UNIVERZA V MARIBORU FILOZOFSKA FAKULTETA Oddelek za prevodoslovje DIPLOMSKO DELO. Pija Samec

Transkripcija

1 UNIVERZA V MARIBORU FILOZOFSKA FAKULTETA Oddelek za prevodoslovje DIPLOMSKO DELO Pija Samec Maribor, 2011

2

3 UNIVERZA V MARIBORU FILOZOFSKA FAKULTETA Oddelek za prevodoslovje Diplomsko delo PREVAJANJE»CRASH BLOSSOMS«Graduation thesis TRANSLATING CRASH BLOSSOMS Mentorica: red. prof. dr. Nada Šabec Kandidatka: Pija Samec Maribor, 2011

4 Lektorica: Jana Peserl, prof. slovenščine in srbohrvaščine

5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my gratitude to my mentor, prof. dr. Nada Šabec whose help, encouragement and stimulating suggestions helped me in writing of this thesis. I have furthermore to thank all others who participated in the making of this paper, especially those close to my heart. It would not have been possible without you.

6 IZJAVA Podpisani-a Pija Samec, rojen-a , študent-ka Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Mariboru, smer Prevajanje in tolmačenje angleščina in Pedagogika, izjavljam, da je diplomsko delo z naslovom Prevajanje»crash blossoms«pri mentorju-ici red. prof. dr. Nada Šabec, avtorsko delo. V diplomskem delu so uporabljeni viri in literatura korektno navedeni; teksti niso prepisani brez navedbe avtorjev. (podpis študenta-ke) Kraj, Maribor Datum, julij 2011

7 SUMMARY Print media (especially newspapers and magazines) represent one of the oldest sources of news. Due to increase of internet usage, many newspaper houses decided to publish their newspapers online and enabled their readers to access the current news even easier and faster. When reading a newspaper (a printed or online edition) our attention is attracted by the big newspaper headlines, which are often poorly written and therefore also ambiguous. These types of headlines have been present in journalism since its very beginning, but the augmented growth of internet editions drastically increased their numbers of appearance. It was only recently when these infelicitous newspaper headlines were given a name crash blossoms, and became a subject of linguistic research. We live in a time of information shortage and many journalists are forced to search for news in foreign sources and recap them. Journalists then also translate this news without translator s help. Translating ambiguous headlines can represent a huge problem, if the journalist is not qualified for such work. The purpose of my diploma paper was to find out the differences between the methods of translating ambiguous newspaper headlines ( crash blossoms ) used by the students of Translation Studies and students of Journalism. These differences were also highlighted with skopos theory, which represents a universal approach to translation and helps the translator to achieve the purpose of translation, usually determined by the readership of the target culture. I found out that students of Translation Studies and students of Journalism use different translation approaches. The students of Translation Studies have, because of their training, translated the examples of ambiguous newspaper headlines much better than the students of Journalism, who are not well-qualified for this kind of work. Skopos theory also allowed me to prove that these kinds of headlines can be translated literary or free, as long as the reader understands them. Those journalists, who recap foreign news and do not have the sufficient

8 knowledge about English or translating, should seek advice from a trained translator, who will help them recognize and eliminate ambiguity. KEY WORDS: translating newspaper headlines, crash blossoms, headlinese, garden-path sentences, translation methods, skopos theory, the influence of translating crash blossoms on the Slovene language

9 POVZETEK Enega izmed najstarejših virov novic predstavljajo tiskani mediji, med njimi predvsem časopisi in revije. Z razmahom interneta se je večina časopisnih hiš odločila, da bo tiskanim izdajam dodala še spletne in svojim bralcem tako omogočila še lažje in hitrejše dostopanje do aktualnih novic. Pri prebiranju časopisa (pa naj bo to tiskana ali spletna izdaja) našo pozornost najprej pritegnejo veliki naslovi časopisnih člankov, ki pa so večkrat površno napisani in zaradi tega tudi dvoumni. Taki naslovi so v novinarstvu prisotni že od samega začetka, vendar se je z razmahom spletnih izdaj časopisov njihovo število drastično povečalo. Šele pred kratkim so ti ponesrečeni časopisni naslovi dobili ime»crash blossoms«in hitro postali predmet jezikoslovnih raziskovanj. Ker živimo v času, ko»primanjkuje informacij«, je večina novinarjev prisiljenih novice iskati v tujih virih in jih povzemati. Nato jih tudi prevajajo in to brez pomoči prevajalca. Prevajanje že dvoumnih naslovov pa lahko predstavlja veliko težavo, če novinar ni usposobljen za tako delo. Namen mojega diplomskega dela je bil, ugotoviti razlike med metodami prevajanja dvoumnih naslovov časopisnih člankov (»crash blossoms«), ki jih uporabljajo študenti prevajalstva in študenti novinarstva. Te razlike sem osvetlila s pomočjo teorije skoposa, ki predstavlja univerzalen pristop k prevajanju in prevajalcu pomaga doseči ustrezen namen. Ugotovila sem, da med študenti prevajalstva in študenti novinarstva obstajajo razlike v načinu prevajanja. Študenti prevajalstva so, zaradi svojega šolanja, primere dvoumnih časopisnih naslovov prevajali bolje kot študenti novinarstva, ki za to delo niso dobro usposobljeni. S pomočjo teorije skoposa sem dokazala, da take vrste naslovov lahko prevajamo dobesedno ali pa prosto, vendar nikoli ne smemo zanemariti bralčevega razumevanja. Tisti novinarji, ki povzemajo tuje novice in nimajo dovolj znanja o angleškem jeziku ali prevajanju, bi v takih primerih za nasvet morali prositi šolanega prevajalca, ki bi jim pomagal prepoznati in odpraviti dvoumnost.

