![]() Fernando and Flavell’s approach to the definition of idioms is often regarded as a turning point in the history of phraseology in English, as it departs from onedimensional approaches and anticipates some factors that are now essential in this field, such as the importance of pragmatics and the variability of fixedness, now being proved by the use of corpora. Stressing the fact that most scholars before them, with the exception of Makkai (1972), resort to only one criterion to find a definition of idiom, they distinguish the following: “a non-correlative syntax resulting in non-literalness, homonymity and institutionalisation” (1981: 48). In their view, idiomaticity is a complex phenomenon that cannot be described in terms of a single feature, but rather “by multiple criteria, each criterion representing a single property” (1981:19). Fernando and Flavell opt for the latter, since it is more selective and enables the scholar to establish classifications of idioms on the basis of the properties chosen as criteria. Narrowing the consideration of idiomaticity to the specific problem of the definition, the authors distinguish two main approaches –a cognitive, psycholinguistic approach (Smith 1925, Roberts 1944) and a more structurally orientated one which attempts to define idiomaticity according to one or more structural properties. Critical Views and Perspectives (1981), Fernando and Flavell set out to analyse two very recurrent questions in the field of phraseology –the definition of idiom and the development of a phraseological model including the different types of idioms. Proved to be a major help for phraseological studies, paving the way to key works such as those by Sinclair (1991) and Moon (1998). The introduction of large corpora over the past years has Fernando and Flavell (1981) contributed to fill this gap, providing a modern and complex insight on the subject. Defining phraseological idiomaticity: the phraseological unit Until the early 1980s, the literature on phraseology in English was considered as somewhat sparse, especially in comparison with that on metaphor or grammar. But let me start from the beginning, that is, phraseology and phraseological translation.Ģ. Both the focus and the objective of this paper gradually shifted and, by now, phraseology has probably become a means to study audiovisual translation and, more specifically, the idiomaticity of the Spanish language used in dubbing. My interest was then drawn to the phenomenon of dubbing, especially to how the translator manages (if at all) to produce a coherent text in the target language and whether the Spanish language used in dubbing can sound natural and idiomatic in spite of all the difficulties involved in this type of translation. However, a first analysis of the source text (ST) and the target text (TT) acted as a reminder of the specificity of a parallel corpus of this nature, as well as of the reason why audiovisual translation is also referred to as constrained translation (Titford 1982:113 Mayoral, Kelly and Gallardo 1988:356). The audiovisual corpus and audiovisual translation in general were at that first stage a means to study phraseology and, more specifically, the translation of phraseological idiomaticity. Different possibilities were considered and an audiovisual corpus was finally chosen –a number of episodes from the American TV series Friends, the original scripts in English (source text) and their dubbed versions in Spanish (target text). The next step for this study was to choose a suitable parallel corpus. b) “given to or marked by the use of idioms” (Onions 1964:952): hereafter phraseologically idiomatic / phraseological idiomaticity. The term idiomaticity, or rather the adjective idiomatic, is usually included in dictionaries with at least two different meanings: a) “ sounds natural to native speakers of that language” (Sinclair 1995:833): hereafter idiomatic / idiomaticity. ![]() Phraseology was therefore its main area of research and the notion of idiomaticity, an essential one. Introduction The initial objective of this paper was to carry out a corpus-based study on the translation of phraseological units from English into Spanish. The translation of phraseology in a parallel (English-Spanish) audiovisual corpus The case of Friends Pablo Romero Fresco School of Management and Languages Heriot-Watt University ġ.
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