Advantages of using parallel texts in describing the languages of Papua New Guinea

Masahiko NOSE
Shiga University Japan
12th International Language, Literature and Stylistics Symposium, Oct. 18-20, Turkey

This study concerns:

Contrastive linguistics and Typology Describing the languages of Papua New Guinea: Amele, Bel, and Tok Pisin

By Using Parallel texts

Grammatical differences (syntax, morphology) Contrastive word-formations (verbal/nominal) Lexical semantics (borrowings, loanwords)

Contrastive Study and typology

Contrasting from 2 languages to 100 or more
Clarifying grammatical/lexical differences Contributing to Second language acquisition
Haspelmath (1997), Knig & Gast (2009)

By using Parallel texts

Linguistic purpose > Creating Contrastive Corpus Educational and pedagogical purpose
Granger & Petch-Tyson (2003), Granger (2003), Johansson (2003)

Languages of New Guinea: my research

Amele: Trans New Guinea Bel: Austronesian Tok Pisin: English-based Creole

Advantages of Parallel texts

Easy to contrast grammars Counting frequency Helpful for Second language learning (Knig & Gast 2009)

Which kinds of Parallel texts?

1. World Literature (Folk tales, Harry Potter, etc.) 2. Bible, the Old and New Testament

1: World Literature
Folk tales: Snow White, Little Red-Cap, etc.
Translated in many languages (more than 100) Limited availability of printed books

Contemporary Literature: Harry Potter, Le Petit Prince, the Alchemist, etc.

Translated in many languages (71 languages of the Alchemist, 67 languages of Harry Potter)
Stolz (2007) discusses the quality of translations

The Alchemist collection

There is no translation of the languages of Papua New Guinea and many minor languages Language skills are necessary!

2: New Testament and Bible

Bible is translated in at least 450 languages, partly translated in over 2000 languages. SIL is translating New Testament in the languages of Papua New Guinea and other minor languages. Bible translations are available on the Net.
Haspelmath (1997) points out the texts are oldfashioned, and therefore, might not reflect the latest naturally occurring language characteristics

The New Testament collection

New Testament (Bal Cehec je Haun) of Amele (1997) Nupela Testamen of Tok Pisin (1969) New Testament of English-Japanese bilingual book (1992)

Advantages and problems

Availability of translations Quality of texts The languages of Papua New Guinea

World Literature New Testament

Good, but only Depending on printed books the translators

No

Good, available on the Net (corpus)

Texts are old fashioned, but easy to contrast

Yes

PNG: Show White Project

Amele (Trans-New Guinea, around 5000 speakers) Only the translation of the New Testament
Some mistakes and not interesting (Mosel 2009)

We (informants and I) started translating Snow White in Amele (2012-)

For my linguistic analysis For Amele community

Translating Snow White in Amele

Once upon a time, long long ago, there lived a beautiful queen, and one winter, she sat sewing at her window.

Sain osona, queen ja ac bahic oso bi-ro-ri.

Time one, queen beautiful one behabitual-3s.remote past

Win sain osona, uqan window-na bili-mec etec samah dodon,

Winter time one, her window-postposition sit-down-incorporation thing some sewing

Observations: an exciting work!

In translations,
The work was hard, and the quality is not enough yet.

Grammatically,
I have already found several new features (usages of narrative Socio-linguistically, and demonstratives). Borrowings from Tok More grammatical Pisin, and helping analysis is needed Amele education

Conclusion
The parallel texts can be utilized in crosslinguistic studies and other purposes The new Amele texts are translated with informants, and they can be comparable with other languages
Amele is borrowing many words from Tok Pisin, and this translation task is helpful for more detailed research

Thank you for your attention

Acknowledgments:
CASIO Science Promotion Foundation, 2011-2012 Grant-in-aid for Young Scientists (B), Japan Society for Promotion of Science, 2011-2013 Contact: nousemasa@facebook.com

References
Granger, S, J. Lerot, and S. Petch-Tyson (Eds.). (2003). Corpus-based approaches to contrastive linguistics and translation studies. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Granger, S. (2003). The corpus approach: A common way forward for contrastive linguistics and translation studies. Granger et al. (Eds.). (pp. 17-30). Haspelmath, M. (1997). From space to time: Temporal adverbials in the world languages. Mnchen: Lincom Europa. Johansson, S. (2003). Contrastive linguistics and corpora. Granger et al. (Eds.). (pp.31-44). Knig, E., and V. Gast. (2009). Understanding English-German Contrasts. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag. Mihalic, F. (1971). The Jacaranda dictionary and grammar of Melanesian Pidgin. Brisbane/ Hong Kong: The Jacaranda Press. Mosel, U. (2009). Collecting data for grammar of previously unresearched languages. Ms. Roberts, J. R. (1987). Amele. London: Croom Helm. Stolz, Th. (2007). Harry Potter meets Le petit prince: On the usefulness of parallel corpora in crosslinguistic investigations. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 60, 100-117.