59).
Considering the second instance, Christopher explains what happens if he sees 4
yellow cars in a row on his way to school. However, the reader finds out that he does
not like yellow and brown things and refuses to touch them later in the book.
Christopher even explains why he does not like yellow things, dedicating a whole
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chapter to it – chapter 131. For this reason, the reader is reminded of the fact that
Christopher does not like yellow and brown colours throughout the whole book.
On the other hand, there are many situations when Christopher explains why he
does not like something – mentions the fact; and a real-life situation occurs later in the
book, so that the reader is able to associate these events. The following instance was
selected to illustrate this issue.
(126) These are some of my Behavioural Problems
A. Not talking to people for a long time.
[...]
J. Not eating food if different sorts of food are touching each other. (2003, 59)
(127) Father banged the table with his fist really hard so that the plates and his
knife and fork jumped around and my ham jumped sideways so that it touched
the broccoli so I couldn’t eat the ham or the broccoli any more. (2003, 63)
When one examines the situation and finds out that different sorts of food touched
each other, he immediately realizes that Christopher cannot eat the food any more. His
additional information that he could not eat it did not have to be mentioned as the reader
is already aware of this problem. Therefore, many situations become predictable. It
must also be pointed out that due to his preciseness; Christopher often repeats
information, including his behavioural problems. For this reason, many things that
would be taken for granted (just due to the fact that the reader gradually gets to know
the syndrome) are unnecessarily specified.
The above analysis of prediction might very easily be reflected in the cause-and-
effect pattern of many situations in the book. This pattern is pragmatically activated due
to presence of some situations and their explanations. This issue was dealt with in
chapter 3.1.1.
As the text is very strongly influenced by the main character and his behaviour
and actions, it can be said that both temporal frame and the sequence of events rest on
Christopher and his activities. As he investigates a murder and narrates it in past tense,
the temporal frame is rather clear (for more details see 3.1.1). Sequence of events also
depends on Christopher, predominantly in the chapters dealing with the crime
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investigation, and often on some other characters, such as his father, Mrs Alexander, or
Mrs Shears. For close analysis of this issue, see 3.1.1. All these facts contribute to
coherence of the text.
As for coherence, some other terms closely related to it must be analysed, such as
frame, schema, or script.
Considering frame, it significantly contributes to coherence of the text as it very
often relies on the reader’s previous knowledge of similar situations and leaves some
information unmentioned as these are taken for granted.
The following extract was copied to illustrate one of the frames activated when
reading CID.
(128) When I got to the police station they made me take the laces out of my
shoes and empty my pockets at the front desk in case I had anything in them that
I could use to kill myself or escape or attack a policeman with. [...]
Then they asked me for Father’s phone number.
I told them that he had two numbers, one for at home and one which was a
mobile phone and I said both of them. (2003, 17)
The above extract represents part of our knowledge of the world relating to the
frame activated by the text, particularly police station scene. Based on one’s personal
experience and observations, many situations could be deduced, such as the reason why
Christopher has to empty his pockets. The reader also does not need to be reminded that
there are policemen at the station, etc. However, as Christopher is often very precise and
is used to giving exact information, the reader is often given all pieces of information
and does not need to rely on his knowledge of the frame – or he only partly relies on it.
It is not necessary to mention that there are police cells at the station; however,
Christopher adds details and describes the cells. Generally, the frame is very often
activated in the reader’s memory; however, comprehension of the book does not rely on
assuming details or deducing something.
Moreover, there are many schemas or scenarios in the text, such as descriptions of
situations. Many parts of the book rest on description, therefore, many schemas are
activated. As the book is also very often based on cause-and-effect patters, it can be said
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that many specifications of some action (and the reason for doing it) and its
consequence/reactions and often mentioned, such as Christopher arguing with his
father, who consequently bangs the table with his fist so that Christopher cannot eat his
mean any more because different sorts of food touched.
Lastly, script, which also contributes to coherence of the text, was analysed. These
are rather pre-established routines, and therefore the reader might expect some
particular development – thus it might be interesting to examine if our expectations
match with the situations. Script will be illustrated consequently.
(129) And there was no one else in front of the window and I said to the man
behind the window, 'I want to go to London,' [...]
And the man said, 'Single or return?'
And I said, 'What does single or return mean?'
And he said, 'Do you want to go one way, or do you want to go and come back?'
And he said, 'For how long?'
And I said, 'Until I go to university.' (2003, 189)
The above instance might not illustrate an ordinary routine of buying ticket. Based
on my observations, stereotype suggests that one knows what single and return ticket is.
Moreover, it can be assumed that when asked if one wants to go one way or wants to go
and come back, he/she will probably not answer that he/she wants to stay there until
he/she goes to university. The script, therefore, seems to be disrupted by the fact that
Christopher normally does not solve similar problems/situations and that he does not
know how to react. The syndrome also disrupts the stereotyped role of the participant in
this case.
As for script, there might be more similar situations found in the book and it can
be concluded that the character does not usually react/act according to the
stabilized/routinized and expected plan.
To summarize, it can be said that the text is strongly coherent as interpretation of
many situations lay within the context and reader must very often consider context to
understand a situation. If reading the text, e.g. its chapters separately, one would
probably not be able to understand some events. However, the text as a whole rests on
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pragmatic knowledge and logical connectedness of the whole story. It is very strongly
influenced by Christopher’s syndrome and our acquaintance with the syndrome.
3.4 Intentionality
As some major terms closely linked with intentionality were defined in 2.2.3, they
must be analysed and commented on.
As for intentionality, it is obvious that the producer probably has an intention
when writing a book, such as distributing knowledge. It would be very interesting to
contact the author of the book and ask him about his intentions before writing CID.
However, as it was not possible to contact the author, his presumable intentions and
plans will be mentioned. It can be assumed that the author’s major goal was text
production as without this goal, the text would never be produced. Considering this
particular goal, it can be said that more specific goal would then be to produce a text
which is cohesive and coherent. It can, therefore, be said that this goal was achieved.
Furthermore, the author probably set many other goals which will be examined
consequently.
Based on my observations, the text producer’s goal was to distribute knowledge,
particularly to acquaint readers with Asperger syndrome and the way people suffering
from this syndrome perceive world. It can also be said that this goal was achieved
successfully. As the text is highly informative (3.6), the producer’s intentions might
have been very diverse, from simply writing a novel to supporting the distribution of
knowledge about the syndrome or to more personal goals.
Let us now analyse the story and its characters and concentrate on more detailed
plans and goals.
