- Email: [email protected]
Translating by factors
Book reviews / Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 805-825
807
footnotes at the end of each chapter, so the text is not encrusted with p values and F ratios. This can make the book slightly more difficult to read (lots of flipping back and forth is required to check the results), but for those not concerned with these details, the format should certainly be much more inviting than the typical research report. This book will be of value to readers trying to make sense of the theoretical perspectives on metaphor offered by psychologists, linguists, and cognitive scientists. The experimental reports may not be definitive, but they are certainly suggestive, and are deserving of an audience. There are other recent works on metaphor that take a somewhat broader approach (e.g., Mio and Katz, 1996, consider political and clinical implications), but Steen's work should be of interest to all students of literature and metaphor.
References Ibsch, Elrud, Dick Schram and Gerard Steen, eds., 1991. Empirical studies of literature: Proceedings of the second IGEL-conference, Amsterdam 1989. Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. Kreuz, Roger J. and Mary Sue MacNealy, eds., 1996. Empirical approaches to literature and aesthetics. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Kreuz, Roger J. and Richard Roberts, 1993. The empirical study of figurative language in literature. Poetics 22: 151-169. Mio, Jeffery S. and Albert N. Katz, eds., 1996. Metaphor: Implications and applications. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Rusch, Gebhard, ed., 1995. Empirical approaches to literature: Proceedings of the fourth Biannual conference of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature. Siegen: LUMIS-Publications. Steen, Gerard, 1992. Metaphor in literary reception: A theoretical and empirical study of understanding metaphor in literary discourse. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Free University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. van Oostendorp, Herre and Rolf A. Zwaan, eds., 1994. Naturalistic text comprehension. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Zwaan, Rolf A., 1991. Some parameters of literary and news comprehension: Effects of discourse-type perspective on reading rate and surface structure comprehension. Poetics 20:139-156.
Christoph Gutknecht and Lutz J. Roelle, Translating by factors. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996. 346 pp. Reviewed by Eva Koktov~i, 325 West 1 lth Ave., Windsor House, Vancouver, BC, V5Y 1T3 Canada. The book under review is a brilliant study of the factors involved in the translation of modal verbs from English into German. Its contents are, however, richer than the title may suggest. The book is not only significant for translators, but also addresses, in an insightful and inspiring manner, a number of issues relevant for theoretical, general, and comparatiw~ linguistics, pragmatics, and the philosophy of lan-
808
Book reviews /Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 805-825
guage. It deals with modal particles ('operators of natural language') (cf. also Hartmann, 1994; Koktov~i, 1986, 1987, 1997), the temporal/linear sequence of modals (cf. also Luelsdorff, 1994, 1997), degrees and gradience of modality (cf. also Lakoff, 1987; Koktov~i, 1991, 1995), pragmatics (including the impact of culture on translation), the difference between spoken and written language, and the philosophy of translatology. Moreover, more languages are compared than English and German (e.g., French, Spanish, and Dutch). On the whole, the book deals with the entire category of modality rather than with modal verbs only, providing eight pages of notes, a long list of references, an author index, and a subject index. What should be appreciated most about the book are the following points: (a) its excellent empirical background (with over one thousand very good, carefully analyzed examples), a great number of references, and the authors' critical attitude toward a number of prominent approaches; (b) the clarity of its diction and exposition (with thirty tables and overviews); (c) its systematic metatheoretical gradience approach, in which the notion of scalarity (gradience) is applied to the meanings of modal verbs, to degrees of types of modality (including meaning stereotypes), and to the issue of indirectness and politeness (where the authors use typical notions of prototype theory, such as the 'core' and 'periphery' of the model, 'fuzzy boundaries', 'intermediate points on a cline', etc.); (d) its philosophical orientation, which provides a functional solution to the major question: the equivalence of the source language text and the target language text. In Chapter 1, 'Introduction', the authors set their goal, emphasizing that their approach is rooted in "factor thinking, that is, the habit of breaking up a complex translation into its smaller, more manageable units - factors" (p. 10). In Chapter 2, 'Formal factors: Syntax and mophology', morphological and syntactic characteristics of modal verbs in English and German are discussed such as the absence of the imperative mood, of the infinitive, etc. The most interesting discussions are those of (1) the difference in word order due to the sentence-final position of finite verbs in German, (2) cases of the ellipsis of full verbs of motion in German, as in Wir diirfen da durch (we may [go] through), (3) the occurrence of modal elements in complex words in German, as in Uber-sich-hinauswachsen-Wollen (the wish to grow over oneself) and das lmmer-so-friih-ins-Bett-gehen-Wollen (the permanent wish to go to bed so early), and (4) selection restrictions in which English and German differ, e.g., Money can't buy everything vs. *Geld kann nicht alles kaufen. Chapter 3, 'Semantic factors', is a substantial discussion of the semantics of modal verbs. The authors assume the polysemy of modal verbs. For example, the English modal can is polysemous between ability, root possibility, epistemic possibility, and permission within a gradience (or prototype) model, with fuzzy transitions between these meanings. The issue of gradience is tackled on pp. 45 ft., where the authors distinguish between three types of unclear cases: gradience, ambiguity, and merger. Regarding gradience, three possibilities are distinguished: (1) the core and the periphery are expressed by the same German modal, as in the case of ability and pos-
