« Word order in the English and Italian languages »

Работа представляет собой сопоставительный анализ порядка слов в английском и итальянском языках. Работа на английском языке!! Высокий процент оригинальности. ...

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………....4
1. THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE WORD ORDER IN THE ENGLISH AND ITALIAN LANGUAGES
1.1 Functions of Word Order in English ……………………………………………............. 5-7
1.2 The Types of Word Order in English …………………………….…………………….…..8
1.3 Basic English Sentence Patterns……………………………………………………….…8-9
1.4 Basic Italian Sentence Structure. Fluid Sentence Structure………….………….………9-11
1.5 Word Order and Inversion in Italian…………………………………………………...11-12
1.5.1 Word Order and Focus………………………………………………………………..12
1.5.2 Free Word Order…………………………………………………………………..12-13
1.6 Building a Sentence in the English and Italian Languages…………………………….13-14
1.7 Lexical and Functional Categories……………………………………………………..14-15
2. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE ENGLISH-ITALIANTRANSLATION IN TERMS OF THE SITCOM “FRIENDS”
2.1 Special Peculiarities of the Sitcom….............................................................................16-17
2.2 Idiolects………………………………………………………………………….……..17-25
2.3 Substitution ....................................................................................................................25-27
CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………..…28
REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………..…29-31

The relevance of the study of grammatical, semantic and stylistic aspects of the word order in the English language is very high, as understanding of the construction of an English sentence is one of the most important aspects in this study, as all languages are different in their morphological and syntactic structure.
The purpose of this work - to study features of word order in the English and Italian sentence. In addition, the main objectives of this work are:

1. To define the functions of the word order in both languages;
2. To identify the types of word order in both languages;
3. To reveal the influence of inversion on the meaning and stylistic nuance of the sentence in both languages;

Burzio and Rizzi faced the problem of providing an account for the interpretation of a subject which does not show up in the canonical subject position and which cannot be assigned according to the standard procedure. The solutions proposed by Burzio and Rizzi capitalized on the analogy between subject inversion in Italian and ‘there’- sentences English.Hanno telefonato tre ragazze. - Have called three girls  1.5.1 Word Order and Focus We start by examining the syntactic distribution of subjects and their possible interpretations in terms of focus. As will become clear in the course of the discussion, the encoding of focus in language appears to be sensitive to syntactic factors.  As for this first section, we will discuss the hypothesis that certain properties on the level of argument structure may determine the occurrence of the subject in preverbal or postverbal position and may indirectly affect its focus interpretation. 1.5.2 Free Word OrderIn Italian virtually every verb can show up with a preverbal or a postverbal subject. This is illustrated in examples given for each of the three main verb classes:1a Dante è arrivato. - Dante is arrivedE’ arrivato Dante. - is arrived DanteDue navi sono affondate. - two ships are sunkSono affondate due navi. - are sunk two ships Beatrice ha pianto. - Beatrice has criedBeatrice ha scritto una lettera d’amore. - Beatrice has written a love letterHa pianto Beatrice. - has cried BeatriceMolti studenti hanno parlato. - many students have talkedHa scritto una lettera d’amore Beatrice. - has written a love letter BeatriceUn linguista famoso ha recensito questo articolo. - a famous linguist has reviewed this articleHa recensito questo articolo un linguista famoso. - has reviewed this article a famous linguist  1.6 Building a Sentence in the English and Italian Languages Our mind builds sentences by combining words, in order to express meanings.Notice that the form of a word does not directly depend on its meaning: We say that the relationship between form and meaning is arbitrary.In other words there is nothing in table that makes it refer to an object which is a piece of furniture of a certain kind, can be round or square, has a variable number of legs (usually four), etc.The same we can observe with word order in the sentence. Italian can have preverbal or postverbal subjects while English can only have preverbal subjects:(1) a. Ha appena telefonato un mio amico. b. E’ appena ritornato mio fratello.(2) a. A friend of mine has just called. b. My brother has just come back.(3) a. Has just called A friend of mine. b. Has just come back My brother. (4) a. Cats eat bats. b. Bats eat cats.