10 KLJUČNE BESEDE: prevajanje časopisnih naslovov,»crash blossoms«,»headlinese«,»garden-path sentences«, prevajalske metode, teorija skoposa, vpliv prevajanja»crash blossoms«na slovenski jezik

11 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 THEORETICAL PART TRANSLATION STUDIES THE CONCEPT OF TRANSLATION HISTORY OF TRANSLATION STUDIES SKOPOS THEORY A BRIEF OUTLINE OF SKOPOS THEORY THE SKOPOS OF TRANSLATION SOURCE TEXT TRANSLATUM COMMISSION TRANSLATOR RULES IN SKOPOS THEORY OTHER IMPORTANT FEATURES OF SKOPOS THEORY DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS CRASH BLOSSOMS THE TRANSLATION OF THE TERM CRASH BLOSSOM HEADLINESE CRASH BLOSSOMS DEFINITION FREQUENCY GRAMMATICAL FEATURES OMISSION OF LITTLE WORDS OMISSION OF ARTICLES OMISSION OF AUXILIARY VERBS OMISSION OF COPULAS OR LINKING VERBS WORD ORDER PUNCTUATION 17 I

12 INFLECTION SENSATIONAL SPELLING CRASH BLOSSOMS AS EXAMPLES OF GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES DEFINITION OF GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES TYPES OF AMBIGUITY IN GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES SEMANTIC AMBIGUITY SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY (AMPHIBOLOGY) UNDERSTANDING GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES MISINTERPRETATIONS OF GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES MODELS OF REANALYSIS AGE DETERMINISM CRASH BLOSSOMS IN SLOVENE NEWSPAPERS INFLUENCE OF CRASH BLOSSOMS ON ENGLISH AND SLOVENE RECCOMENDATIONS FOR JOURNALISTS AND NEWSPAPER HOUSES 32 3 EMPIRICAL PART RESEARCH AIMS AND OBJECTIVES METHODOLOGY RESEARCH METHODS RESEARCH SAMPLE DATA COLLECTION FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATION TEXT TYPE AND LANGUAGE FUNCTION OF CRASH BLOSSOMS TRANSLATION TYPE OF CRASH BLOSSOMS METHOD OF TRANSLATING CRASH BLOSSOMS LITERAL VERSUS FREE TRANSLATION FINDINGS 38 II

13 3.4.5 APPLICATION OF SKOPOS THEORY TRANSLATION ANALYSIS EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE EXAMPLE INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS CONCLUSION 53 REFERENCES 58 III

14 1 INTRODUCTION Newspapers represent one of the oldest sources of news, and offer us daily, up-todate local and global information about what is happening in the world that surrounds us. In the last decade we have witnessed an increase in the use of the internet, and many newspaper houses have decided to start publishing their newspapers on the internet. This allowed us to access the news more easily and faster than ever. When we read a newspaper or its internet version, our attention is drawn by big newspaper headlines, which time and again convince us to continue reading the whole article. If you are a regular reader of at least one or two newspapers (especially foreign ones), you will rapidly realize that sometimes headlines are not just what they seem to be. They look somehow unclear and vague. Ambiguous headlines have been present in journalism since the very beginning, but their appearance has drastically increased in the past decade. The reason for this kind of increase lies in the increase of internet publications, which offer more space for news. The constant demand for news, strict deadlines and lack of employees lead to errors, which are most often reflected in poor and ambiguous writing. If headlines are meant to attract readers, their inaccuracies deter them from doing so. Finally, linguists have decided to name this phenomenon crash blossoms (Bloom, 2009) and started to study this intriguing piece of language. We live in a world where scarce local news cannot satisfy the constant and growing demand for news. Inevitably, all small and insignificant events are hastily turned into huge sensations. This is also the case in Slovenia. Journalists who in search of news, recap foreign articles, decide to translate them by themselves, and not with the help of an expert a translator. Although they presumably have a sufficient knowledge of writing articles and a sense for sensation, translating is not their profession. Consequently, ambiguities in the original article are easily and inadvertently transferred into Slovene, especially if the journalist (or the proof-reader) is under a deadline pressure. 1