Book reviews / Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 8 0 5 8 2 5
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sibility (can - krnnen); (2) the core and periphery are expressed differently, as in the case of permission and possibility (can - krnnen, diirfen); or (3) there is a combination of multiple core and periphery factors, as in the case of the ability/possibility of building a house, in which these are expressed uniformly (can - krnnen). The scale of interpretations in example 220/48, You can build this vacation cottage yourself, about building a house perfectly, illustrates the point viz. the continuous transition between the meanings of ability and possibility of the verb can. The 'fuzzy set diagrams' presented in Figs. 3.15 (p. 46), 3.16 (p. 49), and 3.17 (p. 50) represent permission and ability as cores, and possibility as forming the respective peripheries, thus making a partial overlap of permission and ability possible. Contrary to the authors, I would suggest that the general meaning of root possibility of the verb can should be viewed as its core (central, basic, unmarked) meaning; and the more specialized meanings of ability, permission, and epistemic possibility should be located farther to the periphery. Permission is surely less frequent and more marked than ability, so it should be considered as a genuine peripheral meaning. Alternatively, one could propose two core meanings for this verb, but these should be root possibility and ability rather than permission and ability. In this way, it would also be easier to account for the ambiguity of modal verbs, by considering it as a disjunction of meanings. Ability, permission, and epistemic possibility would thus be distinct, specialized meanings located within the less central area of the prototype model of possibility. The authors also endorse the notion of merger, as taken over from other authors (pp. 53-55). In this case, a modal verb satisfies tests for two meanings, as in I may not get back there today - it depends on the work here, in which there is a merger of epistemic modality (probability of getting back) and deontic modality (necessity of staying at work). Also, very interesting considerations are presented in this section about negation (pp. 54-55), where the authors discuss the subtleties of the negative form cannot, especially the ambiguity between its root and epistemic meanings. Next, the authors discuss the modal system as a whole (pp. 57 ff.), addressing the question of the equivalence of modal verbs and other modal markers, e.g., adverbs of probability (possibly, perhaps), verbs expressing explicitly modal meanings (to permit, to allow), modal adjectives (able), and modal nouns (permission). They point out the possibility of expanding modal expressions by placing modal adverbs in different word order positions or by expanding modal nouns by adjectives (as in remote possibility, etc.), thus specifying the modal meaning more exactly. I would like to suggest that it would be suitable to construct a prototype model of the category of modality (cf. Koktov~i, 1995), in which the core is constituted by basic modal meanings (ability, root possibility), and the expressions in question (along with their word order or semantic modifications) are viewed as more refined meanings, or expansions of the prototype model. The authors treat the types ol5 modality in terms of degrees of modality, distinguishing between possibility, tentative possibility, necessity, and tentative necessity (root: advisability; epistemic: probability). They point out that epistemic modality is expressed in English preferably by modal verbs, whereas in German (and, I would add, also in Czech) by adverbs of probability. Very interesting here is the authors'
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observation that bestimmt ('certainly') does not express 100% certainty. This corresponds to Noelke's (1982) 'polyphonic' conception of modality, according to which adding an adverb of certainty to a sentence detracts from its assertive value. I propose that from a psycholinguistic viewpoint, the addition of the adverb could be viewed as an unnecessary attracting of attention to the 'certainty' aspect of the utterance, which thereby triggers doubts about the certainty. The authors further argue that the distinction between subjective and objective modality should be attributed to the difference between language system and language use. Modals, that is, are used by speakers, and hence, practically speaking, they express subjective modality. The authors subcategorize root modality into deontic modality (permission, advisability, and obligation), dynamic modality (other than deontic conditions), volitive modality, alethic modality, and other kinds of modality. They do not work with evidential modality as discussed by Kiefer (1994), which, of course, is not basic to the modal system of Germanic languages. Further, they treat modes of appearance of modality (overt and covert), modal source (the permitting person), and modal goal (the person to whom permission is given) in some detail. Also here they work with the notion of gradience (cf. the paradigm of examples for the explicitness of the source of modality, p. 92). They distinguish the following types of meaning, and apply them to the analysis of modals: denotative meaning, connotative meaning, conceptual