(5) a. I gatti mangiano i pipistrelli. b. I pipistrelli mangiano i gatti. There is nothing in the meaning of the sentences in (2) that forces the subject to be preverbal; and in fact the subject can be postverbal in (1). If we try in English to have the same order as in Italian we obtain an ungrammatical sentence (which we mark with a star): The sentences (4a) and (5a) have a meaning that corresponds to our knowledge of the world. The sentences (4b) and (5b) don’t have a correspondence to what we know happens in nature, however they are possible sentences and they are possibly more interesting than the previous ones, since they convey information that is not known. We can say that the preverbal position of the verb eat/mangiare is reserve to the eater (or, more generally to the agent); while the postverbal position is reserved to the eaten (or, more generally to the patient);. We call these elements arguments of the verb. And we see that the arguments play a role in the action or expressed by the verb eat/mangiare. The position of the arguments is related to their role. (We will call these roles “thematic roles” or breafly “theta-roles”).We can conclude that we build sentences combinig words in a conventional order. 1.7 Lexical and Functional Categories Lexical categories are: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbials, prepositions. Functional categories are: articles, demonstratives, auxiliaries, modals, prepositions Observe the following cases:(1) a. The boy will hit a class mate and walk away. b. ___ boy __ hit __ class mate ___ walk away. c. The ___ will ___ a ________ and __________. If we omit functional words as in (1b) we preserve the lexical meaning: we preserve the meaning of the events (hit, walk away), and the kind of elements that play a role (boy, class mate). We just miss the tense (present, future, past) and the aspect (progressive, perfective) of the event and the reference of the role-players. [8 p. 189] On the other hand, if we omit lexical words as in (1c) we have information on the tense (present, future, past) and the aspect (progressive, perfective) of the event and the reference of the role- players, but we have no idea of the kind of event that the sentence expresses. The lexicon of the language is the ordered inventory of the lexical words and is open to new entries. We can form new words by applying the rules of inflectional and compositional morphology, by introducing words from other languages, or even inventing new words which just obey the phonological principle of the languages.The syntax of a language is related to the properties of functional words that must be fixed during acquisition. We cannot invent new articles, or new auxiliaries. We cannot change the order of the functional elements with respect to the lexical ones. For example:(2)  In questions auxilieries must precede the subject in English but not in Italian:Has Mary recently met my brother?Ha Maria visto mio fratello ultimamente? We can conclude that when we learn a foreign language, we must focalize on the properties of the functional words of that language and observe the parallelisms and the differences with our mother tongue in the order of words. [4 p. 111] 2. THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE ENGLISH-ITALIAN TRANSLATION IN TERMS OF THE SITCOM “FRIENDS” 2.1 Special Peculiarities of the Sitcom Following the aim of collecting a sufficiently varied corpus in terms of genres and target audiences, the reason for choosing “Friends” (David Crane and Marta Kauffman, 1994-2004), one of the most successful US sitcoms of all times, was to have an intelligent but definitely mainstream audiovisual programme to work on. The international success that this sitcom enjoyed with audiences all over the world has brought up translation issues that the other programmes of the corpus, conceived for more selected audiences, could not raise. From a preliminary viewing of the series, it was evident that it presented a considerable number of elements specific to US culture. This is not unusual among even the most internationally diffused TV programmes and one of my aims was to try to to find out how much bearing culture specificity had on the original writing and how much of it was transferred to the Italian dubbing. Not all audiovisual programmes use CSRs (culture specific reference) for the same purposes or to attain the same effects. “Friends” often uses culturally embedded references to make jokes which can be at times quite erudite and sophisticated for a programme that is not conceived for an élite but for a very wide audience. One of the most interesting reasons for analysis was then to investigate the apparent clash between the culture specificity of some references and the declared international spectatorship that Friends aimed at from the very early seasons. Another reason for the interest in Friends lay in its longevity as 10 years provide enough scope to measure any possible evolution of both the original dialogue and their adaptations into Italian. That meant that a substantial number of episodes had to be taken into account for a diachronic analysis and special focus is laid on ascertaining if any meaningful statistical conclusions can be drawn from the investigation. The analysis covers seasons 1, 2, 3 out of the 10 seasons of Friends, which totals 145 episodes of about 22 minutes per episode. This is a total of about 3,190 minutes of programme. The first three seasons have been chosen because the preliminary assumption – based on previous analyses of other television products – was that a programme needs some time in order to find its ideal target audience and its ideal collocation (i.e. broadcasting time and possibly channel). Thus, it is very likely that in the very first seasons some crucial adjustments in terms of scriptwriting and of TL (target language) adaptation may have taken place. The other, later seasons would allow us to evaluate if indeed there was an evolution or changes of some kind, both in the original production and in the Italian version. Nevertheless, this programme has never been researched for its high incidence of CSRs. The material gathered in the pages that follow will thus be analyzed through the lenses of the classification of strategies for the translation of CSRs discussed in chapter 2, adding the qualitative insight that a reflection on the nature of some of the references has to offer, with the specific purpose of finding out if there are any regularities in the translation of each category, if any of these strategies is more relevant than the others and why, and of verifying if the translation into Italian may affect the style and general impact of the series on its new audience, with a particular focus on humour and jokes. “Friends” is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which originally ran on the NBC channel from 22nd September 1994 to 6th May 2004.The main plot of the series is very simple. In a nutshell, it revolves around a group of friends in their 20s (early 30s at the end of the series) living in New YorkCity, and tells us about their (humorous) way of coping with reality and with growing up. In Italy, Friends was broadcast by Rai, the national TV channel, from 1997 to 2005 (Rai 3 for seasons 1 to 4, and then Rai 2 for seasons 5 to 10). It is often repeated both on satellite and private TV channels. The length of the episodes varies slightly in the Italian version as they were consistently reduced to 22 minutes while in the original their length varied from 22 to 24 minutes. Officially, the authors of the Italian version remained the same throughout: Luigi Brunamonti, Anna Teresa Eugeni and Donatella Laureati as adapters and authors of the dialogue exchanges, and Sergio Di Stefano as dubbing director. One of the fundamental keys required to understand Friends’ construction ofhumour is its good portrayal of the idiolects of the main characters. This is an aspect that is never highlighted by the relevant literature which tends to analyse the characters’ dialogues as if they were uniform in their style and form. In the following section, a brief description of the main features of the friends’ different idiolects is presented.So, the main goal of the second chapter of the work is to educe the difficulties and the main features of english-italian translation and to understand the influence of word order and sentence- formation. 2.2 Idiolects The main characters of Friends are six young people from the New York area: Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, Chandler, Joey and Ross. They all have a distinctive voice and a distinctive kind of humour punctuated by distinctive linguistic nuances. The characters make people laugh, both friends and audience, through different humorous mechanisms. However, there is also a diegetic reason for her centrality: her arrival in the circle of friends in the pilot episode of the series was construed as to create sensation. Dressed as a bride in white robe and veil, she walks into the café where the others are gathered for a drink, having just fled from her own wedding ceremony. Rachel’s fictional role evolved over the years: from a spoilt although charming girl from a middle-class upbringing, who never did a stroke of work in her life and did not have much else to do other than shopping and flirting with boys, to an independent professional in a top fashion company and (more or less) single mother of a little girl. Her peculiar linguistic aura has a touch of surrealism to it – thanks especially to her use of metaphors - which marks many of her humorous expressions, as in the instance below:Example 1: Season 1 Episode 1 (Pilot)Context: Rachel is talking on the phone to her dad, trying to explain why she fled her own wedding ceremony and left her husband-to-be on the altar.Original film dialog:RACHEL: C’mon Daddy, listen to me! It’s like, it’s like, all of my life, everyone has always told me, ‘You’re a shoe! You’re a shoe, you’re a shoe, you’re a shoe!’. And today I just stopped and I said, ‘What if I don’t wanna be a shoe? What if I wanna be a – a purse, y’know? Or a – or a hat! No, I’m not saying I want you to buy me a hat, I’m saying I am a ha- It’s a metaphor,Daddy!ROSS: You can see where he’d have trouble.Italian adaptation:RACHEL: Papà il fatto è che per tutta la vita gli altri mi hanno detto sei una ciabatta,una ciabatta, una scarpaccia...così oggi mi sono bloccata e ho detto: e se non volessiessere una ciabatta se volessi essere una borsa o magari un cappello...non devicomprarmi un cappello, sto dicendo che SONO un cappello, è una metafora papà...ROSS: Ecco l'origine dei tuoi problemi...RACHEL: Dad, the fact is that all of my life the others have told me, ‘You’re a slipper, you’re a slipper, you’re an old shoe’…so today I stopped and I said, ‘And if I didn’t want to be a slipper? And if I wanted to be a purse or maybe a hat… you don’t have to buy me a hat, I’m saying I AM a hat, it’s a metaphor, Daddy…ROSS: That’s the root of your problems…In this excerpt, the repetition of the term ‘shoe’ and its banality as an unmarked everyday object, mostly contribute to create the humor of the joke, by preparing more suitably the punch line which occurs two lines later when she tells her father that she is a hat. This construction was partly manipulated in Italian, which uses the marked