As plan might be understood as a sequence of actions taken intentionally in order
to reach a goal and Christopher’s goal is to find the murdered of Wellington, the poodle,
his plan is a sequence of actions taken in order to find out who the murderer is.
(130) I am going to find out who killed Wellington. (2003, 26)
Christopher starts investigating this crime by visiting Mrs Shears – the owner of
the dog – and later on examining the shed where she keeps all the gardening tools to
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find out if a garden fork is there. Then, he visits people in the neighbourhood and asks
them about Wellington’s murder. He particularly talks to Mrs Alexander who tells him
some news and Christopher gradually not only learns about the murder of the dog but
also about his mother who was supposed to be dead.
As Christopher talks to several people about the murder, he usually sets a goal –
to find some information about the night when the dog was killed. Therefore, each
conversation seems to have its particular goal. However, Christopher is not the only one
to ask questions. Some other characters ask Christopher to achieve a goal. Therefore,
each conversation seems to aim at a goal.
(131) 'Would you like to tell me what’s going on here, young man?'
I sat up and said, 'The dog is dead.'
'I’d got that far,' he said.
I said, 'I think someone killed the dog.'
'How old are you?' he asked.
I replied, 'I am 15 years and 3 months and 3 days.'
'And what, precisely, were you doing in the garden?' he asked.
'I was holding the dog,' I replied.
'And why were you holding the dog?' he asked. (2003, 7)
In the above instance, it is the policeman who is trying to find more information
about the dog’s murder and therefore achieve a goal.
To get back to the main character, another of Christopher’s goals might seem to
be his desire to get to his mother who lives in London. For this reason, he invents a plan
and takes many actions to achieve it, such as going to the train station, withdrawing
some money from a cash dispenser, buying a ticket, travelling by train, etc. His goal is
finally achieved as he successfully gets to his mother.
To sum up, it is obvious that each character probably has a goal which very often
depends on particular situation. It can also be said that many plans can be observed
within the plot. As for the author’s intention, if his primary intention was to distribute
knowledge about the syndrome, it can be said that this goal was achieved perfectly.
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Readers learn much about the syndrome and, based on my observations, can identify
with the main character and understand the way Christopher perceives world. What
greatly contributes to this goal is the language of the narrator – the pieces of information
he mentions and the way he conveys them. Moreover, it is the structure of the book and
many other aspects.
3.5 Acceptability
To begin with, it might be necessary to point at markedness of the text. It is
obvious that the plot and the character of the narrator very much influence the structure
of the book and its form. Nevertheless, it might be interesting to examine to what extent
one is willing to accept an extraordinary and unique technique of narration.
Firstly, as mentioned above, characteristics of the novel and its macro-structure
must be taken into account as it can be said that the reader is gradually getting used to
the text and the way it is delivered. Thereafter, it can be said that before analysing the
micro-structure, i.e. parameters, it is necessary to examine the macro-structure, i.e. the
whole novel.
As for the macro-structure, the translator of the book, Kateřina Novotná, was
asked whether she had considered it before translating the book. She claims that she
usually examines the book – not the whole book, however, it is important for her to read
at least first 20 pages of the book to analyse the atmosphere and learn something about
the characters. Therefore, it can be said that it is not always the whole book that the
translator needs to read before translating it to get used to the atmosphere and the main
characters.
Let us now turn back to the macro-structure of the book = the whole book. As it is
Christopher and his illness that disrupt the basic expectations, the character will be
described to make the context clear. Christopher is, as he claims, “15 years and 3
months and 2 days.” (Haddon 2003, 7) As he suffers from Asperger syndrome, he does
not perceive things the way ordinary people do. He very carefully observes other
people’s behaviour and comments it on. He seems to be rather perfectionist if it comes
to some rules. He could be, probably, best described by his own words. These are some
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of his Behavioural Problems: not liking being touched, not liking yellow things or
brown things and refusing to touch yellow things or brown things, not eating food if
different sorts of food are touching each other, driving Mother’s car, etc. (2003, 59)
Christopher mentions exactly eighteen problems, arranging them from A to R. He
devotes the whole chapter, no. 73, to his behavioural problems, as he describes some of
them more thoroughly and even gives examples of some incidents caused by these
problems.
It must be said that the text is fully coherent and cohesive. Therefore, as for
grammatical rules, they are observed and the text is very easily accepted as such. In this
case, the text does not require important contributions from the reader in order to make
sense. The structure and form was served to the reader as fully cohesive.
Nevertheless, as for coherence, it seems that the author’s intention might go
deeper beyond narrating a young boy’s story. At this point, it must be said that the
analysis is based on my own observations and that the following standpoints might not
be generally shared. This claim might be supported by Tárnyiková (2002, 56) who
claims that “it is not texts that have coherence but rather speakers/hearers who ascribe
meaning, force and coherence to a text.”
As for coherence, the text is logical and very well comprehensible. However, the
overall interpretation seems to be more profound. The text seems not only to acquaint
the reader with a story of a boy, but also with his syndrome. As many of the main
misunderstandings and conflicts in the story result from Christopher’s syndrome, it is
obvious that the writer wanted to acquaint the reader with Asperger syndrome as well.
The syndrome is described in the book from the perspective of Christopher himself. The
narrator’s character and behaviour very often disrupts our expectations. It must be said
that the closer one gets to the end of the book, the more accustomed to the narrative
style and the narrator’s character he/she becomes. Thus, we even expect what we would
not expect at the beginning of the story.
The above claim might be supported by Kateřina Novotná who claims that
although Christopher perceives things differently, he is usually clear and precise and
therefore it was not difficult for her to translate the book. Maybe it was the fact that
Christopher formulates his ideas and opinions rather simply what helped her when
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translating the book. Kateřina Novotná also claims that her expectations changed when
reading the book – she gradually got used to his language and perception of things.
Now, the story will be analysed from the point of view of general expectations
and acceptability will be commented on.
Contrary to our expectations, the chapters are given prime numbers, i.e. 2, 3, 5, 7,
11, 13, etc. Chapters in books are usually numbered chronologically, beginning with
number one and continuing with the cardinal numbers, i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Nevertheless,
the numbering might seem easily acceptable due to its insignificance if it comes to
understanding of the book. On the other hand, such deviation is very important for
understanding the narrator’s character. It supports the fact that he likes particular rules
and observing them and that he simply likes prime numbers. It also stresses singularity
of the book. Moreover, there is not a written rule insisting on giving chapters in books
cardinal numbers.
What also provides contrast to ordinary fiction is dual orientation of the book.