meaning, stylistic meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning, thematic meaning, metaphorical meaning, typical meaning, and metalinguistic meaning. Especially interesting here are the considerations about collocative meaning. With respect to double modals (as in, Ich kann und darf morgen nach Miinchen fahren or lch darf und kann morgen nach Miinchen fahren), they propose a 'warming up' of Luelsdorff's (1994, 1997) ordering of modalities, suggesting that the sequence [permission-possibility] could be considered acceptable in certain contexts. Their improvement: Ich darf nach Miinchen fahren, und ich kann auch, denn ich habe genug Geld dafiir. Here, they again apply the gradience approach consistently to linguistic phenomena. Luelsdorff argues that in the temporal ordering of modalities, possibility precedes permission; that is, if someone is permitted or obliged to do something, it must be assumed that he or she can do it. This is surely the basic case, but in actual communication, another perspective can be taken: one can report the fact that a permission has been granted, and then comment on the possibility of the permittee's doing the thing granted. Also interesting is the authors' notion of 'harmonic combinations' of modal verbs and semantically related modal adverbs, which yield pleonastic expressions of modality, as in Er muff notwendigerweise ... Another interesting type of meaning is metaphorical meaning. Here, the authors discuss metaphorical expressions of modality (to have the possibility of something, for example, can be to have a 'key' to it, or for it to be 'open'), drawing attention to the analysis of modality in psychologically more basic terms, such as forces and barriers (here, I would like to quote Lakoff's (t987) notion of 'experientialism'). Additionally, they consider the impact of voice, tense, and indirect speech. In Chapter four, 'Pragmatic factors', the authors consider factors such as the illocutionary force of utterances, perlocution, and factuality, and nonlinguistic factors
Book reviews / Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 805-825
811
such as situation and culture. With respect to illocutionary force, they draw a parallel between semantic and pragmatic meanings (modal verbs are more polysemous or ambiguous than other expressions), and they apply the gradience approach to examining politeness (increasing degree of politeness is shown to correlate with decreasing degree of modality in paradigms 602-606 and 607-611, p. 134). There is a most interesting discussion of factuality and counterfactuality (pp. 139-158), in which the authors point out that the modal verb can/krnnen, in many cases, implies different degrees of factuality in English and German. I would like to support their claim that "used in the past tense, the modal tends to be implicative" (p. 149) by my observation that German, unlike Czech, (almost) obligatorily uses modals in the past tense (if possible) to express various shades of factual meaning. There is a difference between the usage of konnen and miissen: the former implies factuality, while the latter highlights circumstantial necessity. Consider the following examples (modified by me): Sie konnte den Flammen entkommen (= she was able to escape from the flames) and Er erwartete seine Tochter so sehr, daft er jeden Tag abends aus dem Fenster gucke~ muflte (= he expected his daughter so much that every evening he had to look out the window). In Czech, full verbs would occur in both cases, just stating the facts. German, however, uses a more elaborate way of conveying factual information. It highlights either the 'possibility' aspect or the 'necessity' aspect of the event. The corresponding Czech modal (konnte - mohla), in the former example, would be interpreted preferably counterfactually: she could escape from the flames (had the possibility of escaping) but she did not (see also the difference between the English could escape - could have escaped). This is a very good example of different cross-linguistic conceptualizations of the category of possibility: in German, mentioning possibility is associated with a realized possibility, whereas in Czech, it is associated with an unrealized possibility. Other interesting points analyzed in this chapter are situation of reference (exemplified in five languages), aspects of situation of utterance (relation between speaker and hearer, time of utterance), nonverbal acts of communication (including silence, with an excellent example from German administration), permanent language varieties, and the impact of culture (with an interesting example concerning traveling habits in India). Chapter 5, 'Factors relating to spoken and written language', deals with differences in prosody, punctuation, and semantic anticipation in spoken and written language. In Chapter 6, 'Factors relating to translation units and types of equivalents', the authors treat various types of equivalents in the source language and target language: zero equivalence, and equivalence at the level of the morpheme, the word (modals, modal adverbs, nouns, modal lexical verbs, modal infinitives, relative infinitives, modal particles), the phrase, the clause, the paragraph, and the whole text (with interesting analyses of modality in texts in the humanities and legal texts, which show a difference in two tendencies of natural language: to vagueness in texts in the humanities, and to explicitness in legal texts). In this chapter, the subtleties of the differences between English and German are treated, up to the level where the equivalents do not share the same grammatical form (e.g., What can I do for you? - S i e
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Book reviews / Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 805-825
