A C ONTRASTIVE S TUDY OF E NGLISH OF COURSE AND H UNGARIAN PERSZE
5. Quantitative results
5.1 The position of (of) course in the utterance
In order to compare the results obtained in the course of part 1 / stage 2 of the research process with previous findings, I used the International Corpus of English, British English (henceforth ICE-GB) as a reference corpus2. ICE-GB was used in Wichmann et al. (2010) for
2 In my previous research (Furkó, 2007) I found no significant differences in the use of of course between American and British speakers of English, thus, for the purposes of the present study I will not consider regional variation.
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the analysis of (of) course as a PM with special reference to its intonational patterns. The ICE-GB and the LAC corpus I compiled on the basis of the first four seasons of House, M.D. (the
’House Corpus’, henceforth HC) are almost identical in size: the former contains 600,000 words of transcribed (naturally occurring) speech and contains 552 occurrences of (of) course, of which 200 are tagged in terms of their utterance position. The HC3 contains 198 tokens of (of) course, however, I added two further randomly selected tokens from season 5 of House, M. D. in order to match the number of tokens in the reference corpus.
As Tables 2 and 3 below show, there was a higher incidence of (of) course occurring in initial position in the HC than in the ICE-GB, which confirmed my hypothesis that research based on scripted data can yield reliable results with respect to the use and /or the distribution of particular PMs4. In fact, the more often (of) course appears in initial position - which means that it is used in a disjunctive i.e. prototypical discourse marker / pragmatic marker function - the more likely it is that the tokens are taken from naturally occurring conversation and / or dialogic discourse (cf. Schourup 1999 and Wichmann et al. 2010).
It should also be noted at this point that cases where (of) course follows a conjunction or another PM / DM (e.g. but of course / well, of course or mainly, of course) were counted as initial in Wichmann et al. as well as in my own research because such conjunctions and PMs / DMs take obligatory initial position and, therefore, force (of) course into second position in the utterance. These cases, along with utterance initial but turn internal occurrences, were individually counted in my data but were collapsed with turn and utterance initial tokens in the frequency count based on the reference corpus:
Initial Medial Final Total
101 (50.5%) 72 (36%) 27 (13.5%) 200 (100%)
Table 2. Utterance positions of (of) course in Wichmann et al. (2010)
Initial Medial Final Total
Turn and utterance initial After mainly, well, etc. Turn internal 15 (7.5%)
3 (1.5%)
200 (100%)
135 (67,5%) 25 (12.5%) 22 (11%)
Table 3. Utterance positions of (of) course in the LAC
5.2 Translations of (of) course
Figure 2 below shows the results obtained in the course of part 2 / stage 1 of the research process. As is clear from the chart, (of) course is translated as persze or one of the three PM clusters hát persze, na persze, ó persze in close to 60% of the cases, while Hungarian természetesen, a propositional item that corresponds to English naturally, follows as a distant second and is used as a translation in only 11% of the cases5. In third place we find expressions with the word szép, whose core meaning is ’pretty’ / ’nice’, but which also seems
3 The size of the corpus is estimated at 615,759 words with a margin of error of about one percent due to the fact that the scripts that comprise the corpus include stage instructions and the names of the characters who speak in a particular turn.
4 The anonymous reviewer has suggested that this may also be indicative of a dialectal difference.
5 The anonymous reviewer suggested that természetesen might also be avoided due to its length, a factor both in dubbing and subtitling.
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to have taken up less propositional, more interpersonal / discourse uses along the lines of ’to be sure’ and ’certainly’. Naná, originally an interjection, appears as the most informal PM that corresponds to (of) course and is only used in 5% of the cases. Dehogy, dehogyis and dehogyisnem are used as translations in altogether 5% of the cases. Dehogy and dehogyis correspond to English (of) course not, dehogyisnem to (of) course+ substituted VP as in ’of course I do’, ’of course he is’. Less frequent translations include és (~and), is (~also) and bár (~although), these correspond to more opaque (far-from-the-semantic-core) uses of (of) course.
Figure 2. Translations of (of) course in the LBC
5.3 Cluster analysis of (of) course
Part 2 / stage 3 of the research process yielded the following results: of course clusters most frequently with pronouns and other PMs such as well and yeah: it is used before the first person pronoun I in 20%, before the pronoun it in 12.5%, and before you in 8,5% of the cases.