Some chapters focus on the narrator’s life and some deal with the murder of Wellington.
These two approaches, however, penetrate in the story and are very important for
understanding the story as a whole. Chapters devoted to Christopher and his character
help us comprehend the chapters dealing with his actions and progress in investigation.
This is also very easily acceptable as the chapters seem to be very strongly related and
the overall coherence is not disrupted.
Moreover, what underlines acceptability is the fact that the reader must get used to
constant repetition. As mentioned previously, the character is very specific about what
he says. Therefore, he very often uses exact words to describe things and rarely opts for
synonymy. He also seems not to support ellipsis and substitution very much. The
following paragraph was selected to illustrate this claim.
(132)And I said, 'I have been out.' This is called a white lie. A white lie is not a
lie at all. It is where you tell the truth but you do not tell all of the truth. This
means that everything you say is a white lie because when someone says, for
example, 'What do you want to do today?' you say, 'I want to do painting with
Mrs Peters,' but you don’t say 'I want to have my lunch and I want to go to the
toilet and I want to go home after school and I want to play with Toby and I
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want to have my supper and I want to play on my computer and I want to go to
bed.' (2003, 62)
(133)But I do like murder mystery novels. So I am writing a murder mystery
novel. In a murder mystery novel someone has to work out who the murderer is
and then catch them. (2003, 5)
The above extracts were selected intentionally as they illustrate repetition. Some
phrases are repeated several times within a very short extract. To learn more about
repetition in this particular text, see chapters (3.2.5). It is obvious that lexical cohesion
is very strongly influenced by repetition and comprehension of the story is much easier
for the reader.
One also needs to get used to the fact that Christopher very often explains things
that seem to be entirely clear. It can be said that the text requires very little contributions
from the reader in order to make sense. The text producer often seems to offer more
complex descriptions than necessary. Therefore, it might very often seem that the
narrator mentions much more details than necessary for the text to be understandable
and acceptable. On the other hand, all the superfluous details are actually necessary for
understanding Christopher’s character and the impact the illness has on him. To
summarize, all the details are not necessary for understanding the text, however, are
very important for comprehension of the whole story.
To put it simply, concerning grammar, readers do not need to exercise tolerance
towards this text as there are no hybrid structures as in e.g. conversation or other text
types.
To sum up, it can be said that the form of the story is very strongly influenced by
Christopher’s syndrome and that many patterns appearing in the book might be
unexpected and seem confusing at the beginning of the story. However, all the
deviations and exceptions to rules highlight the markedness of the text and its real
purpose. It seems that one needs to accept many extraordinary rules, and patterns to
comprehend the story and its hidden message, however, these rules do not prevent one
from understanding the story.
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3.6 Informativity
Concerning informativity as the aspect of newness/variability that knowledge has
in some context, the story as a whole will be examined in relation to this concept.
Acquaintance of the reader with Christopher’s character, or more generally with the
Asperger syndrome, might play very important role concerning informativity. The
reader learns about behaviour problems of a child suffering from this form of autism
and he/she gets to know the illness and its disadvantages throughout the whole story.
Therefore, as for familiarity with the illness, the book is highly informative.
On the other hand, there might be no aspect of newness for people who are
already familiar with this illness. In this case, information density in the book might not
be very high for such people. However, to find out the percentage of people who know
the illness and its signs and symptoms and thus people who do not consider this book
highly informative, a research would have to be carried out and evaluated. These people
would probably read the book for gaining more details or examining the illness from the
perspective of Christopher.
Except from the overall notion, there are many details that might be new for the
reader and therefore highly informative, e.g. chapter 19 which deals with prime
numbers and cardinal numbers (Haddon 2003, 14-15). The narrator reveals the rules for
working out prime numbers, which might be unknown to some readers, and adds that
“no one has ever worked out a simple formula for telling you whether a very big
number is a prime number or what the next one will be” (Haddon 2003, 15).
Another instance of informativity in the book might be the characteristics of
simile the narrator mentions. He says that a policeman had a very hairy nose and that “it
looked as if there were two very small mice hiding in his nostrils” (Haddon 2003, 22).
To explain this statement, he adds that “this is not a metaphor, it is a simile, which means
that it really did look like there were two very small mice hiding in his nostrils and if you make
a picture in your head of a man with two very small mice hiding in his nostrils you will know
what the police inspector looked like. And a simile is not a lie, unless it is a bad simile”
(Haddon 2003, 22). This piece of information is mentioned in the footnotes.
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The above instance might also be very informative for people who do not know
what simile is. Nevertheless, definition of metaphor is not mentioned, which would
provide better contrast and even higher information density.
A lot of other information is mentioned within the story. Much information is
provided by the narrator himself. The pieces of information are of different fields of
study and concern many different things and concepts, e.g. description of our galaxy,
mentioning the origin of the name Christopher, mentioning plots of some famous
fiction, solving maths problems, etc. Some other instances of informativity of this
particular text might be illustrated by the following examples.
(134)Then he said, 'Holy fucking Jesus, Christopher. How stupid are you?'
This is what Siobhan says is called a rhetorical question. It has a question mark
at the end, but you are not meant to answer it because the person who is asking
it already knows the answer. It is difficult to spot a rhetorical question. (2003,
102)
(135)Most people don’t like rats because they think they carry diseases like
bubonic plague. But that’s only because they lived in sewers and stowed away
on ships coming from foreign countries where there were strange diseases.
(2003, 52)
(136)And anyway, Orion is not a hunter or a coffee maker or a dinosaur. It is
just Betelgeuse and Bellatrix and Alnilam and Rigel and 17 other stars I don’t
know the names of. And they are nuclear explosions billions of miles away.
(2003, 157)
(137)And there is life on earth because of an accident. But it is a very special
kind of accident. And for this accident to happen in this special way, there have
to be 3 Conditions. And these are
1. Things have to make copies of themselves (this is called Replication)
2. They have to make small mistakes when they do this (this is called Mutation)
3. These mistakes have to be the same in their copies (this is called
Heritability) (2003, 203)
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All the above instances concern Christopher giving information. However,
Christopher also gains information from the other characters, e.g. his father of Mrs
Shears. What will now be examined is the process of gaining informations, which
Tarnyiková (2002, 73) calls negotiating informativity.
Christopher often asks questions to explore the participant’s knowledge or gain a
particular piece of information. He does not seem to be supporter of phatic
communication; therefore, his interest often has a goal. A contrast can be drawn
between Christopher and some other characters who, contrary to the narrator, very often
ask questions to be polite or share their interest. Some instances illustrating the
conversations will be copied and commented on.