wiinschen, bitte?). It is pointed out that German has the tendency to employ more elaborate and more impersonal modal expressions. Here, I would like to comment on the occurrence of modal adverbs of probability (e.g., possibly, probably, certainly, cf. pp. 58, 147 ff.) and modal communicative particles (e.g., aber, etwa, eigentlich, ja, mal, wohl, cf. pp. 197 ff.). Elsewhere, I have claimed (Koktov~i, 1986, 1987, 1997) that all of these expressions have scoping properties, having in their scope primarily the new information, or focus, of the sentence whenever they occur on the surface, regardless of how the focus may be syntactically structured. Communicative particles have primarily the contacting function. The authors rightly claim that some German particles have emotive modal meanings, but some of these are untranslatable into English (eigentlich, ja). The listing of combinations of these particles in various word orders, e.g., wohl vielleicht gerade eben mal, is inspiring. I believe that such expressions should be analyzed in steps: first, according to their position in the deep information structure of the sentence, where they are primarily placed at the boundary between Topic and Focus. This is reflected in the fact that some communicative particles serve only to indicate this boundary on the surface, as in Er ist ja KLUG! or Er kann eben mal am SAMSTAG kommen. An analysis in terms of hierarchical scope interpretation would also belong here - that is, an analysis in terms of a sequence of modal particles, in which the one to the left has wide scope over the one to the right, as in just exactly John, where just includes exactly John in its scope. Secondly, these expressions have major meanings; there is a difference between expressions indicating degrees of probability and expressions signaling contacting, emotive, and other meanings. Thirdly, they have specific minor meanings. Differences in translation occur at the first level, where languages differ in how they express the information structure of the sentence. The German particles indicating the Topic-Focus boundary, for example, do not have direct English equivalents. Differences can also occur at the third level, where some German contacting particles do not have English equivalents. In Chapter 7, 'Essential factors of the translation situation', the authors analyze the capacities and social positions of the source language speaker, the translator, and the target language hearer. Of interest here is the subtle analysis of the purposeful indistinctness of certain indirect questions (ambiguity or vagueness of the intended illocutionary act). The center of interest is the translator, his or her reception of the source language text, and his or her intentions. In the final chapter, 'Factors in translation theory', the authors reveal the core of their theory of translatology: a translation should remain a translation; it should not be an adaptation (for example, the translation of the proper name Eton into German should remain as it is; adding 'a prominent private school in England', or substituting this type of description for the proper name, according to the authors, would be an adaptation). The authors' notion of translation is broadly functional: translation, they argue, should be carried out with respect to the goals of the target language version at all levels (from the morphological to the pragmatic). In this sense, great differences between the source language and the target language are admissible if they
Book reviews ! Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 805-825
813
are functional. The authors use the notions of relative equivalence, balance of invariance, and variance in equivalence (coexistence of change and invariant factors). They express their philosophy of translatology as follows: "In many texts there may be found invariance as well as variance demands ... coexisting throughout . . . . We consider it to be more worthwhi]e to do research into the ways and means of creating optimum TL [target language] renditions of different kinds of SL [source language] texts in the light of different factor sets .... Different invariance factors will give rise to different kinds of equivalence. This is why equivalence is a relative concept .... Factors are guidelines for translation. Such guidelines are necessarily to be expressly given by the client for each translation to be commissioned" (pp. 303304). In conclusion, it can be said that the book under review can be recommended not only to translators but also to anyone interested in comparative studies, semantics, pragmatics, and the philosophy of language. The quality of the book is excellent, surpassing that of many studies presented in the fields of general linguistics, semantics, and pragmatics.
References Hartmann, D., 1994. Particles. In: R.E. Adger and J.M.Y. Simpson, eds., Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, Vol. 6, 6953-6958. Oxford: Pergamon. Kiefer, Ferenc, 1994. Modality. In: R.E. Adger and J.M.Y. Simpson, eds., Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, Vol. 5, 2515-2520. Oxford: Pergamon. Koktov~i,Eva, 1986. Sentence adverbials. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Koktovfi, Eva, 1987. On the scoping properties of negation, focusing particles, and sentence adverbials. Theoretical Linguistics 14: 173-126. Koktovzi, Eva, 1991. Review of G. Lakoff's Women, fire, and dangerous things. Acta linguistica hafniensia 23: 197-212. Koktowi, Eva, 1995. On the prototype approach to conceptualization. Ms., Charles University, Prague. Koktov~i, Eva, 1997. Word order based grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter (forthcoming). Lakoff, George, 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Luelsdorff, Philip, 1994. Priority as frequency. Folia phoniatrica logopedica 46: 271-280. Luelsdorff, Philip, 1997. Modal types in modal worlds. Ms., University of Regensburg. Noelke, Henning, 1982. Problems in the semantic-pragmatic description of French adverbials like 'm~me', 'aussi', 'surtout' and 'seulement'. Acta linguistica hafniensia 17: 157-168.