15 In my diploma paper, I will present the problem of translating such ambiguous headlines and try to find out whether there indeed exist differences between the translations of journalists and translators. I feel that it is very important that journalists in such cases consult with translators, who are trained to eliminate any imprecision and provide a good translation, which will satisfy the readers needs. In the introduction part of my diploma paper I will present a translation theory, which will serve me as a theoretical basis for my translations analysis. Skopos theory (Vermeer, 1978) represents a socio-cultural approach to translation, and is, without difficulty, applicable for translating any kind of text. It is oriented towards the reader and strives to fulfil the purpose of the text, which is, in our case, providing the reader with exact information and not ambiguity. The following part of the diploma paper presents the concept of crash blossoms, their origin, denomination, and important typical features. I will offer a deep insight into the nature of this phenomenon, because I think that it is very important for the translator (and also journalist) to understand what crash blossoms are, how to recognize them, and most importantly, how to avoid their ambiguity. The central and also fundamental part of my diploma paper consists of translation s analysis. This includes the comparison of journalists translations with translator s translations of crash blossoms. I was interested in the differences which occur in these translations, when the headlines are being translated by journalists or by translators. The conclusion of my diploma paper is a summary of the theoretical part and the analysis of translations. It also includes final theoretical conclusions, and findings of the translation analysis. It also includes recommendations with regard to journalists trying to translate the headlines themselves. 2

16 2 THEORETICAL PART 2.1 TRANSLATION STUDIES THE CONCEPT OF TRANSLATION The term translation can have many meanings. It can refer to the general subject field, the final product or to the whole process of translation (translating). (Munday, 2001) In his book Introducing translation studies: theories and applications, Munday (2001, p. 4-5) offers a universal definition of translating. He writes: The process of translation between two different written languages involves the translator changing an original written text (the source text or ST) in the original verbal language (the source language or SL) into a written text (the target text or TT) in a different verbal language (the target language or TL) HISTORY OF TRANSLATION STUDIES Throughout history, written and spoken translation played a significant role in human communication. In the early beginnings, these translations enabled access to important texts for scientific and religious purposes. Until 1950s, translation studies were not considered an academic subject, although a lot of scholars emphasized the fact that translation studies deserve a status of a scientific discipline. Until then the translation was seen as a part of language learning, and its status was secondary. Its purpose was to help students learn a foreign language. Between 1950s and 1960s, translation studies started a separate development. The approach towards the process of translation became more scientific and systematic. In 1988, the American scholar James S. Holmes wrote a study The name and nature of translation studies, which became a fundamental document for the creation of the field of translation. It was in the 1990s, after many years of repression and neglect, when translation studies became well-defined, and dynamic new area of research. (Munday, 2001) Since they were developed late, 3

17 translation studies are seen as a new discipline, still in the state of flux. (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997) The knowledge about translation studies is gradually increasing, and they are becoming more specialized. They are nowadays considered an inter-discipline, because of the exchange of knowledge, insight and methodologies with other fields, such as literary studies, philosophy, anthropology, and linguistics. (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997) 2.2 SKOPOS THEORY A BRIEF OUTLINE OF SKOPOS THEORY Skopos theory is one of the translational approaches, which can be applied to all types of text. This approach reflects a general shift from linguistic and formal translation theories to a more functional and socio-cultural concept of translation. The theory drew inspiration from other theories such as communication theory, action theory, text theory, and reception theory. (Schäffner, 1998) The theory was initially formulated by Katherina Reiss in the 1970s, developed by Hans Jan Vermeer in the 1980s and further analyzed by Christiane Nord in the 1990s. (Baorong, 2009) Skopos theory does not perceive translation, merely as a process of recoding one language into another, but rather as a specific form of human action, and because every human action has a purpose, translation must also have one. (Schäffner, 1998) The purpose of translation in this particular translation theory is termed skopos. The word skopos derives from Greek and means purpose or goal. (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997) Although in translation theory, skopos can also denote the action of translating, it focuses mostly on its purpose. (Munday, 2001) 4

18 2.2.2 THE SKOPOS OF TRANSLATION Skopos is the crucial factor in translation project. (Kocijančič Pokorn, 2003) It must be defined before the translation process begins (Schäffner, 1998), and it is very important, because it helps us decide which translation methods and strategies to use. (Munday, 2001) Skopos also helps us determine the shape of the target text with the intention to fulfill the target culture. (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997) We can say that it is constrained by the target text users, their situation and cultural background, which include their needs and expectations. Skopos varies according to them. This means that the skopos of the target text is always different from the skopos of the source text. (Schäffner, 1998) The translators always have to be careful when translating, as they must form a text which will be suitable for the readers. Although the concept of skopos is usually applied to the whole text, it can, when this is necessary or urgent, also be used only for parts of the target text. (Kocijančič Pokorn, 2003) SOURCE TEXT In skopos theory, the source text is no longer seen as something unchangeable or something that must be preserved and accurately transferred into the target language. Instead, it is given a new status, which is intended for translation. (Kocijančič Pokorn, 2003) Vermeer sees this re-conceptualization of its status as dethroning because the source text is now just an information offer, which has to be interpreted by the translator. He or she has to choose the features of the source text that correspond to the target situation. (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997) TRANSLATUM Every human action has s purpose (skopos) and also an outcome. An outcome of a translation action, in terms of skopos theory, is called a translatum, which is a particular kind of a target text. If the source text is an offer of information made by the producer for the recipient, the translation is then a secondary offer of 5