(138)So I said, 'Do you know anything about Wellington being killed?'
And she said, 'I heard about it yesterday. Dreadful. Dreadful.'
I said, 'Do you know who killed him?'
And she said, 'No, I don’t.' (2003, 50)
(139)Then I asked her, 'Why did you say, “I think you know why your father
doesn’t like Mr Shears very much”?'
Mrs Alexander put her hand over her mouth and said, 'Oh dear, dear, dear.' But
she didnʼt answer my question. So I asked her the same question again, [...].
And Mrs Alexander said, 'Your mother, before she died, was very good friends
with Mr Shears.'
And I said, 'I know.'
And she said, 'No, Christopher. I’m not sure that you do. I mean that they were
very good friends. Very, very good friends.'
I thought about this for a while and said, 'Do you mean that they were doing
sex?'
And Mrs Alexander said, 'Yes, Christopher. That is what I mean.' (2003, 74-76)
As obvious from the above extracts, Christopher gains information by asking
questions. Therefore, the communication might seem to be highly informative for him
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as he reveals new details and progresses in his investigation. These pieces of
information are also new for the text receiver and help him comprehend the plot.
Contrary to Christopher, who keeps investigating, some other people
communicate without being very informative and without wanting to gain some
particular information, which might seem useless to Christopher and which confirms
that he might not be very sociable, such as in the following instances.
(140)And she said, 'I see you every day, going to school.'
I didn’t reply to this. (2003, 51)
(141)I asked Mr. Wise if he knew who had killed Wellington on Thursday night.
He said, 'Bloody hell, policemen really are getting younger, aren’t they?'
Then he laughed. I do not like people laughing at me, so I turned and walked
away. (2003, 49-51)
However, there are not many similar conversations in the book as it is usually
Christopher who directs the communication.
To sum up the extracts simulating face-to-face communications, they often seem
very useful and informative. Informativity of the discourse might be supported by
Christopher’s goal – to find out who killed Wellington. Due to the fact that the reader
also does not know the killer, all the pieces of information are new for him/her.
Finally, it can be said that information density distributed within the whole book
is rather high. Moreover, informativity of some extracts might be higher and some other
extracts might not be very informative, depending on situation and context. It can be
also said that degree of informativity or newness differs among the characters, as what
might be new or surprising for Christopher is not new for his father at all. However,
there seem to be much new information for the reader.
This claim might be also supported by Kateřina Novotná who claims that the story
is highly informative – due to the fact that he notices things that ordinary people do not
notice and due to his consistency when conveying information.
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3.7 Intertextuality
“For a linguistics of actualization processes, the EQUIVALENCE between a text
and its translation can be neither in form nor lexical meanings, but only in the
experience of text receivers. Translating is then an issue of INTERTEXTUALITY in
which mediation works across different language intersystems” (de Beaugrande 1980,
291).
As mentioned in the theoretical part, intertextuality might be dealt with from two
different points of view. The above definition concerns the first possibility which
understands intertextuality “as our previous experience with other texts of a similar
kind” (Tárnyiková 2002, 69). According to de Beaugrandeʼs previously mentioned
assertion, intertextuality might strongly influence the translator even before the process
of translation itself. It might be assumed that there might be many advantages,
nevertheless, there might also be disadvantages, e.g. when the translator relies on his
experience only.
The above statements highlight the importance of intertextuality. The attention
will remain on the first of the two possible interpretations of intertextuality awhile.
Therefore, intertextuality dealing with one’s previous experience with other texts of a
similar kind will be examined. To understand this notion properly, several instances
must be mentioned and commented on.
(142)This is a murder mystery novel. (2003, 5)
The above instance evidently relies on reader’s previous experience with this type
of fiction. Owing to one’s knowledge of novels, it might be very easy to conclude that
somebody is murdered and the crime is investigated in the story. Therefore, the
definition of this type of fiction might not necessarily be included in the book.
However, as Christopher is very precise about what he says and is used to dealing with
details, he explains that “In a murder mystery novel someone has to work out who the
murderer is and then catch them. It is a puzzle. If it is a good puzzle you can sometimes
work out the answer before the end of the book” (Haddon 2003, 5).
When examining the above extract, Christopher mentions an unnecessary detail
when saying that a murder must be investigated. However, he does not mention the
even more useless detail, i.e. that first of all, the crime must be committed. In this case,
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he seems to rely on readers’ previous experience with similar texts and pragmatic
knowledge.
As for another general knowledge based on readers’ previous experience with
fiction, one may expect that the chapters will be numbered chronologically, beginning
with number one. However, Christopher disrupts this rule and invents a unique and
extraordinary numbering of chapters. He admits that he is aware of the fact that chapters
are usually given cardinal numbers. He explains his decision by saying that: “Chapters
in books are usually given the cardinal numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and so on. But I have
decided to give my chapters prime numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and so on because I like
prime numbers” (2003, 14). Then, he explains the way one works out what prime
numbers are, and he also adds some reasons why prime numbers are useful. The whole
chapter is dealing with prime numbers.
To sum up the occurrence of intertextuality as previous experience with similar
texts, it might be said that this rule is often disrupted by an unexpected situation;
however, the situation is very often explained owing to Christopher’s syndrome and the
fact that he is very precise and deals with details and explanation.
On the other hand, Christopher very often describes and comments on situations
which might be familiar to reader and which might not need further comments.
From this point on, the second way intertextuality might be perceived will be
examined. This perception suggests that “the way in which one text echoes or refers to
another text” will be dealt with (Tárnyiková 2002, 69). The characteristics of this
concept are mentioned in (2.2.6), therefore, the terms will only be adopted and the
analysis commented on.
To understand the notion clearly, several examples must be copied and
commented on. As mentioned in the theoretical part of this thesis, this concept is closely
linked with two terms, active text and pre-text. Therefore, CID will be called active text
from now on.