William J. H a r d c a s t l e a n d J o h n L a v e r , eds., The handbook of phonetic sciences, Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. 904 pp. $99.95 (hb.). Reviewed by Michael Jessen, Universit~it Stuttgart, Institut fur Maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung, Azenbergstrasse 12, 70174 Stuttgart, Germany. Email: [email protected] The Handbook of phonetic sciences (henceforth: 'the handbook') is part of the series 'Blackwell handbooks in linguistics'. As with the other previously published
807
footnotes at the end of each chapter, so the text is not encrusted with p values and F ratios. This can make the book slightly more difficult to read (lots of flipping back and forth is required to check the results), but for those not concerned with these details, the format should certainly be much more inviting than the typical research report. This book will be of value to readers trying to make sense of the theoretical perspectives on metaphor offered by psychologists, linguists, and cognitive scientists. The experimental reports may not be definitive, but they are certainly suggestive, and are deserving of an audience. There are other recent works on metaphor that take a somewhat broader approach (e.g., Mio and Katz, 1996, consider political and clinical implications), but Steen's work should be of interest to all students of literature and metaphor.
References Ibsch, Elrud, Dick Schram and Gerard Steen, eds., 1991. Empirical studies of literature: Proceedings of the second IGEL-conference, Amsterdam 1989. Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. Kreuz, Roger J. and Mary Sue MacNealy, eds., 1996. Empirical approaches to literature and aesthetics. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Kreuz, Roger J. and Richard Roberts, 1993. The empirical study of figurative language in literature. Poetics 22: 151-169. Mio, Jeffery S. and Albert N. Katz, eds., 1996. Metaphor: Implications and applications. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Rusch, Gebhard, ed., 1995. Empirical approaches to literature: Proceedings of the fourth Biannual conference of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature. Siegen: LUMIS-Publications. Steen, Gerard, 1992. Metaphor in literary reception: A theoretical and empirical study of understanding metaphor in literary discourse. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Free University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. van Oostendorp, Herre and Rolf A. Zwaan, eds., 1994. Naturalistic text comprehension. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Zwaan, Rolf A., 1991. Some parameters of literary and news comprehension: Effects of discourse-type perspective on reading rate and surface structure comprehension. Poetics 20:139-156.
Christoph Gutknecht and Lutz J. Roelle, Translating by factors. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996. 346 pp. Reviewed by Eva Koktov~i, 325 West 1 lth Ave., Windsor House, Vancouver, BC, V5Y 1T3 Canada. The book under review is a brilliant study of the factors involved in the translation of modal verbs from English into German. Its contents are, however, richer than the title may suggest. The book is not only significant for translators, but also addresses, in an insightful and inspiring manner, a number of issues relevant for theoretical, general, and comparatiw~ linguistics, pragmatics, and the philosophy of lan-
808
Book reviews /Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 805-825
guage. It deals with modal particles ('operators of natural language') (cf. also Hartmann, 1994; Koktov~i, 1986, 1987, 1997), the temporal/linear sequence of modals (cf. also Luelsdorff, 1994, 1997), degrees and gradience of modality (cf. also Lakoff, 1987; Koktov~i, 1991, 1995), pragmatics (including the impact of culture on translation), the difference between spoken and written language, and the philosophy of translatology. Moreover, more languages are compared than English and German (e.g., French, Spanish, and Dutch). On the whole, the book deals with the entire category of modality rather than with modal verbs only, providing eight pages of notes, a long list of references, an author index, and a subject index. What should be appreciated most about the book are the following points: (a) its excellent empirical background (with over one thousand very good, carefully analyzed examples), a great number of references, and the authors' critical attitude toward a number of prominent approaches; (b) the clarity of its diction and exposition (with thirty tables and overviews); (c) its systematic metatheoretical gradience approach, in which the notion of scalarity (gradience) is applied to the meanings of modal verbs, to degrees of types of modality (including meaning stereotypes), and to the issue of indirectness and politeness (where the authors use typical notions of prototype theory, such as the 'core' and 'periphery' of the model, 'fuzzy boundaries', 'intermediate points on a cline', etc.); (d) its philosophical orientation, which provides a functional solution to the major question: the equivalence of the source language text and the target language text. In Chapter 1, 'Introduction', the authors set their goal, emphasizing that their approach is rooted in "factor thinking, that is, the habit of breaking up a complex translation into its smaller, more manageable units - factors" (p. 10). In Chapter 2, 'Formal factors: Syntax and mophology', morphological and syntactic characteristics of modal verbs in English and German are discussed such as the absence of the imperative mood, of the infinitive, etc. The most interesting discussions are those of (1) the difference in word order due to the sentence-final position of finite verbs in German, (2) cases of the ellipsis of full verbs of motion in German, as in Wir diirfen da durch (we may [go] through), (3) the occurrence of modal elements in complex words in German, as in Uber-sich-hinauswachsen-Wollen (the wish to grow over oneself) and das lmmer-so-friih-ins-Bett-gehen-Wollen (the permanent wish to go to bed so early), and (4) selection restrictions in which English and German differ, e.g., Money can't buy everything vs. *Geld kann nicht alles kaufen. Chapter 3, 'Semantic factors', is a substantial discussion of the semantics of modal verbs. The authors assume the polysemy of modal verbs. For example, the English modal can is polysemous between ability, root possibility, epistemic possibility, and permission within a gradience (or prototype) model, with fuzzy transitions between these meanings. The issue of gradience is tackled on pp. 45 ft., where the authors distinguish between three types of unclear cases: gradience, ambiguity, and merger. Regarding gradience, three possibilities are distinguished: (1) the core and the periphery are expressed by the same German modal, as in the case of ability and pos-