19 information, imitating the first. (Schäffner, 1998) This kind of target text communicates something new and original, rather than providing the readers with the same information just in a recoded form. (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997) Its shape is determined by the skopos. Translation is not seen as a faithful imitation of the source text, because it can have more than just one preferred or correct translation. The translatum is considered to be successful, when it is easily interpreted by the reader. (Schäffner, 1998) COMMISSION Every translation is based on commission. (Kocijančič Pokorn, 2003) Commission comprises the goal (purpose) and the conditions under which this goal should be achieved. These conditions, which include deadline and fee, must be negotiated between the commissioner and the translator, because the client can have an unclear or even wrong interpretation about how the text will be seen in the target culture. Besides skopos, the commission is the second most important factor that determines the nature of the translatum. (Munday, 2001) TRANSLATOR According to skopos theory, the translator is situated in a wider social context, because besides the relations between the translator and the writer of the original text, translator and the reader of target text, he or she deals with the relation between the translator and the client. (Kocijančič Pokorn, 2003) The translators must act in accordance with skopos (Schäffner, 1998); they should use strategies that are most appropriate for achieving the purpose for which target text is intended, although they are not the standard procedure (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997), and they should be able to advice the client on the feasibility of the goal. (Munday, 2001) The translators are responsible for the execution of the commission and for the final translatum, and they decide on the role of the source text in their translation activity. Translators are the experts in this profession. 6

20 Their opinion should be respected and applicable at enforcement of the task, which is a part of their profession. (Kocijančič Pokorn, 2003) RULES IN SKOPOS THEORY Jeremy Munday, in his book Introducing translation studies (2001, p ), formulates six basic rules of skopos theory. These are: A translatum (or TT) is determined by its skopos. A TT is an offer of information / / in a target culture and TL concerning an offer of information in a source culture and SL. This rule relates the source text and the target text to their function in their respective linguistic and cultural contexts. A TT does not initiate an offer of information in a clearly reversible way. Irreversibility indicates that the function of translatum in its target culture is not necessarily the same as in the source culture. A TT must be internally coherent. This rule is also called the coherence rule, which states that the target text must be interpretable as coherent with the target text receiver s situation. A TT must be coherent with the ST. This rule is called the fidelity rule, which states that there must be coherence between the translatum and the source text. (Munday, 2001, p ) These rules are placed in a hierarchical order, which means that the rule five is of less importance that the rule four, which is again subordinated to the rule one. The skopos rule predominates all others. This down-playing (Munday, 2001, p. 80) of the status of the source text is a principle of skopos theory OTHER IMPORTANT FEATURES OF SKOPOS THEORY Seeing the translation through skopos theory frees the translator from the constant dilemma of deciding between literal and free translation, because skopos theory allows a good translation to be either faithful or free, depending on the purpose 7

21 of translation and audience s expectations. (Kocijančič Pokorn, 2003) Skopos theory does not promote free translation, because it is not a faithful imitation of the source text. If the purpose of translation demands fidelity, than fidelity can be skopos. (Schäffner, 1998) This advantage of skopos theory allows the possibility of the same text being translated in different ways, according to the purpose and commission. (Munday, 2001) Skopos theory tries to evaluate the translations according to their functionality in a certain cultural position. It wants to give guidelines to the future translators and help them produce functional translations. Finally, it offers arguments with which the translators can defend their translations against any unjustified user s or client s critique. (Kocijančič Pokorn, 2003) 2.3 DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS CRASH BLOSSOMS Crash blossoms are a relatively recent term used by linguists. (Oguss, 2010) This term is not yet widely used in a uniform way. Zimmer (2010) calls them doubletake headlines or infelicitous headlines that encourage alternate readings. Waigl (2009) describes them as: Train wrecks of newspaper headlines that lead us down the garden path to end up against a wall, scratching our head and wondering what on earth the subeditor might possibly have been thinking. Peters (2009) perceives them as an old headline hazard and as a phenomenon of ambiguously or bizarrely worded headlines, and he even says that crash blossoms are a nugget of nonsense. Although there is no official definition of a crash blossom, these descriptions give us enough information to conclude that crash blossoms are ambiguous headlines of newspaper articles that represent a true brainteaser for the reader. 8

22 THE TRANSLATION OF THE TERM CRASH BLOSSOM For the novelty of crash blossom there exists no established Slovene translation of this expression. The attempt to translate this term demands a particular process of translating. The term crash blossom is a neologism and translating neologisms represents a prevalent dilemma in non-literary and scientific translation. Neologisms usually appear as an answer to a certain need and most of them have only one meaning. Because of that we can translate them without context, but many of them acquire a new (and sometimes lose the old) meaning in the target language. (Newmark, 2000) Neologisms rarely have just one possible translation. One of these possible translations becomes standardized, when it is widely accepted and recognized by its users. This translation is then the only accurate one, and must be used in all other translations. (Newmark, 2000) A neologism which does not have a standardized translation in the target language needs to be translated by paraphrase because translators should not invent neologisms. When the expression becomes universal and the longer descriptive term is not needed anymore, it can be translated literary. (Newmark, 2000) The term crash blossom is not yet widely accepted in Slovenia, so we cannot translate it literary. We have to paraphrase it. The proper translation for the term crash blossom would then be a descriptive word phrase: dvoumni naslovi časopisnih člankov or even shorter: dvoumni časopisni naslovi. 9

