## Ronald R. Jacobsen*

## The role of knowledge systems in the linguistic construction of action scenes in novels and their translations

## Abstract

What makes one translation better than another? This paper argues that the best is the one that best mirrors the levels of organisation found in the source text while at the same time achieving coherence on as many of them as possible. For instance, in the English translation of Peter Hoeg's novel Smilla's Sense of Snow , the original Danish sentence which contains a BE-perfect, Med Esajas i sin kiste er kommet et følge ['With Isaiah in his coffi  n is come a procession'] (Høg 1993: 11) is translated as: A procession follows Isaiah in his coffi  n (Hoeg 1993: 4). This translation may achieve grammatical and local coherence, but certainly not global coherence since it involves a re-construal of the preceding text as a dynamic, or evolving, scene thereby clashing with the static one constructed in the source text. Likewise, it disagrees with the propositional content of the source text on several levels. This may be as it is, but the real problem is: how do you model the relations between the several levels of organisation found in a text like this in order to qualify/support a particular translation? The answer to this problem, this paper argues, is mental space (MS) theory. Accordingly, an outline of a very detailed analysis  of  the  action  scene  constructed  in  the  beginning  of  Don  DeLillo's  novel Underworld (DeLillo  1999a)  is  presented  and  compared  with  its  Danish  translation (DeLillo 1999b).

## 1. Introduction

This  paper  presents  an  analysis  of  the  action  scene  constructed  in the beginning of Don DeLillo's novel DeLillo (1999a: 11-14) and its Danish translation DeLillo (1999b: 7-10). Its aim is to demonstrate not only  how  the  interaction  between  the  four  main  knowledge  systems par  ti  cipating in the construction of the action scene but also between

* Ronald R. Jacobsen The Aarhus School of Business Fuglesangs Allé 4 DK-8210  Aarhus V rrj@asb.dk

199

the different levels of organisation involved can be modelled in terms of mental space (MS) theory, cf. Fauconnier (1994, 1997) & Jacobsen (2004).  The  four  main  systems  are:  (1)  one's  basic  experience  with three-dimensional (3D) space; (2) one's experience with the linguistic sys  tem of modern American English, in particular its tense/aspect system; (3) one's experience with contemporary Western fi  lm and its conven  tions, for instance, how action scenes are represented visually; and (4) one's experience with literature and its conventions, for in  stance, how to recognise Free Indirect Discourse (FID),  narrative voice, etc.. Sub  sequently, it is shown how this modelling of the source text can be used as a basis for judging the quality of a translation. That is, the best trans  lation is said to be the one that best mirrors the levels of orga  nisation found in the source text while at the same time achieving coherence on as many of them as possible.

The source text can be described as follows. Firstly, it consists of seventeen  paragraphs  the  transition  between  each  of  which  involves a change in perspective. Secondly, it concerns the gate-crashing of fi  fteen boys who want to enter a stadium in order to watch a base ball game. The protagonist is the youngest of them, Cotter Martin, who is a  fourteen-year old black kid from Harlem. Thirdly, the most salient pro  perty of the text is the complex interaction it triggers between the per  spectives established directly for the three-dimensional (3D) story world and the narrative voices the reader is prompted to construct, as indicated by the following brief description of each of the seventeeen paragraphs of the text:

|   Para- graph | MNT 1   | Content                                                                 | Narrative Voice(s)                  |
|---------------|---------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
|             1 |         | Description of the protagonist ('what's in the frame')                  | Narrator's local perspective        |
|             2 | Yes     | Description of the local setting ('looking around')                     | Narrator's local perspective        |
|             3 | No      | Description of the global setting (timeless or universal perspec- tive) | Omniscient narrator's per- spective |

|   4 | Yes   | Description of the local setting ('looking up')                                                                    | Omniscient narrator's per- spective                                                                               |
|-----|-------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|   5 | Yes   | Description of the protagonist and his accomplices ('looking around') + mention of a projected course of events    | Omniscient narrator's per- spective                                                                               |
|   6 | Yes   | Description of the local set- ting (prelude to the main action)(expanded 'looking around')                         | Omniscient narrator's per- spective                                                                               |
|   7 | Yes   | Description of the local set- ting (initiation of the main action)('looking from outside the scene')               | Omniscient narrator's per- spective ('objective' account of what happens)                                         |
|   8 | Yes   | Description of the local action- scene and the protagonist, stage 1 (viewpoint = Cotter's)                         | Omniscient narrator's perspective (protagonist's perspective = the narrator's perspective)                        |
|   9 | Yes   | Description of the local action- scene, stage 2 (viewpoint = Cotter's visual input)                                | Ambiguous between an embedded narrator's (the protagonist's) perspective and an omniscient narrator's perspective |
|  10 | Yes   | Description of the local action- scene, stage 3 (viewpoint = Cotter's auditory input)                              | Ambiguous between an embedded narrator's (the protagonist's) perspective and an omniscient narrator's perspective |
|  11 | Yes   | Description of the protagonist's action (preparation for main ac- tion)                                            | Embedded narrator's per- spective followed by omnis- cient narrator's                                             |
|  12 | Yes   | Description of the protagonist's action + mention of projected ac- tion (i.e mental simulation of the main action) | Ambiguous between an embedded narrator's (the protagonist's) perspective and an omniscient narrator's perspective |
|  13 | Yes   | Description of the protagonist's main action, stage 1                                                              | Embedded narrator's per- spective followed by omnis- cient narrator's                                             |
|  14 | Yes   | Description of the protagonist's main action, stage 2 (climax)                                                     | Omniscient narrator's per- spective (who is mimicking the protagonist)                                            |

|   15 | Yes   | Description of the protagonist's emotional response                                             | Omniscient narrator's per- spective (who is mimicking the protagonist)   |
|------|-------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|   16 | Yes   | Description of the protagonist's action and the new local setting inside the stadium (postlude) | Omniscient narrator's per- spective                                      |
|   17 | Yes   | Description of the protagonist's action and the local setting (fade- out)                       | Omniscient narrator's per- spective                                      |

## 2. The interaction between the four main knowledge systems

Mental space theory is founded on two basic assumptions. The fi  rst, from which the name of the theory derives, is that mental representations are structured into interconnected mental spaces. Put less formally, mental representations which are constructed for local purposes as we speak and think are assumed to be divided into smaller conceptual packets. Mental spaces are therefore defi  ned as: 'structured, incremental setsthat is, sets with elements (a, b, c, …) and relations holding be  tween them (R1ab, R2a, R3cbf, …) such that new elements can be ad  ded to them and new relations established between their elements' (Fau  connier, 1994: 16). The second assumption is that language only provides cues or instructions for such mental space (or meaning) construc  tions. A major advantage of this theoretical framework is that it allows one to  study/model  not  only  how  on-line  meaning  construction  relies  on knowledge already stored in memory, i.e. on existing semantic frames (read: knowledge systems), but also how this knowledge comes into existence in the fi  rst place.

Evidently, in order to capture the interaction between the four knowledge systems, one needs some model of their interface-i.e. of how they manage to 'communicate'. The applications of MS theory, including blending theory, evidenced so far do not adhere to any particular psy  chological  theory  of  knowledge.  Hence,  this  paper  pro  poses  that Lawrence W. Barsalou's (1999) theory, Perceptual Symbol Systems , be adopted 2 .  This theory assumes that 'cognition is inherently per  cept- ual, sharing systems with perception at both the cognitive and the neural levels' (Barsalou 1999: 577). A concept is said to be equivalent to a simulator ,  and  a  conceptualisation  to  a simulation .  For  instance, Barsalou (1999: 587) says:

2    See also Glenberg (1997) and Goldstone & Barsalou (1998).

'According to this theory, the primary goal of human learning is to establish simulators. During childhood, the cognitive system expends much of its resources developing simulators for important types of entities and events. Once individuals can simulate a kind of thing to a culturally acceptable degree, they have an adequate understanding of  it.  What  is  deemed  a  culturally  competent  grasp  of  a  category may vary, but in general it can be viewed as the ability to simulate the  range  of  multimodal  experiences  common  to  the  majority  of a  culture's  members.  Thus,  people  have  a  culturally  acceptable simulator for chair if they can construct multimodal simulations of the chairs typically encountered in their culture, as well as the activities associated with them.'

In other words, the interface between the different knowledge systems is explained in terms of a common representational system of perceptual symbols. Given this assumption, the four main knowledge systems and their interface can be explained thus: (1) one's basic experience with 3D space establishes an overlapping perceptual and conceptual system. For  instance,  when  experiencing  a  situation  in  the  world  directly,  a simu  lation is run which is mapped onto the sensory input thereby infl  uencing how the situation is perceived. Likewise, a simulation can be run  in  the  absence  of  sensory  input,  as  in  planning  or  imagination. This system is pre-linguistic. (2) One's experience with the linguistic system  of  modern American  English  develops  simulators  for  words which  are  linked  to  simulators  for  the  entities  and  events  to  which they  refer  (or  other  aspects  of  simulations).  Once  established,  they can control simulations. But, there is also another fundamental way in which language is linked to the fi  rst, or basic, knowledge system. In contrast to fi  shes and frogs and some mammals who have their eyes on the sides of their heads, humans have their eyes in the front of their heads; which means they have to turn their heads to get a full view of the surroundings (Anderson 1996: 91). Therefore, humans have a capacity for integrating a succession of partial views into a world that is con  ti  nuous in both space and time. This capacity, it is argued, has certain implications  not  only  for  the  human  perceptual  symbol  system  but  also,  as a consequence thereof, language processing. Hence, Jacobsen (2004)

proposes: (a) the Continuity Principle , which states that if a situation 3 a is linked to another situation b by a connector F ( a , b ), then a & b are part of a complex situation c and a description of either a , b or c may there  fore be used to identify one of the other two situations; and (b) three pri  mary classes or types of continuity involving eight basic pragmatic func  tions , or connectors which link the situations identifi  ed by the sentences of a text, i.e. they describe what kind of continuity is selected (and as a consequence which representation is constructed). The fi  rst class concerns MOTION, and it includes: (i) the object connector, F(o), (ii)  the  action  connector,  F(a)  and  (iii)  the  double-action  connector, F(da). The second class concerns ORIENTATION, and it includes: (iv) the inter-object connector, F(io); (v) the inter-action connector, F(ia); (vi) the object-inter-action connector, F(oia). The third and fi  nal concerns  HIERARCHY, and it  includes:  (vii)  the  spatial-hierarchy  connec  tor,  F(sh);  and  (viii)  the  temporal-hierarchy  connector,  F(th).  For in  stance, the connectors explain why the following two conjoined sentences, I took out my key and opened the door ,  can be understood as either  one  continuous  action,  F(a);  two  independent  but  sequentially ordered actions, F(da); two temporally overlapping actions, F(sh); or a habitual event, F(th). Naturally, the constraints imposed by the linguistic system on which connector can be selected differ from one language  to  another.  (3)  One's  experience  with  contemporary  Western fi  lm  and  its  conventions  develops  simulators  for  (far)  more  complex se  quences of events, i.e. action scenes, than those mentioned in (1). As Joseph Anderson (1996: 112-113) points out:

'A  great  deal  of  research  has  been  done  on  proprioception  and orientation, and the major outcome, at least for our purpose, is that invariably when one of these systems is in confl  ict with vision, it is vision  that  dominates.  Visual  motion  can  make  us  seasick,  visual distortions of verticality and horizontality can make us stumble, and the appropriate visual information in a movie can make us feel that we are fl  oating in space. Only because vision dominates proprioception is it possible for a motion picture to provide the information for selfmovement. Only  because  the  visual  array  provides  compelling information to the visual system for changes of viewer position is it possible for us to integrate a succession of shots from several

3    Accordingly, henceforth, the term situation shall  be  taken  to  concern  the  mental representation of something, not of some thing.

## different camera positions into one unifi  ed visual inspection of the scene .'

This makes the third system an expert system since without an appropriate level of visual training, it is diffi  cult to imagine how the complex simula  tions 4  under consideration could be produced, or computed, with ease in the absence of the stimuli [see (1)]. In fact, the relevance of which shall become apparent later, this paper would argue that even with extensive training, this sort of computation is very diffi  cult in the ab  sence of visual stimuli. So far, only the interface between systems 1 and 3 has been explained. The interface between 2 and 3 is established by the fourth system. (4) One's experience with literature and its conventions develops simulators for larger textual structures. Hence, system 4 could be argued to be an extension of system 2. This makes it an expert system. That is, without the appropriate level of training, it is diffi  cult to imagine how a literary text involving, for example, FID, different nar  rative  voices,  etc.,  could  be  processed  with  great  ease-since  the textual simulators required would be missing.

This leads to the action scene under consideration. It differs signi  fi  cantly from the typical ones found in novels. That is, typical 'action' scenes are mainly concerned with either the events leading up to the action, with what happens inside the protagonist's head or a com  bi  nation of these, and they only 'sum up' the main temporal and spa  tial coordinates of the action involved. Consider, for instance, the follow  ing classical example of 'summing up' from the Old Testament (I Samuel, verse 17: 48-49), David's slaying of Goliath:

(1) The Philistine drew steadily closer to David to attack him, while David  quickly  ran  toward  the  battle  front  to  attack  the  Philistine. David reached his hand into the bag and took out a stone. He slung it, striking the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank deeply into his forehead, and he fell down with his face to the ground 5 .

That is, 47 verses of background description and dialogue precede this description.  Therefore, if one takes into consideration the rare occurrence of 'real' action scenes in novels, it seems that even experienced readers are  bound  to  face  diffi  culty  in  processing  such  a  text  for  the  simple reason that they lack the required textual simulators. Notice that this explan  ation only serves as a motivation for the analysis proposed. Natur  al  ly,  the  rare  occurrence  of  'real'  action  scenes  in  novels  may  be a consequence of the cognitive diffi  culty associated with running this type of simulation in the absence of visual stimuli, as already mentioned above. Hence, it is argued that the diffi  culty associated with reading the text has to do with identifying textual structures which can be align  ed with a particular fi  lmic frame 6 , or schema, of action activated in memory (recall that high-level perception is consider equivalent to cognition by Perceptual Symbol Systems (Barsalou 1999)). Notice that ac  cording to Barsalou (1999), the cognitive processes underlying this alignment need not be conscious since what is referred to is only neural activity. It follows that the linguistic simulators linked to one's basic experience with 3D space are deemed insuffi  cient for comprehending the action scene analysed 7 . In addition, as shall be demonstrated in the next sec  tion,  textual  simulators, like those associated with the recognition of FID and narrative voice, play an important role in recruiting from memory the fi  lmic frames required in the alignment process mentioned above.

4    By a complex simulator is meant a simulator which links or combines the simulators of individual concepts.

5    English translation downloaded from Netbible: http://www.bible.org/cgi-bin/ netbible.pl

## 3. Levels of organisation

The highest level of organisation is the generic story frame which is shared  by  both  fi  lm,  system  3,  and  narrative,  system  4.  They  differ mainly in the way the generic frame is realised. Hence, it seems fair to assume that both systems possess sub-frames which fi  ll in the generic frame in on-line meaning construction. But there are also some striking parallels between the sub-frames of these two systems, a point which is elaborated below. The lowest level of organisation is the sentence or clause and its elements.

6 From its conception, MS theory has adopted a rather broad defi  nition of frame which includes a number of different approaches to frames, scripts, schemata etc. (Fauconnier 1994: 10). However, despite being used in the same 'loose' way in this paper, it's use will nevertheless be assumed to be in agreement with Barsalou's (1999) understanding of the term in the analyses presented below. Barsalou (1999: 590) offers the following broad defi  nition of the term: 'A frame is an integrated system of perceptual symbols that is used to construct specifi  c simulations of a category'. In other words, a frame is a complex simulator , see  footnote 4.

7 This said, other types of expert knowledge, such as, e.g., experience with the different participant roles associated with a football game, may very well provide simulators which allow an easy processing of the text.

As regards fi  lm, the relevant frames with respect to the problem at hand, the construction of an action scene, concern the integration of successive shots: what fi  lm theoreticians call (continuity) editing. Bordwell & Thompson (2001: 251) list four dimensions of fi  lm editing: (1) graphic relations between shot A and B, (2) rhythmic relations between shot A and B, (3) spatial relations between shot A and B, and (4) tem  poral relations between shot A and B. The fi  rst concerns the purely pic  torial  qualities  of  the  two  shots  (lighting,  colour,  setting,  costume etc.). The second concerns the length of each shot. For instance, Bordwell & Thompson (2001: 257) say: 'each shot, being a strip of fi  lm, is of a certain length, measured in frames, feet or meter.  And the shot's physical length corresponds to a measurable duration onscreen'. Needless to say, rhythm in cinema includes music (as well as other factors) and this may infl  uence rhythmic editing. The third concerns the spatio-temporal location of the situations represented by each shot with respect to each other. The following types of cut belong to this category: crosscutting, shot-reverse-shot, over-the-shoulder shots, eye-line matches and PointOf-View (POV) shots 8 . The fourth, and fi  nal, concerns order, dura  tion and  frequency  (Bordwell  & Thompson  2001:  260).  'Order'  in  cludes se  quences of shots that represent events in their actual order of oc  currence as well as shots that establish fl  ashbacks and fl  ashforwards. 'Duration' concerns the length of story events, for instance, a part of a character's action may be cut away. This is called 'temporal ellipsis'. 'Frequency' includes repetition of a shot or a part of it, for example, a phase of an action. Clearly, language comprehension is not governed by any graphic concerns, but otherwise the same kinds of relations as those referred  to  by  the  terms  'rhythmic',  'spatial'  and  'temporal'  are  part of it. Thus, the following linguistic choices of the text may be said to establish its rhythm: (1) tense(/aspect), (2) syntax and (3) lexemes referring to sound and dynamic events. The fi  rst choice mainly concerns the fact that the text is a narrative in the historical present (Notice there is  overlap  between  systems  2  and  4  here). This  structure  is  strongly asso  ciated with 'eye-witness accounts', such as personal experiences, sports commentaries, stage directions and jokes. In addition, a narrative in the historical present gives the reader the illusion of being in the middle of the event described. How could this have anything to do with rhythm? The second kind of linguistic choice answers this question: in being associated with a kind of eye-witness account, the syntactic 'style' of the text, i.e. mainly the syntactic complexity and 'length' of the individual clauses, may not only mimic spoken language but also, as a result, the narrator's psychological involvement. In other words, long complex sentences are found in paragraphs mirroring shots of a cer  tain  length  (a  slow  pace)  and  short  simple  sentences are found in para  graphs mirroring a sequence of briefer shots (a fast or accelerating pace). Like in language comprehension, the remaining types of cuts, i.e. those Bordwell & Thompson (2001) classify as either concerning spatial or temporal relations, can all be explained in terms of one or several of the eight connectors mentioned in section 2.

8    The reader is encouraged to consult Bordwell & Thompson (2001) for descriptions of these different types of cuts.

As regards literature, a number of frames have already been mentioned, i.e. that of the historical present, the kinds of continuity underlying a 'sequence of events', either F(a) or F(da); 'inter-action', F(ia); 'background description', for instance, of the scenery, F(sh); but an important frame remains: the one associated with the identifi  cation of narrative voice which resembles the POV shot in that it prompts for the same cogni  tive operations-in MS terms both set up a viewpoint space (Cutrer 1994: 73-74). The reason it is important is that it has a heavy infl  uence on how the action is visualised 9 , and hence also which fi  lmic frame(s) may, or may not, be activated in the reader's mind.

Compare the following three paragraphs from DeLillo (1999: 11, 12, 13):

- (2) It's a school day, sure, but he's nowhere near the classroom. He wants to be here instead, standing in the shadow of this old rust-hulk of a structure,  and  it's  hard  to  blame  him-this  metropolis  of  steel  and concrete and fl  aky paint and cropped grass and enormous Chesterfi  eld packs aslant on the scoreboards, a couple of cigarettes jutting from each.

9    Notice that by visualisation is not meant a picture corresponding to that produced by fi  lm but rather the neural activity underlying a simulation run by a simulator which has been established as a consequence of watching fi  lms.

- (3) They are at the curbstone, waiting. Their eyes are going grim, sending out  less  light.  Somebody  takes  his  hands  out  of  his  pocket.  They are waiting and then they go, one of them goes, a mick who shouts Geronimo.
- (4) Then he leaves his feet and is in the air, feeling sleek and unmussed and sort of businesslike, fl  ying in from Kansas City  with a briefcase full of bank drafts. His head is tucked, his left leg is clearing the bars. (…).