(143)I said that two dogs were killed in The Hound of the Baskervilles, the
hound itself and James Mortimer’s spaniel, but Siobhan said they weren’t the
victims of the murder, Sir Charles Baskerville was. (2003, 6)
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(144)There are some bits of the story I don’t like. One bit is the ancient scroll
because it is written in old language which is difficult to understand, like this
Learn then from this story not to fear the fruits of the past, but rather to be
circumspect in the future, that those foul passions whereby our family has
suffered so grievously may not again be loosed to our undoing. (2003, 89)
(145)And sometimes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who is the author) describes
people like this
There was something subtly wrong with the face, some coarseness of expression,
some hardness, perhaps of eye, some looseness of lip which marred its perfect
beauty. (2003, 89-90)
All above extracts concern The Hound of the Baskervilles, which may be called
pre-text for the purpose of our thesis. Many extracts from this novel can be examined in
the active text, CID. It can be assumed that the reason for insertion of extracts from this
particular book might be the similarity of its genre and plot. Christopher clarifies this
idea by saying that The Hound of the Baskervilles is a detective novel (2003, 90) which
deals with several murders, including murders of two dogs (2003, 6). Christopher also
claims that he likes the book (Haddon 2003, 90) which might also help us understand
why so many extracts from the pre-text were used. Owing to the narrator’s character,
many situations are clarified and explained and exact reasons are given. Therefore, it
seems that the character of the narrator helps us understand the meaning of
intertextuality in this text.
As for The Hound of the Baskervilles, the extract serves as comparison to the
active text in some context. It could also be considered a tool for getting closer to the
narrator as he explains that it is his favourite book and mentions several details
clarifying what he likes about the book and what he does not like. He also compares
himself to Sherlock Holmes and claims that in some situations, he behaves like him
(Haddon 2003, 92). A whole chapter of the CID is dedicated to the pre-text and many
details about the book are mentioned. The book is also mentioned in some other
chapters throughout the whole CID.
The same method was used in the Czech version of CID. Translator mentioned the
name of the book translated into Czech, which was possible due to the fact that The
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Hound of the Baskervilles was translated into Czech and many Czech readers might be
familiar with the book, or at least with the main plot. Therefore, it might not have been
very difficult for the translator to deal with intertextuality in this case.
Not to base the whole intertextuality on an only pre-text, some more instances
were selected from the CID.
(146)And in the Bible it says Thou shalt not kill but there were the Crusades and
two World Wars and the Gulf War and there were Christians killing people in
all of them. (2003, 38)
The above instance of intertextuality is also clarified by the narrator, who
mentions the name of the pre-text. Therefore, similarly to the previous instances,
intertextuality might not be very difficult to deal with in this book.
Furthermore, intertextuality is supported by several less evident notices, signs,
and names that Christopher notices throughout the story. However, he never forgets to
mention the reason why he decided to include the pre-text and the exact place and
situation in which he saw it.
To conclude, it can be said that intertextuality in CID is not very difficult to deal
with as the narrator helps the reader understand the importance of insertion of the source
text and its name. Moreover, he refers to rather recent or well-known sources so that it
does not cause misunderstanding. In addition, Christopher always warns the reader
about the fact that he mentions another text, such as Bible – for this reason, the reader
can identify intertextuality very easily.
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4 CONCLUSION
As for the thesis, it is based on the parameters - also known as standards. Their
definitions and functions were examined and commented on in the theoretical part of
this thesis. However, only some of the text parameters were selected and examined
thoroughly in the thesis, particularly six text parameters were analysed. These standards
were examined in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time written by Mark
Haddon (2003).
The aim of the thesis was to examine distribution and frequency of particular
standards of textuality in a text. The text was selected intentionally due to its
markedness.
It can be said that the standards of textuality are very closely interconnected.
Although there are 7 individual parameters, these parameters are related to one another.
It was ascertained that all 6 analysed standards of textuality occured in the text and it
can be assumed that even the seventh standard, namely situationality, could be observed
in the text and would confirm the fact that texts consist of all seven standards of
textuality. However, not to rely on assumptions, it can only be said that all the analysed
parameters occurred in the text. Based on my observations, it can be said that some
terms, such as personal pronouns, defined within a particular parameter can be applied
to several other text parameters. Therefore, it can be said that the standards are mutually
interconnected. However, the standards were analysed rather separately for the purpose
of our thesis. For definitions of all standards of textuality, see 2.2.
As for the analysis of the text, it was examined and identified as literary – within
this text type it was marked as narrative with passages simulating face-to-face
communication. It was important to identify the text type as it seems that it also
considerably influences distribution and frequency of particular standards of textuality.
Moreover, it was ascertained that as for text strategies, participant-oriented strategy is
the dominant strategy in the text, which is also probably influenced by the text type.
This thesis also serves as a proof that text parameters can be considerably
influenced by the text. The approach to text parameters seems to be rather deviant,
however, it can be said that the author cannot be overly deviant to cause
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misunderstanding. Therefore, although the text is unusual and there are many
unpredictable issues, it is comprehensible and highly informative.
As for particular text parameters, all of them considerably contribute to the way
the text is perceived. Considering cohesion, the text seems to be influenced by many
cohesive devices, which seem to interact in the text. Based on my observations, it might
be said that CID seems to be more cohesive than some other novels. However, this
claim would require more profound study and analysis of several more novels.
As for reference, it can be said that it is distributed within the text very frequently.
All examined types of reference could be found in the text; however, it was anaphoric
reference which was the most frequent. Pronouns, which are also closely connected to
reference, were examined and it was ascertained that they occur very frequently in the
English text. On the contrary, pronouns occur rather rarely in the Czech version of the
same book.
As for repetition, it seems to be one of the key concepts of the thesis, next to
cohesion and coherence, as it seems to occur very frequently in the text. Due to the
character of the narrator, it is distributed within the whole book and occurs very
frequently. There are also many structural stereotypes which repeat in the text, which
also strongly supports cohesion of the text. On the contrary, synonymy, which is a
category which seems to suppress repetition, does not occur in the text very frequently.
It also seems that there are rather unusual instances of synonymy in the text. Some other
cohesive devices, such as verbal voice, tense, and definiteness were examined in the
book and the fact that they considerably contribute to cohesion of the text was
confirmed.
Moreover, coherence was examined and although the text seems to be rather
deviant, it can be said that it is strongly coherent as interpretation of many situations lay
within the context and reader must very often consider context to understand a situation.
As for the remaining analysed parameters, they all occurred in the text and played
very important role when reading the text. For more details, see relevant chapters.
The Czech translation of CID by Kateřina Novotná was very important when
analysing the book – it served as contrast and many similarities and mainly differences
between the two languages were revealed, such as use of pronouns, tense, definiteness,
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and many other contrasts. Many standards and particular devices were examined in both
languages; however, several standards which were expressed identically in both
versions of the book – such as informativity - were only examined in the English text.
The results enriched our knowledge about the processing scale ranging from
predictable text-formative prototypes to unique solutions. However, a more detailed and
profound examination could enrich future cross-language studies – with e.g. emphasis
on comparison of an English novel and two Czech translations of the same book.