Book reviews / Journal of Pragmatics 29 (1998) 8 0 5 8 2 5
809
sibility (can - krnnen); (2) the core and periphery are expressed differently, as in the case of permission and possibility (can - krnnen, diirfen); or (3) there is a combination of multiple core and periphery factors, as in the case of the ability/possibility of building a house, in which these are expressed uniformly (can - krnnen). The scale of interpretations in example 220/48, You can build this vacation cottage yourself, about building a house perfectly, illustrates the point viz. the continuous transition between the meanings of ability and possibility of the verb can. The 'fuzzy set diagrams' presented in Figs. 3.15 (p. 46), 3.16 (p. 49), and 3.17 (p. 50) represent permission and ability as cores, and possibility as forming the respective peripheries, thus making a partial overlap of permission and ability possible. Contrary to the authors, I would suggest that the general meaning of root possibility of the verb can should be viewed as its core (central, basic, unmarked) meaning; and the more specialized meanings of ability, permission, and epistemic possibility should be located farther to the periphery. Permission is surely less frequent and more marked than ability, so it should be considered as a genuine peripheral meaning. Alternatively, one could propose two core meanings for this verb, but these should be root possibility and ability rather than permission and ability. In this way, it would also be easier to account for the ambiguity of modal verbs, by considering it as a disjunction of meanings. Ability, permission, and epistemic possibility would thus be distinct, specialized meanings located within the less central area of the prototype model of possibility. The authors also endorse the notion of merger, as taken over from other authors (pp. 53-55). In this case, a modal verb satisfies tests for two meanings, as in I may not get back there today - it depends on the work here, in which there is a merger of epistemic modality (probability of getting back) and deontic modality (necessity of staying at work). Also, very interesting considerations are presented in this section about negation (pp. 54-55), where the authors discuss the subtleties of the negative form cannot, especially the ambiguity between its root and epistemic meanings. Next, the authors discuss the modal system as a whole (pp. 57 ff.), addressing the question of the equivalence of modal verbs and other modal markers, e.g., adverbs of probability (possibly, perhaps), verbs expressing explicitly modal meanings (to permit, to allow), modal adjectives (able), and modal nouns (permission). They point out the possibility of expanding modal expressions by placing modal adverbs in different word order positions or by expanding modal nouns by adjectives (as in remote possibility, etc.), thus specifying the modal meaning more exactly. I would like to suggest that it would be suitable to construct a prototype model of the category of modality (cf. Koktov~i, 1995), in which the core is constituted by basic modal meanings (ability, root possibility), and the expressions in question (along with their word order or semantic modifications) are viewed as more refined meanings, or expansions of the prototype model. The authors treat the types ol5 modality in terms of degrees of modality, distinguishing between possibility, tentative possibility, necessity, and tentative necessity (root: advisability; epistemic: probability). They point out that epistemic modality is expressed in English preferably by modal verbs, whereas in German (and, I would add, also in Czech) by adverbs of probability. Very interesting here is the authors'
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observation that bestimmt ('certainly') does not express 100% certainty. This corresponds to Noelke's (1982) 'polyphonic' conception of modality, according to which adding an adverb of certainty to a sentence detracts from its assertive value. I propose that from a psycholinguistic viewpoint, the addition of the adverb could be viewed as an unnecessary attracting of attention to the 'certainty' aspect of the utterance, which thereby triggers doubts about the certainty. The authors further argue that the distinction between subjective and objective modality should be attributed to the difference between language system and language use. Modals, that is, are used by speakers, and hence, practically speaking, they express subjective modality. The authors subcategorize root modality into deontic modality (permission, advisability, and obligation), dynamic modality (other than deontic conditions), volitive modality, alethic modality, and other kinds of modality. They do not work with evidential modality as discussed by Kiefer (1994), which, of course, is not basic to the modal system of Germanic languages. Further, they treat modes of appearance of modality (overt and covert), modal source (the permitting person), and modal goal (the person to whom permission is given) in some detail. Also here they work with the notion of gradience (cf. the paradigm of examples for the explicitness of the source of modality, p. 92). They distinguish the following types of meaning, and apply them to the analysis of modals: denotative meaning, connotative meaning, conceptual meaning, stylistic meaning, reflected