Paragraphs (2) and (3) show the difference between the linguistic represen  tation  of  a  situation  corresponding  to  a  slow  shot  and  one  corresponding to a fast, or accelerating, shot. They differ in: (1) sentence length,  (2)  lexical  references  to  sound  and/or  dynamic  events,  e.g. He  wants  to  be  here  instead versus then  they  go , shouts Geronimo , and  (3)  kind  of  continuity  selected,  i.e.  object,  spatial-hierachy  and temporal-hierarchy  connections  versus  object,  action  and  double-action connections, respectively. The third paragraph, (4), shows the fi  lmic potential of narrative voice in that fl ying in from Kansas City with a briefcase full of bank drafts can  be  constructed  in  two  ways. That is, it could either be constructed as the protagonist's 'feeling', i.e. be invoked in a thought space, or as a (metaphorical) description, or elabo  ration, of 'being in the air'. In the fi  rst case, it is identifi  ed as the protagonist's  voice,  in  the  second,  as  the  narrator's.  In  a  corresponding fi  lmic  representation  of  this  non-fi  nite  adverbial  clause,  one  would either choose to leave it out or to represent it by a POV shot if the fi  rst inter  pre  tation is selected and one would choose to represent it by what is called a 'nondiegetic insert' if the second interpretation is selected (Bordwell & Thompson 2001: 281-284) 10 . This ends the discussion of the cognitive alignment of the fi  lmic and literary frames involved in the consumption of the text. The next section reports the results of an investi  ga  tion of a Danish translation of Underworld (DeLillo 1999a: 11-14), DeLillo (1999b: 7-10), which focuses on the clash between the English and Danish tense/aspect systems.

10   A POV shot is defi  ned as A shot taken with the camera placed approximately where the character's eyes would be, showing what the character would see; usually cut in before or after a shot of the character looking (Bordwell & Thompson 2001: 433). A non-diegetic insert is defi  ned as A shot or series of shot cut into a sequence, showing objects represented as being outside the space of the narrative (Bordwell & Thompson 2001: 432).

## 4. The Danish translation

In section 2, the interface between the four main knowledge systems participating  in  the  text's  reception/comprehension  was  described  in terms  of  a  shared  representational  system  of  perceptual-symbol-systems' simulators.

System 1 was said to comprise the simulators established by one's basic experiences with 3D space. For instance, one's pre-linguistic concept of RUN could be argued to involve a complex simulator, a frame , consisting of two simple simulators, the fi  rst derived from one's basic visual  experience  of  somebody  else  running  and  the  second  derived from one's own, or basic proprioceptive, experience of running. Nat  ural  ly,  a  simulation run in the presence of the above-mentioned sti  muli differs  from  a  simulation  run  in  its  absence.  The  important  point  to notice, however, is that both types of simulation are assumed to share the  same  basic  computational  structure. Admittedly,  a  more  realis  tic characterisation  of  one's  concept  of  RUN  would  involve  other  ba  sic experiences, including culture-specifi  c ones, apart from those describable in terms of a 3D algorithm. For instance, to a Danish child the concept may be strongly associated with playing a ball game, such as soccer or handball, whereas to a Zambian child living in the bush the concept may be strongly associated with going to school or hunting down a domestic animal (read: cultural frames). In other words, the basic  frame  associated  with  the  concept  of  RUN  would  in  volve  a more complex simulator than the simple two-component's simu  lator described  above.  However,  no  matter  how  the  simulation  is  run,  in the presence or in the absence of stimuli, or how complex the frame associated  with  RUN  turns  out  to  be,  the  following  general  characterisation  offers  itself:  the  concept  involves  an  indefi  nite  number  of situations linked by action connectors (see fi  gure 1 below). This reveals two important aspects of MS theory: (1) pragmatic connectors are only part  of  semantic  frames,  that  is,  they  describe  generalisations  across contexts, and (2) since experiences (read: semantic frames) vary from community to community, so may the pragmatic connectors available with a particular 'concept' (Fauconnier 1994: 10).

Figure 1. The concept RUN . The two spaces on the left connected by a single action-connector,  F(a),  illustrate  one  instance  of  the  indefi  nite  number  of  situations connected by action-connectors which underlie the concept of RUN as shown by the four spaces on the right. The element a in space M and its counterpart a' in space M' indicate the individual who runs. In space M, a enters one relation, identifi  ed in the upper box as location 1, and in space M', a' enters another relation, identifi  ed in the lower box as location 2, i.e. the individual identifi  ed as 'a' has moved.

