Poetry Translating as Expert Action Processes, priorities and networks

 Poetry Translating as Expert Action

0.0%

5.0%

10.0%

15.0%

20.0%

25.0%

30.0%

35.0%

RHYME

INTERTEXTUALITY

PARALLELISMSOUND (MISC.)TEXT-HELPER

E VALUAT ERHYTHM

SPONTANEOUS CHANGE

GRAM/DISCFEEL/FLOW

SCANIMAGELEXIS

Percentage of tape-units

Francis "toen wij" Francis "Krik"

Figure 51. Percentage of tape-units per focus (all drafts combined): Toen wij vs. Krik

with a correlation coefficient of 0.74^8. The types of problem I tackled in the two

poems, therefore, were broadly similar. Nevertheless, 0.74 is not a perfect correla-

tion: hence it is worth looking at the profiles more closely.

Key similarities between the profiles are: firstly, the importance of Lexis,

though its prominence decreases slightly from Toen wij (28.5%) to Krik (23.8%);

and secondly, the time spent on Grammar/Discourse (Toen wij 7.5%, Krik 8.8%).

With two poems that present similar challenges in building a coherent text world

from obscure or ambiguous lexico-grammatical cues, therefore, differences be-

tween Dutch and BCS in terms of lexico-grammatical cognacy to the target lan-

guage have not affected the overall translation-problem profile.

As for key differences, understanding the source poem and evaluating possi-

ble solutions in terms of Image took first place with my Toen wij (34.6%). With

Krik, however, it took second place (19.5%) – almost certainly because my decision

8. Pearson r (tape-units per focus), p 0.02.