23 I would not translate the term crash blossom word-by-word, because its translation would then make no sense. Rather, I would use the paraphrase časopisna cvetka. The adverb časopisna because it can be found in a newspaper. The noun cvetka, because this word has, in Slovene language and culture, various meanings. It can, among other things, mean an impropriate word, a typical stylistic feature or something interesting and funny. (SSKJ, n.d.) I think that this translation appropriately captures the meaning of the term crash blossom, implying something funny and at the same time infelicitous HEADLINESE Headlinese is an abbreviated writing style, typically used in newspaper headlines. A newspaper headline is defined by Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary as the title of a newspaper article printed in large letters, especially at the top of the front page. (Hornby, 2005, p. 718) If the first printed newspapers had no headlines at all, are today s newspapers full of them, and their main goal is to emphasize the importance of the front page story. (Howard, 2009) In the 20th century hitting (or making) headlines has become very popular, especially in the tabloids. (Peters, 2009) Typical features of headlinese are: ellipsis (omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the reader), abbreviation (shortened forms of words or even phrases), clichés (trite expressions, whose effectiveness has been worn out through overuse and excessive familiarity), and emotive or inflated expressions. 10

24 Crash blossoms are the newcomer in headlinese and the elliptical nature of headline writing makes such ambiguous headlines an inevitable hazard for the writer and the reader. (McIntyre, 2009) Howard (2009) jests that making a reader stumble or force to read a headline twice is cardinal sin of journalese and I agree that this kind of an expressive style of writing should not be widely adopted by journalists and reporters. Hitting headlines has become so culturally ingrained that it is almost impossible to ignore and avoid it. As Zimmer (2010) says: As long as there is such thing as headlinese, we can count on crash blossoms continuing to blossom. 2.4 CRASH BLOSSOMS Before translating any text translators have to do a lot of research, if they want to produce a quality translation. Since I believe that it is very important to offer some insight into the nature of crash blossoms and help the translator get acquainted with this not as yet familiar area of translation, I will, in the next few chapters, discuss the definition of crash blossoms, their grammatical features, and how to recognize and avoid their vagueness. Knowing all these facts will help the translator create an unambiguous headline, which will not puzzle the reader. After all, the translators are allowed to change the source text, if they find it misleading or even incorrect DEFINITION It is believed that ambiguous headlines have been present in journalism since its very beginning. At first, their appearance in printed newspapers was not so frequent and they were usually a consequence of limited space in newspaper s narrow columns. Nowadays, when a lot of newspapers appear in online outlets rather than in print and newspaper headlines are not so constrained, their ambiguity becomes a matter of journalistic style of writing. (Zimmer, 2010) 11

25 For many years, there was no proper name for such ambiguous headlines. But in August 2009 one emerged on an online discussion forum, called the Testy Copy Editors. Mike O Connell (an American editor, who was at that time working in Sapporo, Japan) came across a funny looking headline in a Japan online newspaper Japan Today, Violinist linked to JAL crash blossoms. He started to wonder what crash blossom are and because he could not get an answer, he decided to post it on the Testy Copy Editors forum and ask for opinions. Another participant in the forum, Dan Bloom, solved the mysterious headline. The article described the successful musical career of Diana Yukawa, whose father died in a 1985 s Japan Airlines plane crash. The strange word phrase in the clumsily coined sentence offered a new name for ambiguous newspaper headlines and Dan Bloom grabbed the opportunity. He suggested that crash blossoms could be used as a label for such infelicitous headlines that alternate readings. Since then the neologism quickly spread and became widely used by linguists. (Zimmer, 2010) FREQUENCY Crash blossoms are not so common in printed newspapers. They do appear in them, but in negligible numbers. It seems that the increased frequency of their appearance is somehow connected with to fact that many newspaper houses publish their newspapers online. There is a tendency for crash blossoms to appear more frequently in tabloid press, also pejoratively called gutter press, rather than in serious newspapers, because well-established newspaper houses will not allow themselves to make such mistakes, as they want to retain their good reputation and notability GRAMMATICAL FEATURES The main characteristic of crash blossoms is their ambiguity, which often puzzles the readers. By ignoring this ambiguity, it becomes clear to us that crash blossoms are headlines of newspaper articles that have weird construction. (Stratton, 2010) 12

26 We cannot say that these headlines are grammatically incorrect, but they do lack important grammatical characteristics. (Oguss, 2010) Crash blossoms are a phenomenon which has just recently started to attract attention, there is no official classification of their grammatical features. Linguists agree that crash blossoms have some grammatical features that are typical for them. These characteristics can be categorized into several groups OMISSION OF LITTLE WORDS Just because they are little that does not mean that they are unimportant. The removal of the little words can result in a headline that is often cryptic, confusing or humorous when it is not meant to be. The little words absent are primarily articles (a, as, the), auxiliary verbs (forms of verbs to be, to do and to have are most common) and linking verbs or copulas (any word that can serve as a link). When the little words are removed in English, part of the context is lost in the remaining word, making it harder to determine the correct interpretation. Journalists often remove these words for the sake of brevity. (Stratton, 2010) OMISSION OF ARTICLES An article (or a determiner) is a word which offers us some information about the noun. Articles can indicate the noun s reference to any member of a group, or to a specific member of a group. The English language has two types of articles: Definite article the, which is used for all three genders and can be situated in front of singular or plural nouns. (Komac, 2006) Indefinite articles a and an, where a is used with nouns that start with a consonant, and an is used with nouns that start with a vowel or a silent h. Indefinite articles are also used for all three genders, but are situated mostly before countable nouns in singular. (Komac, 2006) 13