terms ciabatta [slipper] twice and scarpaccia [old, ugly shoe] once to replace the unmarked word ‘shoe’. The humor of the joke, playing on subtle nuances, is not lost but sensibly diminished and this effect is aggravated by the manipulation of Ross’s funny conclusion, ‘You can see where he’d have trouble’, which refers ironically to the trouble Rachel’s father might have in understanding Rachel’s joke. Its replacement in the dubbed version with a generic remark on her troubles is somehow an anticlimax, whereas Ross’s comment served in fact as the climax of the exchange. In the next example, Rachel makes use of the possibilities of word formation in English – in this case the possibility to adjectivise a whole sentence – in order to create her humorous repartee:Example 2: Season 1 Episode 1 (Pilot)Context: Rachel has indulged in the activity she most enjoys: shopping.Original film dialogue: CHANDLER: And yet you’re surprisingly upbeat.RACHEL: You would be too if you found John and David boots on sale, fifty percent off!CHANDLER: Oh, how well you know me…RACHEL: They’re my new ‘I don’t need a job, I don’t need my parents, I’ve got great boots’ boots! Italian adaptation: CHANDLER: Eppure sei incredibilmente gasata. RACHEL: Bè, lo saresti anche tu se avessi trovato questi stivali al saldo del 50%! CHANDLER: Come mi conosci. RACHEL: Alla faccia di tutti. Non mi serve un lavoro, non mi servono i genitori, ma ho due magnifici stivali! CHANDLER: And yet you’re incredibly upbeat. RACHEL: Well, you would be too if you had found these boots on sale, fifty percent off! CHANDLER: How well you know me…RACHEL: To hell with everybody. I don’t need a job, I don’t need my parents, but I’ve got great boots! The Italian simplification of Rachel’s last line, with the loss of the long ‘adjective’ (‘Idon’t-need-a-job-I-don’t-need-my-parents-I’ve-got-great-boots boots’), reduces the impact of the joke which in the original could also count on the CSR (John and David) to create an ‘in-joke’ effect. As already mentioned in chapter 4, CSRs give the audience the fulfilling feeling that they have some insider information and are, therefore, sharing the private jokes with the characters. If Rachel’s sometimes odd choice of words and themes is matched by her very down-to-earth aims and goals, this is not the case with Phoebe, a weird young woman from a dysfunctional family. The insights we get on her childhood and adolescence would be tragic if they were not so funny. Phoebe’s way of speaking is unusual, often subtle and even too cultured on occasions to be fully appreciated by part of the audience, even in the original version. The following is a typical example of Phoebe’s lines: Example 3: Season 1 Episode 9Context: The friends are discussing how they are going to spend the typically American holiday of Thanksgiving.Original film dialogue: MONICA: And I assume, Chandler, you are still boycotting all the pilgrim holidays.CHANDLER: Yes, every single one of them.MONICA: Phoebe, you’re gonna be with your grandma? PHOEBE: Yes, and her boyfriend. But we’re celebrating Thanksgiving in December ‘cause he is lunar.Italian adaptation:MONICA: E Chandler continuerà a stare alla larga dal tacchino, giusto?CHANDLER: Sì, e da tutti gli altri pennuti.MONICA: Phoebe, tu starai con tua nonna?PHOEBE: Sì, e il suo fidanzato. Ma loro festeggiano il ringraziamento a dicembreperché lui è un lunatico.MONICA: And Chandler will continue to keep away from the turkey, right?CHANDLER: Yes, and from all the other feathered animals.MONICA: Phoebe, you’re going to be with your grandma? PHOEBE: Yes, and her boyfriend. But they celebrate Thanksgiving in December because he is moody. The reference to lunar months, whose length is based on the average time between new or full moons, is a quite cultivated remark that, arguably, even some members of the SA may not get. The Italian translation replaces ‘lunar’ with the calque lunatic [moody] and the ‘pilgrim holidays’ has been substituted by a general comment on turkeys. Thanksgiving has gradually become a well-known celebration in Italy in recent years, although it is considered as typically Anglo-Saxon and has not yet been fully absorbed as opposed to, for example, Halloween. However, other Thanksgiving related terms such as ‘pilgrim’ do not enjoy the same recognition, hence the need to change the reference. One of the main objectives of this analysis is to see if there is any contrast between the American Phoebe and the Italian ‘Febe’ as her character in particular does seem to be the most difficult to render in translation. Unfortunately, of all the dubbing actors, the one who impersonates Phoebe is the weakest and the blandest in terms of tone, rhythm and prosody.Less hesitant and generally goofier, Ross’s character, too, sounds very different in Italian. Having a PhD and being a lecturer in paleontology, he is the most educated member of the group. His dialogues often contain high-brow CSRs, he shows a painstaking attention to details that the other friends find boring, and he is prone to fastidious clarifications. The following example illustrates his typical, cultured way of quipping after his friends’ comments: Example 4: Season 1 Episode 15Context: Ross makes a comment on Chandler’s complaints about his own lack of goals and ambitions.Original dialogue:CHANDLER: Hey, you guys in the living room all know what you want to do. You know, you have goals.