The results of the cluster analysis correspond to the finding discussed in section 5.1 above, i.e.
to the fact that (of) course most frequently occurs in utterance initial position. Table 4 below shows the first nine hits of the cluster analysis; the numbers refer to occurrences in the KWC (which, as mentioned before, includes altogether 200 tokens of (of) course):
of course I / I’m 40
of course not 24
of course it / it’s 25
of course you(’re) 17
of course he 10
of course the 6
well of course 6
No, of course 5
Yeah, of course 5
Table 4. Cluster analysis of (of) course
11 59
6 5 4 2 2 2
Quantitative results II.
persze / hát persze / na persze / ó persze természetesenjó, hogy / szép hogy / még szép
naná
dehogy / dehogyis / dehogyisnem és
is bár
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5.4 Persze as a translation equivalent
Part 3 / stage 3 of the research process revealed that Hungarian persze in the LBC occurs more frequently (437 times) and has a wider range of functions than English of course in the HC. In fact, persze is used as a translation of (of) course in only 27% of its occurrences. In 26% of the cases persze is a translation of the PM right and its alternative realizations (all right and that’s right). Most of the time these tokens mark (genuine or pseudo / mock) agreement as in example 1, however, there are a number of occurrences where persze as a translation of right marks or reinforces sudden realization (as in example 2).
1. House: Patient made the right choice. Tell a surgeon it’s okay to cut a leg off and he’s going to spend the night polishing his good hacksaw.
A beteg helyesen döntött. Ha azt mondják egy sebésznek, hogy levághatja a lábat, egész este a körfûrészét fogja polírozni.
Rebellious: Right, surgeons could care less about saving limbs.
Persze, a sebészeket nem érdekelik a végtagok.
2. House: What’s up with the farmer? [They all look at him.]
Mi van a gazdával?
Foreman: What farmer?
Milyen gazda?
House: Snakebite guy. Oh, right, you guys don’t know about him.
Akit megharapott a kígyó. Ó, persze. Még nem is ismerhetik őt.
(The examples are taken from House M. D. © NBC Universal Television.)
In 16% of its occurrences persze in the LBC serves as a translation of sure, a pragmatic marker which is favoured by native speakers of English over of course in contexts where they signal support for the views / actions / suggestions, etc. of their interlocutor (cf.
Nikula 1996, 211).
Another interesting finding was the fact that 16% of the time persze occurs in the LBC without a corresponding PM or conjunction in the LAC, especially in contexts where it marks an additive (see example 3) or a contrastive (as in 4) relationship between its host unit and the previous utterance.
3. Foreman: Who would poison a 12-year-old?
Mégis ki mérgezne meg egy gyereket?
House: Well, let‘s see now, there‘s the 18-year-old has-been that she beat out to make
Nationals, the has-been‘s parents, jealous siblings, sociopathic swim fan, and then there‘s just your plain old garden variety whack job.
Nézzük csak, egy idősebb lány, akit megvert a bajnoki döntőben, a lány szülei, féltékeny testvérek, szociopata szurkolók, és persze ott van a klasszikus megoldás: hogy valamelyik féleszű.
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4. House: See, people remember how many they’ve got. Date’s right on the label, number of pills, regular person can do the math. But a junkie doesn’t have to. It’s how many pills he’s got left, that’s all he’s thinking about. Bought a big insurance policy?
Van, aki emlékszik mennyi volt benne. A dátum a címkén, a tablettaszám is. Bárki ki tudja számolni. Egy narkósnak nem kell. Őt persze csak az érdekli, ami megmaradt. Jó az életbiztosítása?
(The examples are taken from House M. D. © NBC Universal Television.)
Finally, in 15% of the cases, persze is a translation of a number of PMs such as oh, well, you know, etc. In these occurrences persze fulfils functions that are rather difficult to associate with or relate to its original meaning / semantic core, which is ’per se intelligitur’, ’it goes without saying’. 5 below is an example where persze corresponds to one of the many opaque functions of you know and is used as its translation equivalent.
5. That’s the canceled check. Not the real one, you know, it’s a copy.
Ez a letiltott csekk. Nem az igazi persze, csak másolat. (House M. D. © NBC Universal Television)
Figure 3 below summarizes the findings of this stage of the research.
Figure 3. Persze as a translation equivalent