27 Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of a noun. Their usage is important because they enable us to distinguish between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not. If articles, especially definite, are left out, we lose a small, but crucial fragment of context. This is illustrated by the following example. Jackson defends Venezuelan head (BBC News, ) If we take this newspaper headline out of context, we are left wondering who or even what is Jackson defending. Head has many interpretations and if we want to parse the headline correctly, we have to read the whole article. In this example, the word head denotes the president of Venezuela, as the head of the state. The definite article was probably deleted for the sake of concision and style, but it would have been better if the journalist would have kept it in the headline. It still would not be perfectly clear what the word head denotes, but it would give the reader a better notion of what is meant. Jackson defends the Venezuelan head OMISSION OF AUXILIARY VERBS English verbs can be divided into two groups: lexical verbs and auxiliary verbs or auxiliaries. The latter form a small subclass of verbs whose members are characteristically used to mark tense, aspect, mood or voice. These categories are also marked by inflection, so auxiliary verbs tend to convey meanings which elsewhere are expressed by inflection of the verb. Auxiliaries are additionally divided into two subclasses: modal auxiliaries (can, may, must, will, shall, ought, need and dare) and non-modal auxiliaries (be, have, do). (Huddleston and Pullum, 2005) 14

28 There is a tendency that most frequently omitted auxiliary verbs are general auxiliaries (be, do, have), because they are commonly used in everyday language. This is also the case with the headlines. Primary auxiliaries are omitted to make the headline shorter and more striking, but their omission may result in the lack of information for the reader. These verbs in fact give further semantic or syntactic information about the main or lexical verb following it, especially in English, where the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb, alters the basic meaning of the main verb. If the journalists delete the auxiliary, they rob the reader of complete information, change the meaning and create a crash blossom. This is illustrated by the following example. 3 missing after waves hit Maine located (Wounded Times, ) This particular headline can be parsed in several ways. Firstly, 3 missing can be easily parsed as 3 are missing, but by the time we get to read the verb located at the end of the headline we realize that our parsing was incorrect. The verb located needs an auxiliary, and now the line can be read in a completely different way. (McIntyre, 2009) 3 (people) missing after waves hit Maine have been located OMISSION OF COPULAS OR LINKING VERBS Copulas, linking verbs or also called copular verbs describe states (appear, be, feel, look, seem, smell, sound, taste) or changing states/results (become, get, go, grow, turn out). (Carter and McCarthy, 2006) They are sometimes called linking verbs because they link subjects with subject complements, the latter being adjective phrases, noun phrases, adverb phrases or prepositional phrases. Copula omission is typical for informal English. It is a feature of African American Vernacular English, but a lot of English speakers tend use it in informal 15

29 contexts. It is less common in written language, but journalists still use it, for example. Alonso move no obstacle Renault (BBC Sport, ) The reader s first interpretation of the headline is that Alonso did not move any obstacle connected with Renault. Of course this is a misinterpretation and the correct meaning of the newspaper article title is the following one. Alonso move is no obstacle for Renault WORD ORDER In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Different languages have different word orders. Some of them are very restrictive and some are not. Most languages, however, have a preferred word order, typically used in most cases. In English, what is known as a word order is pretty fixed. (Tallerman, 2005, p. 18) English sentences contain three main elements and word order dictates how these three main parts occur in the sentence. For the majority of languages, including English, the basic word order can be defined in terms of the finite verb (V) and its arguments, the subject (S) and object (O). All other variants are in most cases impossible. (Tallerman, 2005) Typical English word order (SVO) is generally used in crash blossoms, but while most crash blossoms follow the sentence structure (SVO), they still seem to have an inverted word order, as in the following example. 16

30 Boy chases away man who shot his dad with kitchen knife (NBC Miami, ) The structure of the headline follows the conventional English word order (SVO). The word boy is the subject, the phrase chases (away) is the verb and man who shot his dad with kitchen knife is the object. While the structure of the crash blossom is entirely correct, the last part of the headline appears completely illogical. The proper headline would be. Boy with kitchen knife chases away man who shot his dad Ignoring the conventional word order easily leads to confusion, and it seems that a lot of journalists invert words to such degrees that these often make little or no sense PUNCTUATION Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate structure and organization of written language. In English language the punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences. The rules of punctuation vary with language, location, register and time and are constantly evolving. (Carter and McCarthy, 2006) It is common that headlines do not have a lot of punctuation marks. It seems as if journalists feel that they are not necessary for proper understanding. But a wrongly placed punctuation marks or even lack of them leads to ambiguous and sometimes even funny crash blossoms such as in the example below. Man shot in chest, leg knocks on door for help (Dayton Daily News, ) The punctuation mark, which is used wrongly in this headline, is the comma. The comma is in general used to eliminate ambiguity in the sentence, but its frequent 17

