Using semantic and pragmatic information to determine syntactic decisions in translation of the passive voice from English to French
Committee members: Alhoori, Hamed; Birner, Betty; Duffin, Kirk.||Advisor: Freedman, Reva.||Includes illustrations.||Includes bibliographical references.
Abstract
I investigated statistically significant factors that effect syntactic changes in French and English during translation of by phrases using the passive voice. Relative clauses containing this structure were also looked at. This feature was chosen from information that was gathered from experts in the form of academic texts on English-French translation, as well as handbooks intended for an audience of professional translators. Data came from the proceedings of the Canadian Parliament (the Hansard), which are published in French and English. Passive sentences were collected from the output of the Stanford Parser. Animacy was found to be a significant factor in whether or not the arguments of a passive by phrase would change order in translation. Information status will need further investigation. While relative clauses are still subject to this effect, this syntactic shift occurs far less often than in sentences not containing relative clauses.
