Modelling Translation in Literary Texts: A Three-dimensional Examination of the Conjunction but in English and its Prototypical Equivalent mas in Brazilian Portuguese

摘要

This paper presents the results of an exploratory analysis of the system of CONJUNCTION in a bilingual parallel corpus of literary texts originally written in English and their renditions into Brazilian Portuguese. Drawing on Halliday & Hasan (1976) and Thompson (2005), it examines patterns of occurrences of but in the source texts and its prototypical equivalent mas in the target texts from a three-dimensional perspective, with a view to gather insights into the use of these conjunctions in each language. The analysis showed a significant occurrence of but in the original texts in English and mas in the translations, both in an adversative and concessive relation. Moreover, it showed that internal relationships can also be established through these conjunctions in the two languages. The results point to valuable insights into the description of Brazilian Portuguese, thus corroborating the significance of drawing on parallel corpora for language description and modelling of translation processes.