Cover not available

To be specified published In: English Text Construction
Vol. 10:1 (2017) ► pp.78–105

article

Key words and translated cohesion in Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and one of its Italian translations

 | University of Birmingham |
 | University of Birmingham |
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 15 June 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.10.1.05mas
In this paper, we explore the potential of a corpus approach to study translated cohesion. We use key words as starting points for identifying cohesive networks in Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and discuss how these networks contribute to the construction of literary meanings in the text. We focus on the role of repetition as a key element in establishing cohesive networks between lexical items. We specifically discuss the implications of our method for the analysis of cohesion in translated texts. A comparison of Lovecraft’s original novel and a translation into Italian provides us with a nuanced understanding of the complex nature of cohesive networks. Finally, we discuss the broader issue of applying models and methods from corpus linguistics to corpus stylistic analysis.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Corpus stylistics, cohesion and literary translation
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1 Mountains, peaks, and foothills: The fictional representation of the Antarctic mountains
    • 4.2Semantic preference and semantic prosody: “Height” and “Mysteriousness”
    • 4.3The cohesive networks
  • 5.The cohesive networks in translation
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (46)
References
Alexander, Neal. 2015. On literary geography. Literary Geographies 1 (1): 3–6.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Mona. 2011. In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Susan Conrad, Edward Finegan, Geoffrey Leech & Stig Johansson. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana. 1986. Shifts of cohesion and coherence in translation. In Interlingual and Intercultural Communication: Discourse and Cognition in Translation and Second Language Acquisition Studies, Juliane House & Shoshana Blum-Kulka (eds). Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen, 17–36.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brezina, Vaclav, Tony McEnery & Stephen Wattam. 2015. Collocations in context: A new perspective on collocation networks. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 20 (2): 139–173. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. & Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoey, Michael. 1991. Patterns of Lexis in Text. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Houellebecq, Michel. 2004. H. P. Lovecraft, Against the World, Against Life. San Francisco, CA: McSweeney’s.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hu, Helen Chau. 1999. Cohesion and coherence in translation theory and pedagogy. Word 50 (1): 33–46. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan & Gill Francis. 2000. Pattern Grammar: A Corpus-Driven Approach to the Lexical Grammar of English. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janicker, Rebecca. 2006. New England narratives: Space and place in the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft. Extrapolation 48 (1): 54–70.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Joshi, Sunand Tryambak. 2001. Explanatory notes. In H. P. Lovecraft: The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories, Sunand Tryambak Joshi (ed.). London: Penguin, 367–443.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kachroo, Balkrishan. 1984. Textual cohesion and translation. Meta: Journal des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal 29 (2): 128–134. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kneale, James. 2006. From beyond: H. P. Lovecraft and the place of horror. Cultural Geographies 131: 106–126. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krein-Kühle, Monika. 2002. Cohesion and coherence in technical translation: The case of demonstrative reference. In Linguistics and Translation Studies. Translation Studies and Linguistics. Linguistica Antverpiensia, Leona Van Vaerenbergh (ed.). Antwerpen: Hogeschool Antwerpen, 41–53.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kunz, Kerstin, Ekaterina Lapshinova-Koltunski, & José Manuel Martinez. 2016. Beyond identity coreference: Contrasting indicators of textual coherence in English and German. In Proceedings of CORBON at NAACL-HLT2016 , San Diego.
Leiber, Fritz Jr. 2001. A literary Copernicus. In Discovering H. P. Lovecraft, Darrell Schweitzer (ed.). Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 7–16.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lotfipour-Saedi, Kazern. 1997. Lexical cohesion and translation equivalence. Meta: Journal des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal 42 (1): 185–192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Louw, Bill. 1993. Irony in the text or insincerity in the writer? The diagnostic potential of semantic prosodies. In Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair, Mona Baker, Gill Francis & Elena Tognini-Bonelli (eds). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 157–174. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lovecraft, Howard Phillips. 2009 [1927]. Supernatural horror in literature. Online edition at 〈[URL]〉 (Last accessed May 2016).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mahlberg, Michaela. 2005. English General Nouns: A Corpus Theoretical Approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Lexical cohesion: Corpus linguistic theory and its application in ELT. Special issue of the International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 11 (3): 363–383. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. Literary style and literary texts. In The Cambridge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, Douglas Biber & Randi Reppen (eds). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 346–361. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mahlberg, Michaela & Dan McIntyre. 2011. A case for corpus stylistics: Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale . English Text Construction 4 (2): 204–227. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mastropierro, Lorenzo. 2015. - ly adverbs in Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and in two Italian translations: A corpus stylistic approach to literary translation. In Spazi della Memoria, Luisa Pontrandolfo (ed.). Bari: Edizioni dal Sud, 217–241.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McEnery, Tony. 2009. Keywords and moral panics: Mary Whitehouse and media censorship. In What’s in a Word-list? Investigating Word Frequency and Keyword Extraction, Dawn Archer (ed.). Farnham: Ashgate, 93–124.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nesi, Hilary & Helen Basturkmen. 2006. Lexical bundles and discourse signalling in academic lectures. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 11 (3): 283–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Olohan, Maeve. 2004. Introducing Corpora in Translation Studies. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Øverås, Linn. 1998. In search of the third code: An investigation of norms in literary translation. Meta: Journal des Traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal 43 (4): 557–570. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Punter, David. 1996. The Literature of Terror: The Modern Gothic. London/New York: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ralickas, Vivian. 2007. “Cosmic horror” and the question of the sublime in Lovecraft. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 18 (3): 364–398.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scott, Mike. 2016a. WordSmith Tools Manual. Stroud: Lexical Analysis Software. Available at 〈[URL]〉 (last accessed May 2016).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016b. WordSmith Tools (Version 7) [Computer software]. Stroud: Lexical Analysis Software.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simpson, Paul. 2004. Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinclair, John. 2004. Trust the Text: Language, Corpus and Discourse. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Snell-Hornby, Mary. 1988. Translation Studies: An Integrated Approach. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stubbs, Michel. 2002. Words and Phrases: Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1987. Repetition in conversation: Toward a poetics of talk. Language 63 (3): 574–605. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thacker, Andrew. 2005. The idea of critical literary geography. New Formations 571: 56–73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thornbury, Scott. 2010. What can a corpus tell us about discourse? In The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, Anne O’Keeffe & Michael McCarthy (eds). London: Routledge, 270–287. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trebits, Anna. 2009. Conjunctive cohesion in English language EU documents: A corpus-based analysis and its implications. English for Specific Purposes 28 (3): 199–210. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, Brian. 2010. Wmatrix, key concepts and the narrators in Julian Barnes’s Talking it Over . In Language and Style. Dan McIntyre & Beatrix Busse (eds). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 364–387. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (8)