<!-- image -->

System  2  was  said  to  comprise  the  simulators  established  by  one's expe  ri  ence  with  the  linguistic  system  of  modern  American  English. In contrast to system 1, the stimuli, i.e. the linguistic signals, activating system 2 simulators do not relate directly to the situations experienced.  For  instance,  upon  hearing  the  word run ,  one  does  not  have a  primary  experience  of  the  phonetic  string  /r ∧ n/,  but  rather  of  the simu  la  tion run by the system 1 simulator for RUN mentioned above. This implies that system 2 simulators by defi  nition are complex simula  tors. In other words, upon hearing the word run , the simulator associat  ed with the phonetic string /r ∧ n/ is activated and a simulation of  / r ∧ n/ is run which is then matched with the sound received by the ear. Thereupon the simulator associated with the concept of RUN is activat  ed and a simulation of RUNNING is run. An important parallel between systems 1 and 2 is that the Continuity Principle operates at both levels of cognitive organisation. That is, not only the situations construct  ed in visual cognition are connected by pragmatic functions, see fi  gure 1, but also the situations constructed in auditory cognition, i.e. sen  tences or utterances. In this context, it is worth noticing that without such connections, the instructions offered by tense/aspect markers in lan  guage  would have no informational value. Consider, for instance, the simple past tense in English. It presupposes two situations which are temporally related, the one prior to the other, i.e. a temporal-hierarchy connection. Consider also the progressive aspect in English. It presup  poses a situation embedded in another situation. That is, it either requires the establishment of a spatial-hierarchy connection or a temporalhierarchy connection.

System 3 was said to comprise the simulators established by one's experience with contemporary Western fi  lm. In contrast to system 1, the stimuli, i.e. the strips of fi  lm (shots) spliced together, activating system 3 simulators do not convey situations which can be experienced by any single individual in a natural environment. For instance, in a typical Holly  wood production, an action scene even of a limited duration contains a very high number of cuts involving not only many shifts in came  ra position/viewpoint but also slow-motion shots as well as shots/cuts constructed by other techniques, cf. the quotation by Anderson (1996: 112-113)  in  section  2.  In  other  words,  system  3  includes  a  type  of complex 3D simulators, or frames, not fi  rmly established by system 1. Like systems 1 and 2, the situation descriptions, i.e. shots, con  trol  led by this system are governed by the Continuity Principle and its asso  ciated pragmatic connectors.

System 4 was said to comprise the simulators established by one's experience with literature. In order to distinguish these from the linguistic simulators covered by system 2, one might choose to call them tex  tual  simulators .  Especially,  the  central  role  played  by  FID  and voice was stressed in sections 2 and 3.

In section 3, three levels of organisation were distinguished, from higher to lower: (1) the fi  lmic, (2) the literary and (3) the linguistic (or sentence level). That is, the fi  lmic is assumed to dominate the interpretation of the literary and linguistic levels. This is consistent with the pre  mise that the intended reader/recepient of the text is somebody who knows expert systems 3 and 4 and that the main source of entertainment is the text's potential for fi  lmic interpretation (i.e. as a simulation of an action scene), which is the point of departure for judging the quality of  the  translation.  In  a  typical  translation  study,  the  main  concern would  probably  be  the  incompatibility  between  a,  or  several  of  the, non-linguistic  knowledge  system(s)  of  the  source  and  target  culture.

For instance, if one had studied the translation of DeLillo (1999a) into some Indian language, the main concern would probably have been the dif  ference  between  Hollywood  and  Bollywood  (read:  Bombey) fi  lm. How  ever, since there are strong historical ties between Anglo-Ame  rican and Danish culture(/language) and since the kind of fi  lm pro  duced and consumed in the USA and Denmark closely resemble each other, the focus can be shifted from the non-linguistic knowledge sys  tems, i.e. sys  tems 1, 3 and 4, to the linguistic system, i.e. system 2. This leads to the Danish tense/aspect system.