meaning, collocative meaning, thematic meaning, metaphorical meaning, typical meaning, and metalinguistic meaning. Especially interesting here are the considerations about collocative meaning. With respect to double modals (as in, Ich kann und darf morgen nach Miinchen fahren or lch darf und kann morgen nach Miinchen fahren), they propose a 'warming up' of Luelsdorff's (1994, 1997) ordering of modalities, suggesting that the sequence [permission-possibility] could be considered acceptable in certain contexts. Their improvement: Ich darf nach Miinchen fahren, und ich kann auch, denn ich habe genug Geld dafiir. Here, they again apply the gradience approach consistently to linguistic phenomena. Luelsdorff argues that in the temporal ordering of modalities, possibility precedes permission; that is, if someone is permitted or obliged to do something, it must be assumed that he or she can do it. This is surely the basic case, but in actual communication, another perspective can be taken: one can report the fact that a permission has been granted, and then comment on the possibility of the permittee's doing the thing granted. Also interesting is the authors' notion of 'harmonic combinations' of modal verbs and semantically related modal adverbs, which yield pleonastic expressions of modality, as in Er muff notwendigerweise ... Another interesting type of meaning is metaphorical meaning. Here, the authors discuss metaphorical expressions of modality (to have the possibility of something, for example, can be to have a 'key' to it, or for it to be 'open'), drawing attention to the analysis of modality in psychologically more basic terms, such as forces and barriers (here, I would like to quote Lakoff's (t987) notion of 'experientialism'). Additionally, they consider the impact of voice, tense, and indirect speech. In Chapter four, 'Pragmatic factors', the authors consider factors such as the illocutionary force of utterances, perlocution, and factuality, and nonlinguistic factors
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such as situation and culture. With respect to illocutionary force, they draw a parallel between semantic and pragmatic meanings (modal verbs are more polysemous or ambiguous than other expressions), and they apply the gradience approach to examining politeness (increasing degree of politeness is shown to correlate with decreasing degree of modality in paradigms 602-606 and 607-611, p. 134). There is a most interesting discussion of factuality and counterfactuality (pp. 139-158), in which the authors point out that the modal verb can/krnnen, in many cases, implies different degrees of factuality in English and German. I would like to support their claim that "used in the past tense, the modal tends to be implicative" (p. 149) by my observation that German, unlike Czech, (almost) obligatorily uses modals in the past tense (if possible) to express various shades of factual meaning. There is a difference between the usage of konnen and miissen: the former implies factuality, while the latter highlights circumstantial necessity. Consider the following examples (modified by me): Sie konnte den Flammen entkommen (= she was able to escape from the flames) and Er erwartete seine Tochter so sehr, daft er jeden Tag abends aus dem Fenster gucke~ muflte (= he expected his daughter so much that every evening he had to look out the window). In Czech, full verbs would occur in both cases, just stating the facts. German, however, uses a more elaborate way of conveying factual information. It highlights either the 'possibility' aspect or the 'necessity' aspect of the event. The corresponding Czech modal (konnte - mohla), in the former example, would be interpreted preferably counterfactually: she could escape from the flames (had the possibility of escaping) but she did not (see also the difference between the English could escape - could have escaped). This is a very good example of different cross-linguistic conceptualizations of the category of possibility: in German, mentioning possibility is associated with a realized possibility, whereas in Czech, it is associated with an unrealized possibility. Other interesting points analyzed in this chapter are situation of reference (exemplified in five languages), aspects of situation of utterance (relation between speaker and hearer, time of utterance), nonverbal acts of communication (including silence, with an excellent example from German administration), permanent language varieties, and the impact of culture (with an interesting example concerning traveling habits in India). Chapter 5, 'Factors relating to spoken and written language', deals with differences in prosody, punctuation, and semantic anticipation in spoken and written language. In Chapter 6, 'Factors relating to translation units and types of equivalents', the authors treat various types of equivalents in the source language and target language: zero equivalence, and equivalence at the level of the morpheme, the word (modals, modal adverbs, nouns, modal lexical verbs, modal infinitives, relative infinitives, modal particles), the phrase, the clause, the paragraph, and the whole text (with interesting analyses of modality in texts in the humanities and legal texts, which show a difference in two tendencies of natural language: to vagueness in texts in the humanities, and to explicitness in legal texts). In this chapter, the subtleties of the differences between English and German are treated, up to the level where the equivalents do not share the same grammatical form (e.g., What can I do for you? - S i e