Cited by eight other publications

Meng, Lingzi & Feng Pan
2022. Using corpora to reveal style in translation: The case of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Şen Bartan, Özgür
2022. Structural repetitions and discourse relations in English-Turkish translations of TED talks. The Literacy Trek 8:2 ► pp. 186 ff. DOI logo
Abu-Ayyash, Emad A. S.
2021. Non-coherent cohesive texts. English Text Construction 14:2 ► pp. 182 ff. DOI logo
Geluso, Joe & Roz Hirch
2019. The reference corpus matters. Register Studies 1:2 ► pp. 209 ff. DOI logo
Mastropierro, Lorenzo & Kathy Conklin
2019. Racism and dehumanisation in Heart of Darkness and its Italian translations: A reader response analysis. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 28:4 ► pp. 309 ff. DOI logo
Lugea, Jane
2018. The year’s work in stylistics 2017. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 27:4 ► pp. 329 ff. DOI logo
Mastropierro, Lorenzo
2018. Key clusters as indicators of translator style. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 30:2 ► pp. 240 ff. DOI logo
Čermáková, Anna & Michaela Mahlberg
2018. Translating fictional characters – Alice and the Queen from the Wonderland in English and Czech. In The Corpus Linguistic Discourse [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 87], ► pp. 223 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue