Manner salience and translation: A case study based on a multilingual corpus of graphic novels

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines the salience of Manner-of-motion and its translation in a multilingual corpus of graphic novels, with the dual aim of further investigating the role of visual language in Slobin’s Thinking-for-translating hypothesis and identifying the relevant translation techniques. Many studies that draw on the hypothesis have shown, for instance, that, in the translation process from a satellite-framed language (e. g. German, English) into a verb-framed language (e. g. Spanish, French), Manner-of-motion is usually omitted, whereas in the translation process between languages belonging to the same typological group, it is generally transferred, although some intratypological variation has also been identified in the literature. The corpus studied allows both inter- and intratypological analyses: it is composed of two graphic novels by the Austrian cartoonist Ulli Lust and their corresponding translations into Spanish, French and English. The resulting data were compared with previous research in the field. The paper concludes that, although visual language minimizes the consequences of Thinking-for-translating, the conventions and restrictions of graphic novels deserve greater attention within this framework.