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5 RESUMÉ
Tato práce se zabývá textovými parametry. Jejich definice a význam byly
okomentovány v teoretické části této práce. Pouze některé z textových parametrů však
byly prozkoumány v analytické části, konkrétně šest textových parametrů. Výskyt
těchto parametrů byl zkoumán v knize The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
Time, kterou napsal Mark Haddon (2003) a také v jejím českém překladu od Kateřiny
Novotné. Cílem této práce bylo prozkoumat rozmístění a frekvenci těchto textových
parametrů v textu. Text (CID) byl vybrán záměrně kvůli jeho příznakovosti.
Nyní můžeme tvrdit, že textové parametry jsou velice úzce propojeny. Ačkoli
existuje sedm jednotlivých parametrů, zdá se, že tyto parametry spolu velice blízce
souvisí. Analýza textu potvrdila, že všech šest analyzovaných textových parametrů
z celkového počtu sedm parametrů se opravdu v textu vyskytlo. Na základě mých
poznatků si troufám tvrdit, že některé prostředky, jako jsou například osobní zájmena,
byly sice definovány pouze v rámci jednoho textového parametru, mohly by ale být
pozorovány i v rámci jiných parametrů. Tudíž může být řečeno, že textové parametry
jsou vzájemně propojené. Avšak v této práci byly parametry analyzovány spíše
jednotlivě – jejich definice jsou zmíněny v kapitole 2.2.
Co se týče analýzy textu, který byl označen jako literární a v rámci této kategorie
pak jako narativní s úryvky konverzace, bylo velmi důležité druh textu identifikovat,
jelikož se zdá, že tento určitý typ textu velmi značně přispívá k frekvenci určitých
textových parametrů. Dále se prokázalo, že co se týče textových strategií, strategie
zdůrazňující vypravěče převládala v textu a potlačila tak strategie jako je ta zdůrazňující
děj, nebo čas.
Ačkoli se text může zdát poněkud deviantní, můžeme se domnívat, že autor si
nemůže dovolit být natolik deviantní, aby byl text matoucí, nebo nesrozumitelný. Proto,
ačkoli je text velmi neobvyklý a místy nepředvídatelný, je CID naprosto koherentní a
dává smysl.
Co se týče jednotlivých textových parametrů, každý z nich značně přispívá
k tomu, jak je text chápán. Text je tedy zřetelně ovlivňován např. mnohými prostředky
koheze, které se vzájemně prolínají a podporují. Na základě mých poznatků by se dalo
95
poznamenat, že je CID dokonce více kompaktní, než mnohé jiné romány, avšak
abychom potvrdili toto tvrzení, mnohé další romány by musely být analyzovány a
výskyt a frekvence prostředků koheze by musel být porovnán.
Reference se pak také v textu objevuje velmi často, s tím, že se v něm vyskytují
všechny typy, které byly v práci analyzovány, avšak nejčastěji se objevuje reference
anaforická. V anglickém textu se pak dále vyskytují zájmena, která mají sama o sobě
velmi blízko k referenci. Naopak v českém textu se zájmena vyskytují spíše vzácně.
Co se týče opakování – vedle koheze a koherence jednoho z klíčových pojmů
práce, jeho výskyt v textu je také velmi častý. V textu se pak objevují i mnohé
strukturní stereotypy, které výrazně podporují kohezi. Na druhou stranu synonyma,
která naopak často potlačují opakování, se v textu neobjevují téměř vůbec. Mnoho
dalších prostředků koheze bylo analyzováno, jako například slovesný rod, čas a členy.
Bylo zjištěno, že i tyto prostředky velmi výrazně podporují kohezi.
Dále byla pak také zkoumána koherence, a ačkoli se text zdá být spíše deviantní,
může být označen jako výrazně koherentní, jelikož mnohá vysvětlení leží právě
v kontextu.
Co se týče zbývajících textových parametrů, všechny z nich se v textu
vyskytovaly a hrály v něm velmi důležitou roli. Pro detaily nahlédněte do příslušných
kapitol.
Český překlad od Kateřiny Novotné tedy sloužil jako protějšek původnímu textu,
na základě něhož byly vypozorovány mnohé shody, ale převážně rozdíly mezi oběma
jazyky, jako například použití zájmen v textu, použití času, členů, a mnohých jiných
prostředků. Mnohé parametry byly zkoumány v obou jazycích, avšak parametry, které
se vyskytovaly v obou jazycích bez rozdílu, byly analyzovány pouze ve verzi anglické.
Výsledky této práce velmi výrazně obohatily naši znalost textových parametrů a
dále pak způsob zkoumání textu, který může být založen jak na běžných prostředcích,
tak i na poněkud unikátních a neobvyklých řešeních. Práce by pak mohla prohloubit
naši znalost obou jazyků ještě víc, například v případě, že by se zkoumal anglický
originál knihy a dva jeho české překlady.
96
6 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Crystal, David. 1987. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Daneš, František. 1985. Věta a text: studie ze syntaxe spisovné češtiny. Praha:
Academia.
De Beaugrande, Robert-Alain., and Dressler, Wolfgang. 1981. Introduction to Text
Linguistics. London: Longman.
Dušková, Libuše, et al. 1994. Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. Praha:
Academia.
Haddon, Mark. 2003. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. London:
Vintage.
Haddon, Mark. 2003. Podivný případ se psem. Praha: Argo. Translated by Kateřina
Novotná.
Halliday, M.A.K., and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. New York:
Longman.
Halliday, M.A.K., and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1989. Language, context and text: aspects of
language in a social-semiotic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hoey, Michael. 1996. Patterns of lexis in text. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 1966. Syntaktické struktury: logický základ teorie jazyka, o pojmu
"gramatické pravidlo". Praha: Academia.
Knittlová, Dagmar. 1995. Teorie překladu. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého.
Knittlová, Dagmar. 2000. K teorii i praxi překladu. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého.
Knittlová, Dagmar, et al. 2010. Překlad a překládání. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého.
Quirk, Randolph, et al. 1997. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language.
Harlow: Longman.
Tárnyiková, Jarmila. 2009. From text to texture: an introduction to processing
strategies. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého.
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Van Dijk, Teun. 1998. Duscourse as Structure and Process. London: Sage Publications
Ltd.
Virtanen, Tuija. 1997. Text Structure. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publ. Co.
Wekker, Herman, and Liliane Haegeman. A Modern Course in English Syntax. 1996.
London: Routledge.
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7 APPENDICES
Appendix 1
Přepis telefonického rozhovoru s paní překladatelkou Kateřinou Novotnou, dne
17.4.2012.
