Concessive subordination in English and Norwegian

Abstract

Abstract This paper investigates concessive markers, primarily subordinators, in the English-Norwegian Parallel Corpus. The initial question is how English and Norwegian concessive markers compare with regard to their frequencies and syntactic functions, both intra- and cross-linguistically. Overall, the languages are relatively similar. However, individual concessive markers differ in frequency, syntactic flexibility and possibly formality in original texts in both languages. The second research question concerns the placement of concessive clauses. Again the languages are rather similar, but there is variation within both languages, with subordinators having individual positional preferences. Finally, the translations of the subordinators are examined. Concessive markers are overrepresented in Norwegian translations and underrepresented in English translations compared to originals. While translation correspondences are often congruent, the mutual correspondence between pairs of subordinators is low. Changes made in translation suggest that Norwegian chooses coordination more often than English, thus displaying less syntactic complexity.