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wiinschen, bitte?). It is pointed out that German has the tendency to employ more elaborate and more impersonal modal expressions. Here, I would like to comment on the occurrence of modal adverbs of probability (e.g., possibly, probably, certainly, cf. pp. 58, 147 ff.) and modal communicative particles (e.g., aber, etwa, eigentlich, ja, mal, wohl, cf. pp. 197 ff.). Elsewhere, I have claimed (Koktov~i, 1986, 1987, 1997) that all of these expressions have scoping properties, having in their scope primarily the new information, or focus, of the sentence whenever they occur on the surface, regardless of how the focus may be syntactically structured. Communicative particles have primarily the contacting function. The authors rightly claim that some German particles have emotive modal meanings, but some of these are untranslatable into English (eigentlich, ja). The listing of combinations of these particles in various word orders, e.g., wohl vielleicht gerade eben mal, is inspiring. I believe that such expressions should be analyzed in steps: first, according to their position in the deep information structure of the sentence, where they are primarily placed at the boundary between Topic and Focus. This is reflected in the fact that some communicative particles serve only to indicate this boundary on the surface, as in Er ist ja KLUG! or Er kann eben mal am SAMSTAG kommen. An analysis in terms of hierarchical scope interpretation would also belong here - that is, an analysis in terms of a sequence of modal particles, in which the one to the left has wide scope over the one to the right, as in just exactly John, where just includes exactly John in its scope. Secondly, these expressions have major meanings; there is a difference between expressions indicating degrees of probability and expressions signaling contacting, emotive, and other meanings. Thirdly, they have specific minor meanings. Differences in translation occur at the first level, where languages differ in how they express the information structure of the sentence. The German particles indicating the Topic-Focus boundary, for example, do not have direct English equivalents. Differences can also occur at the third level, where some German contacting particles do not have English equivalents. In Chapter 7, 'Essential factors of the translation situation', the authors analyze the capacities and social positions of the source language speaker, the translator, and the target language hearer. Of interest here is the subtle analysis of the purposeful indistinctness of certain indirect questions (ambiguity or vagueness of the intended illocutionary act). The center of interest is the translator, his or her reception of the source language text, and his or her intentions. In the final chapter, 'Factors in translation theory', the authors reveal the core of their theory of translatology: a translation should remain a translation; it should not be an adaptation (for example, the translation of the proper name Eton into German should remain as it is; adding 'a prominent private school in England', or substituting this type of description for the proper name, according to the authors, would be an adaptation). The authors' notion of translation is broadly functional: translation, they argue, should be carried out with respect to the goals of the target language version at all levels (from the morphological to the pragmatic). In this sense, great differences between the source language and the target language are admissible if they
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are functional. The authors use the notions of relative equivalence, balance of invariance, and variance in equivalence (coexistence of change and invariant factors). They express their philosophy of translatology as follows: "In many texts there may be found invariance as well as variance demands ... coexisting throughout . . . . We consider it to be more worthwhi]e to do research into the ways and means of creating optimum TL [target language] renditions of different kinds of SL [source language] texts in the light of different factor sets .... Different invariance factors will give rise to different kinds of equivalence. This is why equivalence is a relative concept .... Factors are guidelines for translation. Such guidelines are necessarily to be expressly given by the client for each translation to be commissioned" (pp. 303304). In conclusion, it can be said that the book under review can be recommended not only to translators but also to anyone interested in comparative studies, semantics, pragmatics, and the philosophy of language. The quality of the book is excellent, surpassing that of many studies presented in the fields of general linguistics, semantics, and pragmatics.
References Hartmann, D., 1994. Particles. In: R.E. Adger and J.M.Y. Simpson, eds., Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, Vol. 6, 6953-6958. Oxford: Pergamon. Kiefer, Ferenc, 1994. Modality. In: R.E. Adger and J.M.Y. Simpson, eds., Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, Vol. 5, 2515-2520. Oxford: Pergamon. Koktov~i,Eva, 1986. Sentence adverbials. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Koktovfi, Eva, 1987. On the scoping properties of negation, focusing particles, and sentence adverbials. Theoretical Linguistics 14: 173-126. Koktovzi, Eva, 1991. Review of G. Lakoff's Women, fire, and dangerous things. Acta linguistica hafniensia 23: 197-212. Koktowi, Eva, 1995. On the prototype approach to conceptualization. Ms., Charles University, Prague. Koktov~i, Eva, 1997. Word order based grammar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter (forthcoming). Lakoff, George, 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Luelsdorff, Philip, 1994. Priority as frequency. Folia phoniatrica logopedica 46: 271-280. Luelsdorff, Philip, 1997. Modal types in modal worlds. Ms., University of Regensburg. Noelke, Henning, 1982. Problems in the semantic-pragmatic description of French adverbials like 'm~me', 'aussi', 'surtout' and 'seulement'. Acta linguistica hafniensia 17: 157-168.
William J. H a r d c a s t l e a n d J o h n L a v e r , eds., The handbook of phonetic sciences, Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. 904 pp. $99.95 (hb.). Reviewed by Michael Jessen, Universit~it Stuttgart, Institut fur Maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung, Azenbergstrasse 12, 70174 Stuttgart, Germany. Email: [email protected] The Handbook of phonetic sciences (henceforth: 'the handbook') is part of the series 'Blackwell handbooks in linguistics'. As with the other previously published