Vzala jste v potaz knížku jako celek = makrostrukturu?
Knihu nezkoumám, jen ji prolistuji. Než začnu překládat, pročtu zhruba 20 stran, abych
poznala atmosféru, která je to první, co mě zajímá, a abych poznala hlavní postavy. Na
začátku je důležité postupně vytvářet obraz a charakter hlavních postav – jejich
vlastnosti se v průběhu děje rozvíjejí a doplňují. Jsou usazené zhruba na 50 stranách,
kde už je postava definována a vy víte, co řekne nebo neřekne.
Četla jste tedy celou knihu, než jste ji začala překládat?
Číst celou knihu dopředu by byla chyba a škoda – pro mne. Vy vlastně čekáte, jak se děj
bude rozvíjet a připravila byste se o to nejkrásnější, co na překládání knihy je.
Samozřejmě musím vědět, jak se rozvíjí děj na příštích 20 stránkách. V polovině
překladu už pochopitelně znám konec, ale rozhodně bych ho nechtěla znát na začátku.
Jak Vás ovlivnila specifičnost textu?
Neovlivnila. Vcítit se do myšlení hlavní postavy děje je zásadní, prožíváte vlastně její
život, a to pro mě to nebývá těžké, přesně řečeno – proto mě překládání tak těší (je to
tedy opak překládání slovo od slova, bez prožitku). Christopherovu mluvu a myšlení
jsem nemusela nijak zvažovat, to bylo zřetelné z anglického originálu. On viděl pro nás
samozřejmé věci a skutečnosti sice jinak, ale popisoval je velmi přesně, logicky, a
stačilo vžít se do jeho způsobu myšlení. Jeho jazyk pro mě tedy nebyl specifický v tom
smyslu, že jsem nad ním nemusela příliš uvažovat. Kdysi jsem překládala román, kde
vystupoval schizofrenik, a jeho reakce jsem musela konzultovat, ale u Christophera to
vyplynulo z textu a nepotřebovala jsem další rady.
Charakterizujte stručně Christopherův jazyk.
Kultivovaný. Je vidět, že Christopher hodně čte. Byl sečtělý. Jeho jazyk nebyl jazyk
dítěte. Nemusela jsem používat žádnou dětskou mluvu a pocity. Např. „z lidí jsem
99
zmatený“ – to už bylo nastaveno angličtinou jako předlohou a ta byla dostatečná
k použití českého ekvivalentu.
Připadalo Vám, že se jeho syndrom promítnul do jeho jazyka a způsobu, jakým
komunikuje?
Christopher mluví jednoduše. Mluví sice dokonale, logicky, nicméně choroba je vidět
právě v tom, co všechno v jedné větě rozvine a kam až je schopen dojít. Choroba je
vidět, ale neruší v textu a nemusí se nijak konkrétně řešit. Je patrná v tom, jak sděluje
informace a jak je řadí za sebe. Opět, vžít se do jeho myšlení a nalézt odpovídající
ekvivalent, tj. jak to řekneme česky.
Připadalo Vám, že postupem času některé věci/situace přišly více očekávatelné, než na
začátku?
Určitě. Už víte, jak bude reagovat. Už víte, že se něco stane a on to pak zmíní a zmíní to
všechno.
Řídila jste se nějakou konkrétní strategií, když jste překládala činný a trpný rod?
Strategie nemám a vlastně ani nevím, co to je. Překládám tak, jak to má česky být, jinak
to většinou ani nejde. A zároveň musím dodržet to, co je pro román, a tedy autora
typické. Při překladu se snažím s textem ztotožnit a napsat to tak, jak bychom to řekli
my, Češi. Čeština mi tak velela, častokrát nebyla varianta činný a trpný, musela jsem
dát činný, protože to čeština vyžadovala. Čeština má jiné prostředky, ekvivalent je
někdy velice rozdílný a může být hodně vzdálený pouhému překladu jednotlivých slov
řazených za sebe. Rozhodně ale nemám žádné taktiky, řídím se tím, jak je to správně
česky a jak to já cítím. Někdy se při překladu nabízí více variant a všechny jsou
správné, jedna z nich ale zpravidla bývá lepší a do textu lépe zapadá.
Měla jste problém s překládáním anglických časů – problém v tom, že některé časy
nemáme?
Vůbec ne. Je čeština a je angličtina a obě musíte ovládat. V češtině ten čas nechybí, my
si předpřítomný čas přeložíme buď minulým, nebo přítomným – podle kontextu. Ale
určitě nechybí. V angličtině je to čas definovaný jako předpřítomný, ale my jeho
ekvivalent máme. Do češtiny to přeložím tak, jak to vyplývá z kontextu. Záleží na
souslednosti dějů, tam není volba a nelze se splést. Vím, co se děje, a předminulý čas je
100
jasný. Překlad předpřítomného času vyplývá z děje, řídí se typem slovesa (českého) a
rovněž tím, je-li dokonavé či nedokonavé (psal jsem - napsal jsem - mám napsaný
dopis). Dva poslední tvary jsou tím anglickým předpřítomným časem.
Co určitý a neurčitý člen – kdy a jak ho přeložit?
Tak, jak to žádá hezká čeština či záměr autora – ten je rozpoznatelný. Někdy použiji
ukazovací zájmeno, protože v češtině je to nutné nebo to tak cítím. Kdy použiji
přivlastňovací nebo ukazovací zájmeno záleží opět na kontextu a také na mých
preferencích a mluvě. Řídím se opět češtinou.
Všimla jste si něčeho co se týče synonym v tomto textu?
To je hodně zajímavá část překládání, protože musíte zvolit to správné slovo, a
především u přídavných jmen máte opravdu širokou nabídku. Je potom na vás, co
použijete, ale musí to být ekvivalent. Někdy se mi stane, že z kontextu cítím, jaké slovo
by tam mělo být, ale z prvních významů daného originálu to není zřejmé. Takže musím
dohledat, právě přes synonyma, jestli mi angličtina toto slovo, které mě napadlo a které
chci užít, dovolí.
Christopher často nevolí synonyma, ale opakuje – pravděpodobně je to tím, že je velmi
přesný a snaží se vyjádřit všechno přesně tak, jak to je, souhlasíte?
Ano. To často působí i legračně – on definuje to, co je dávno definované.
Co se týče intertextovosti, Christopher často zmiňuje jiné texty – dělalo Vám to
problém?
Ne, tohle mám opravdu ráda. Pokud je to citát, tak nahlédnu do původního překladu.
Když zmiňoval Psa baskervilského, vyndala jsem knihu z knihovny a šla rovnou na
příslušné věty. V tomto případě překladatel použije existující český překlad,
samozřejmě kvalitní. V knize potom musíte uvést, že byl použit ten a ten překlad toho
konkrétního autora. Vždy je lepší vzít dobrý původní překlad, který knihu obohatí.
Př. Jde na nádraží a potká paní s chlapečkem – ona řekne během rozhovoru jméno
(*Gordon Bennett) a to je fráze pro údiv. Já to přeložila jako „no né!“. Původ této fráze
jsem si musela dohledat a zjistit, v jaké situaci se používá. Toto nelze překládat. Ano,
dal by se použít český ekvivalent pro podobné situace, např. „Jéminku!“. Nedá se to
101
řešit jinak, protože v tomto případě jen Angličan ví, že je to výraz údivu – nic jiného to
neznamená.
Jak se Vám jevila informativnost textu (vzhledem ke Christopherovi)
Christopher si všímá věcí, kterých si lidi nevšimnou, a to z pouhé nevšímavosti. Jeho
příběh je nabitý informacemi. Normálně to lidi nevidí, protože uhánějí za svými
myšlenkami, on to popisuje a zařazuje.
Právě jeho důslednost v poskytování informací nás upozorní, že s ním něco není
v pořádku, on zpozoruje věci, které my normálně nevidíme.
102
Appendix 2
This meant that Mr Shears was my Prime Suspect.
Mr Shears used to be married to Mrs Shears and they lived together until two
years ago. Then Mr Shears left and didn’t come back. This was why Mrs Shears
came over and did lots of cooking for us after Mother died, because she didn’t
have to cook for Mr Shears any more and she didn’t have to stay at home and
be his wife. And also Father said that she needed company and didn’t want to be
on her own.
And sometimes Mrs Shears stayed overnight at our house and I liked it when
she did because she made things tidy and she arranged the jars and pans and
tins in order of their height on the shelves in the kitchen and she always made
their labels face outwards and she put the knives and forks and spoons in the
correct compartments in the cutlery drawer. But she smoked cigarettes and she
said lots of things I didn’t understand, e.g. 'I’m going to hit the hay,' and, 'It’s
brass monkeys out there,' and, 'Let’s rustle up some tucker.' And I didn’t like it
when she said things like that because I didn’t know what she meant.
And I don’t know why Mr Shears left Mrs Shears because nobody told me. But
when you get married it is because you want to live together and have children,
and if you get married in a church you have to promise that you will stay
together until death do us part. And if you don’t want to live together you have
to get divorced and this is because one of you has done sex with somebody else
or because you are having arguments and you hate each other and you don’t
want to live in the same house any more and have children. And Mr Shears
didn’t want to live in the same house as Mrs Shears any more so he probably
hated her and he might have come back and killed her dog to make her sad.
I decided to try and find out more about Mr Shears.
103
Appendix 3
When I got to the police station they made me take the laces out of my shoes and
empty my pockets at the front desk in case I had anything in them that I could
use to kill myself or escape or attack a policeman with.
The sergeant behind the desk had very hairy hands and he had bitten his nails so
much that they had bled. This is what I had in my pockets [...]
I was also wearing my watch and they wanted me to leave this at the desk as
well but I said that I needed to keep my watch on because I needed to know
exactly what time it was. And when they tried to take it off me I screamed, so
they let me keep it on. They asked me if I had any family. I said I did. They
asked me who my family was. I said it was Father, but Mother was dead. And I
said it was also Uncle Terry but he was in Sunderland and he was Father’s
brother, and it was my grandparents, too, but three of them were dead and
Grandma Burton was in a home because she had senile dementia and thought
that I was someone on television.
Then they asked me for Father’s phone number.
I told them that he had two numbers, one for at home and one which was a
mobile phone and I said both of them.
It was nice in the police cell. It was almost a perfect cube, two metres long by 2
metres wide by metres high. It contained approximately 8 cubic metres of air. It
had a small window with bars and, on the opposite side, a metal door with a
long, thin hatch near the floor for sliding trays of food into the cell and a sliding
hatch higher up so that policemen could look in and check that prisoners hadn’t
escaped or committed suicide.
They – 8 occurrences, He – 4 occurrences, She – 1 occurrence, I – 17
occurrences, It – 8 occurrences
104
Když jsem přišel na policejní stanici, přinutili mě, abych si vytáhl tkaničky z bot
a vyprázdnil kapsy na pult vpředu pro případ, že bych v nich měl něco, čím bych
se mohl zabít nebo co bych mohl použít k útěku nebo k útoku na policistu.
Strážník za pultem měl strašně chlupaté ruce a nehty měl okousané až do krve.
Tohle jsem měl v kapsách: [...]
Měl jsem taky hodinky a oni chtěli, abych je taky odložil na pult, ale řekl jsem,
že si je musím nechat, protože potřebuji vědět, kolik je přesně hodin. A když se
pokoušeli vzít mi je, začal jsem ječet, takže mi je nechali.
Ptali se mě, jestli mám příbuzné. Řekl jsem, že mám. Ptali se mě, kdo jsou moji
příbuzní. Řekl jsem, že táta, ale máma že umřela. A řekl jsem, že to je taky
strýček Terry, ale ten je v Sunderlandu a je to tátův bratr, a že to jsou taky
dědečkové a babičky, ale tři z nich už umřeli a babička Burtonová že je
v domově důchodců, protože je senilní a myslí si, že mě zná z televize.
Potom mě požádali o tátovo telefonní číslo.
Vysvětlil jsem, že má dvě, jedno domů a jedno, které je na mobil, a dal jsem jim
obě.
Policejní cela byla hezká. Byla to skoro dokonalá krychle 2 metry dlouhá, 2
metry široká a 2 metry vysoká. Vešlo se do ní přibližně 8 kubických metrů
vzduchu. Měla malé zamřížované okno a na protější straně železné dveře
s dlouhou úzkou odklápěcí lištou téměř u podlahy, aby se dovnitř daly prostrčit
tácy s jídlem, a s posuvným okénkem nahoře, aby se policisté mohli podívat
dovnitř a zkontrolovat, jestli vězňové neuprchli nebo nespáchali sebevraždu.
(2003, 18)
Oni – 1 occurrence, On – no occurrence, Ona – no occurrence, Já – no
occurrence, To – 4 occurrences
105
Appendix 4
Analysed chapters from CID
106
107
108
109
110
