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Article published In: New Developments in Relevance Theory
Edited by Manuel Padilla Cruz and Agnieszka Piskorska
[Pragmatics & Cognition 28:2] 2021
► pp. 347–375

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Onomatopoeia, translation and relevance

 | Dublin City University
Published online: 27 June 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.21011.sas
Abstract
It is generally acknowledged that onomatopoeia poses challenges for translation. However, there is little research into the translation of onomatopoeia in Pragmatics. This study seeks to examine the nature of onomatopoeia and its implications for translation from the perspective of relevance theory, addressing, in particular, the following questions: (i) Can notions from pragmatics help to account for the perceived challenges involved in translating onomatopoeia? (ii) Would the showing-meaning nature affect the translation of onomatopoeia? (iii) What other factors result in difficulties in translating onomatopoeia and why? To this end, a corpus-based analysis of onomatopoeia was conducted using user-generated data provided by Cookpad Inc. Findings show that the relevance-theoretic notions of the showing-meaning continuum and perceptual resemblance can indeed help account for the perceived challenges in translating onomatopoeia. Findings also show that stylistic aspects, such as types of expressions and text types, also impact on the translation of onomatopoeia.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Onomatopoeia and translation
  • 3.Onomatopoeia and relevance
  • 4.Corpus analysis of onomatopoeia
    • 4.1Methodology
      • 4.1.1Data
      • 4.1.2Corpus analysis
      • 4.1.3Analytical framework
        • a.Omission and the showing–meaning continuum
        • b.Reasons for omissions
        • c.Omission and expression type
        • d.Omission and text type
  • 5.Findings
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Omission and the showing–meaning continuum
    • 6.2Omission and expression type
    • 6.3Omission and text type
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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