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The Gravitational Pull Hypothesis and imperfective/perfective aspect in Catalan translation

Publicated to:Languages In Contrast. 23 (2): 226-251 - 2023-12-14 23(2), DOI: 10.1075/lic.00030.bor

Authors: Borillo, Josep Marco; Martinez, Gemma Pena

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Abstract

This article aims to test the Gravitational Pull Hypothesis on the imperfective/perfective aspect distinction in the language pairs English-Catalan and French-Catalan. It draws on the corresponding corpora in COVALT. The GPH posits three cognitive causes of translational effects: source or target language salience and connectivity. Different configurations of these causes, or factors, are expected to result in over- or under-representation of target language features. The imperfective/perfective aspect distinction was chosen as a testing ground for the GPH because it is morphologically marked in Catalan and French but not in English. That may give rise to different configurations of factors and, therefore, to different translational effects. It is predicted that the preterite, which conveys perfective aspect in Catalan, will be over-represented in Catalan translations from English as compared to translations from French and to Catalan non-translations. On the other hand, the imperfect, which conveys imperfective aspect, will be under-represented. Results confirm these predictions. For translations from French, both adherence to the patterns observed in Catalan non-translations and over-representation of the preterite are possible outcomes. Results lend support to the second alternative & horbar; over-representation of the preterite. These results highlight the importance of relying on frequency and other sources of evidence when formulating hypotheses in the framework of the GPH. Research from the field of second language acquisition proved particularly significant in this respect.

Keywords

Catalan/english/frenchCovaltGravitational pull hypothesisImperfective/perfective aspectLiterary translation

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal Languages In Contrast due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency Scopus (SJR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2023, it was in position , thus managing to position itself as a Q2 (Segundo Cuartil), in the category Linguistics and Language.

From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from World Citations from Scopus Elsevier, it yields a value for the Field-Weighted Citation Impact from the Scopus agency: 1.74, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: ESI Nov 14, 2024)

Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-05-28, the following number of citations:

  • Scopus: 4

Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2025-05-28:

  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 4 (PlumX).

Leadership analysis of institutional authors

There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (Borillo, JM) and Last Author (Peña Martinez, Gemma).

the author responsible for correspondence tasks has been Borillo, JM.