31 functions are to separate items in lists and the separation of clauses. In this example, the comma is used to separate items, while it should be used to separate clauses. (Carter and McCarthy, 2006) It is impossible for a part of human to autonomously knock on somebody s door and ask for help. The correct usage of this punctuation mark would then be: Man shot in chest and leg, knocks on door for help Other incorrectly used punctuation marks include colons, quotation marks and hyphens INFLECTION Inflection is a change in the form of a word, especially the ending, according to its grammatical function in a sentence. (Hornby, 2005, p. 796) This adaptation of the word s form usually happens through the addition of an affix. The inflection of verbs is called conjugation and the inflection of nouns, adjectives and pronouns is called declension. Most nouns have an inflectional form contrast between singular and plural forms. (Huddleston and Pullum, 2005) This means that they are inflected for plural number and some of them also for possessive case. (Blagajne and Konte, 1995) On the other hand, the most distinctive grammatical property of verbs is precisely their inflection. They have an inflectional contrast of tense between past and present. (Huddleston ad Pullum, 2005) In other words, a verb is any word that can take three inflectional morpheme:s (e)s, -ing, and (e)d, with the exception of some two hundred irregular verbs, which do not follow this inflection. (Blagajne and Konte, 1995) English is a weakly inflected language. This means that words are seldom explicitly modified to indicate their grammatical roles. Many words can function as a noun or a verb. Zimmer (2010) writes that nouns which can be misconstrued 18

32 as verbs and vice versa are, in fact, the hallmarks of crash blossoms. Headlines with this particular feature are among the most frequently used. An example: McDonald s fries the holy grail for potato farmers (The Associated Press, ) In this crash blossom the contentious word is fries. Since we are used to English conventional word order (SVO), we parse the word fries as a verb and not as the head of a noun phrase McDonald s fries. There are several solutions for making this headline interpretable - we can use a colon or insert an auxiliary verb are. The colon can be used for the sake of brevity, but for easier reading I would recommend inserting the auxiliary verb are. The goal is that at the end nobody is left wondering why a fast-food chain is cooking up sacred vessels. (Zimmer, 2010) McDonald s fries are the holy grail for potato farmers SENSATIONAL SPELLING It is important to distinguish between sensational writing and sensational spelling. Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary (Hornby, 2005, p. 1382) defines sensationalism as a (disapproving) way of getting people s interest by using shocking words or presenting facts and events as worse or more shocking than they really are. Sensationalism is often a feature of journalistic writing style and is typical for newspapers and magazines. On the other hand, sensational or divergent spelling is the deliberate spelling in an incorrect or non-standard way to achieve special effects. It is limited to individual words and we can say that sensational spelling is a part of sensational writing. Sensational spelling is common in advertising and product placement, with the function of drawing attention. It is also widely used in popular music (titles of songs and bands, names of musicians ). 19

33 This category depends mostly on the type of the newspaper. Sensational spelling can predominantly be found in tabloids and magazines, especially those with a particular target audience (teens). In serious newspapers journalists try to avoid sensational spelling, and tend to use the word only if it is widely used and accepted. Most common headlines that contain sensational spelling are the ones with the names of brands and artists, as in the following two examples. Froot Loops contaminated with 2-methylnapthalen chemical (opinion) (Natural News.com, ) The man in the Gorillaz mask (The New York Times, ) Although crash blossoms are a recent phenomenon and they contain elements of entertainment, I think that they should be taken seriously. News represents the biggest source of information for the majority of world s population and their grammatical correctness should be taken seriously by journalists, editors and even proofreaders. I agree with John McIntyre (2009), who says that headlines are particularly susceptible to improper parsing and just one little overlooked or even intentional grammatical mistake creates a crash blossoms which is confusing, misleading and potentially dangerous. I also believe that it is very important for the translators to identify these typical grammatical features of crash blossoms. In this way, they will be able to recognize the ambiguity, eliminate the mistake, and adequately translate the headline. 20

34 2.4.4 CRASH BLOSSOMS AS EXAMPLES OF GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES McIntyre (2009) writes that crash blossoms are examples of garden-path sentences. This means that they have the same characteristics and contain a certain type of ambiguity as garden-path sentences do. On the other hand, Peters (2009) writes that crash blossoms are only variations of garden-path sentences. They do not always share the same characteristics, but they still lead the reader into grammatical or logical sinkholes that were not intended. Lastly, Oguss (2010, p. 29) describes crash blossoms as a newer term used among linguists for a kind of garden-path sentence often found in newspapers. If we want to better understand crash blossoms, we have to take a closer look at garden-path sentences, their characteristics and the type of ambiguity they contain DEFINITION OF GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES Reading a garden-path sentence is like following a winding garden path road. The reader is led down one interpretive path, and then has to return to the beginning of the sentence to get on the right track. (Zimmer, 2010) It seems like garden-path sentences are going one place, when they are really going somewhere else. Oguss (2010, p. 29) writes that this misdirection hinges on the ability of words to be used in different ways. There is no uniform definition of garden-pat sentences. Richard Nordquist, a professor of English and rhetoric defines garden-path sentences as sentences that are temporarily ambiguous or confusing, because they contain a word group which appears to be compatible with more than one structural analysis. (About.Com, n.d.) Other scholars, such as Ferreira, Christianson, and Hollingworth (2001, p. 3), describe these phenomena as sentences that contain a temporary syntactic ambiguity. These and other definitions of garden-path sentences also have another thing in common. They all agree that even though 21

