A parallel corpus approach
to investigating semantic change
Kate Beeching
University of the West of England, Bristol, UKTraugott and Dasher (2002) suggest that the frequency of certain contextual
interpretations of an item can end up by eclipsing its original sense. Pragmatic
markers, lying at the extreme right of the spectrum of semantic change where
the core meaning is almost entirely bleached, are often multifunctional, serving
both turn-taking and modal functions or, as in the case of quand même, the
focus of this study, both an adversative and a relational function. This chapter
explores the potential of parallel corpora as a means of demonstrating that
semantic change has indeed occurred. If English translators systematically
select a particular functional equivalent, this may prove to be a sound test for
semantic change.Keywords: semantic change, parallel corpora, quand même, implicature,
polysemy- Translation and linguistic change
The relationship between translation and linguistic change has become the focus
of renewed interest in recent years, both in regarding translation as a source of
contact-induced change (McLaughlin 2011) and in the study of translations as a
means of tracking change. Van Hoeke and Goyens (1990) point out that seman-
tic change is generally asserted on the basis of context but propose that transla-
tion can be a useful tool in the detection of such change. Their particular study
focuses on Latin Source Texts (STs), namely Cicero’s De Inventione and Rhetorica
ad Herennium, and the successive translations of these texts into French Target
Texts (TTs). The ST is thus used as the tertium comparationis and the French trans-
lations compared as a means of exploring semantic change from an onomasiologi-
cal viewpoint. Van Hoeke and Goyens note the evolution of particular lexemes
(CASU ‘by chance’, translated successively as par cas, par aventure and par hasard),