35 garden-path sentences are easily to be misunderstood, they are grammatically correct. (Oguss, 2010, p. 29) No matter what you write, you have to be clear about what you have intended to write. And sometimes, even though, you know what you mean, things just come out all wrong. Pinker (1994) emphasizes that garden-path sentences are hallmarks of bad writing, which is why we always have to try to avoid sentence ambiguity and write our lines as clearly as possible THE ORIGIN OF THE NAME GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES Garden-path sentences originate from an English idiom: To lead somebody up or down the garden path. (Oguss, 2010) Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary s definition of this idiom is: to make somebody believe something which is not true. (Hornby, 2006, p. 872) Said otherwise, it means to deceive. (Oguss, 2010) The source of the idiom s origin was very hard to find, but I finally located it on the Wikitionary s website. Because this source is not credible, the following description of the idiom s origin may not be entirely true, but I still decided to use it for the sake of easier understanding. The birth of this idiom originates from the fact that in the early days some villages married off their unsuccessful brides to unknowing bachelors. The superstition that the groom is not supposed to see his veiled bride until the end of the wedding ceremony was widely practiced and when the veil was finally lifted, the groom would learn that he had been married to a stranger. Many weddings took place in private gardens and so the tendency t deceive with intent had evolved to the idiom of leading someone down the garden path. 22

36 Garden-path sentences are not meant to deceive on purpose. In our case, when they are connected with crash blossoms, they are just abortive attempts of sensational writing TYPES OF AMBIGUITY IN GARDEN-PATH SENTENCES Newmark (2000) states that sentences can contain several types of ambiguity. These are: lexical or semantic ambiguity (one word in the sentence can have two or even more meanings), syntactical ambiguity (the whole sentence can be understood in more than one way), pragmatic ambiguity (it appears when the tone or stress in the sentence of the source language is not clear), cultural ambiguity (the function of one cultural feature is changed at one point and the term becomes preserved, while the background of the time period in the source text is not clear), ambiguity of the idiolect (wrongly used words), referential ambiguity (ambiguous usage of proper names in the source text), metaphoric ambiguity (depends on the explanation of the sentence, it this way almost every sentence is ambiguous) There also exist two types of ambiguity in sentence, which are not connected with sentence s words, stress or syntax, but with the perseverance of the ambiguous feeling they give. These two ambiguities are: local ambiguity (which is cleared up once you have read the whole sentence), and global ambiguity (one that remains even though the entire sentence has been read). (Ambiguity and Garden Path Sentences, 2011) 23

37 Ambiguities, typical for garden-path sentences, are semantic ambiguity, syntactical ambiguity and local ambiguity, and of course the combination of all three. In the following passage I will focus on the semantic and syntactical ambiguity, because they are most important for proper understanding of a gardenpath sentence. Logicians who study the art of good argumentation define these two types of ambiguity as linguistic fallacies. They write that one of the most important parts of good argumentation is linguistic clarity, claiming that words can always be a cause of misunderstanding as even a small change in the context can evoke a change in the meaning. Our statements always have to contain unambiguous word meaning, so that our way of communicating is comprehensible. (Uršič and Markič, 2009) The first and most common type of vagueness in sentences is called semantic ambiguity, often simply referred to as ambiguity SEMANTIC AMBIGUITY Logicians say that people commit this type of linguistic fallacy almost on daily basis. It is so embedded into our common speech and writing that we do not even realize that we are making mistakes. We speak and write ambiguously when a word which we use in our sentence can be interpreted in two or more ways. In that way our listener or reader can not be entirely certain how to interpret it and our communication is aggravated. (Uršič and Markič, 2009) An example of a sentence which contains semantic ambiguity can be taken from our daily lives. I will give you a ring tomorrow. 24

38 One ambiguous word (a ring) makes this sentence interpretable in two different ways. We can understand that somebody will in fact give somebody else a ring, or that somebody will call somebody else over the phone. Here, I have to emphasize the importance of context. In most cases these ambiguous sentences are used in connection with a specific theme, so that participants in the communication process already have some knowledge about what are they talking or writing about. This type of ambiguity is also frequently used as a literary device by writers and poets; what helps them strengthen their writing in several ways. The second most common type of vagueness in sentences is named syntactic ambiguity, also called amphibology SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY (AMPHIBOLOGY) Unlike semantic ambiguity, amphibology signifies a sentence which is ambiguous because of its grammatical structure. This type of linguistic fallacy is harder to commit and is seldom found. Logicians say that the most famous and known examples of such sentences are the prophecies of the ancient oracles. (Uršič and Markič, 2009) When the Lydian king Croesus was planning to attack the Persian Empire, he went to seek advice to the oracle of Delphi. He was given such an answer: If the king crosses the river Halys, a mighty empire will be destroyed. Croesus was not well enough alerted to the ambiguity of the prediction. He crossed the river and attacked the Persians, but he was defeated. In the end, the prophecy was entirely true. Croesus destroyed a mighty empire his own. (Uršič and Markič, 2009) We can see why Croesus made a fatal mistake. He interpreted the prophecy in his own way, which was sadly the wrong one. If we follow the analogy that crash blossoms are similar to garden-path sentences, we can conclude that these two types of linguistic fallacies are in fact typical also 25