Four features of the source and target texts which typically would be treated as relating to tense and aspect are: (1) the use of the historical present, (2) the use of perfect 'aspect', (3) the use of progressive aspect and (4) the role played by lexical aspect. Since a grammatical morpheme as a general principle is associated with a single instruction or set of instructions by the theoretical framework outlined in this paper, there is no room for treating the historical present as a separate tense. Instead, as already mentioned in section 3, it is considered a literary frame or viewing arrangement 11   which gives the reader the illusion that he or she is in the middle of the event described. As regards the second feature of the texts, the use of perfect 'aspect', it is not considered relev  ant to the issue at hand for two reasons. Firstly, this paper agrees with Mourelatos (1981) that the meaning expressed by the form does not primarily concern aspect but phase. Secondly, even though Danish has two perfect forms, a HAVE perfect and a BE perfect, it seems that the two forms only pose a problem when translating from Danish into English, especially if the translator is a non-native speaker of Danish. The third feature of the texts poses a more serious problem not only because Danish in contrast with English has nine progressive constructions, but also because the form most frequently used in Danish, the Simple Present, is shared by the overall structure of or viewing arrangement adopted by the text, viz. the historical present. For instance, out of the eleven progressives identifi  ed in the English source text, ten are translated into the Simple Present, type eight, and only one into a type one progressive construction in the Danish target text. See table 1 at the end of the paper which lists all nine constructions and offers ex- amples of each of them. Interestingly, only constructions one, eight and nine appear in the translation. That is, construction nine only appears in two instances as translations of sentences which do not involve the progressive 'be + ing ' form: 'They stand at the curb and watch ' (DeLillo 1999a: 12) ⇒ 'De står ved fortovskanten og kigger ' (DeLillo 1999b: 8), 'They are at  the  curbstone, waiting ' (DeLillo 1999a: 12) ⇒ 'De står ved kantstenen og venter ' (DeLillo, 1999b: 8). Similar results have been obtained by Sandra Halverson (2003) who has studied a large corpus of Norwegian-English translations, namely that in the majority of cases, progressive aspect is expressed by the Simple Present tense in Nor  wegian. Notice that Danish and Norwegian are closely related languages. This leads to the fourth feature of the two texts, lexical aspect. If the instances of progressive aspect (read: the situational reference of a sentence) encountered in the Danish target text are solely determined by the pragmatic connections established by the reader between the situations identifi  ed by sentences, then the informational basis of such a computation must be the lexical aspect of the verb (sense 1) and/or the aspectual value compositionally derived by the syntax of the sentence in which it is found (sense 2). In other words, the frame associated with a  verb,  for  example run ,  consider  once  again  the  description  offered above, puts constraints on which connectors can be activated with the situation  identifi  ed  by  a  conventional  situation  description.  Not  only that, it also puts other constraints, consider once again the constructed example of the difference between the 'Danish' frame for 'run' and the 'Zambian' frame for 'run'. An example from Underworld (DeLillo 1999a: 11-14) is offered in the next paragraph.

11   For the meaning of this term, see Langacker (2001).

The investigation of the Danish translation of DeLillo (1999a: 1114), DeLillo (1999b: 7-10), shows that it is a very successful translation and that it has a very high quality, the main criterion being its ability to mimic the source text's potential for fi  lmic interpretation. However, according to the tough requirements posed by the quality criterion stated in the introduction, it is of course possible to identify certain minor problems in the text. Consider once again the example mentioned at the end of section 3, paragraph (4), and its Danish translation (DeLillo 1999b) repeat  ed/quoted below as (5a) and (5b), respectively 12 :

12   Paragraph twelve in the source text. See the summary at the outset of the article.

- (5a) Then he leaves his feet and is in the air, feeling sleek and unmussed and sort of businesslike, fl  ying in from Kansas City with a briefcase full of bank drafts. His head is tucked, his left leg is clearing the bars. (…).
- (5b) Så slipper han med fødderne og er i luften, føler sig glat og ubekymret og nærmest forretningsmæssig, kommer fl  yvende fra Kansas City med en  mappe  fuld  af  bankanvisnger.  Han  holder  hovedet  dukket,  hans venstre ben kommer over bommene. (…).

The two possible interpretations offered by the English source text are modelled below in fi  gures 2 and 3, respectively.

Figure  2.  The  protagonist's  feeling interpretation  of  fl ying  in  from Kansas City with a briefcase full of bank drafts .

<!-- image -->

Figure  3.  The  non-diegetic  insert interpretation  of  fl ying  in  from Kansas City with a briefcase full of bank drafts .

<!-- image -->

The fi  rst interpretation, see fi  gure 2, is analysed as follows. The main clause of the sentence consists of two conjoined clauses. The elements activated by the fi  rst conjunct are inserted in space M ( a =  the protagonist identifi  ed by 'he'; b = 'his feet'; d = the ground). The line linking b and d in M identifi  es a metonymic relationship between these two entities. The elements of the second conjunct are inserted in space M1 (a' = the protagonist, c = 'in the air', d' = the ground. The line linking c and d' in M1 also identify a metonymic relationship. Idiomatically, the fi  rst conjunct also identifi  es a mental act which triggers the construction of a thought space, space T (the symbol '@' indicates a viewpoint role). The situations established by the two conjuncts are linked by the actionconnector. The fi  rst non-fi  nite adverbial clause of the sentence describes three perceptions which are invoked in space M2, and it triggers the construction of a perception space, space P. Since both thoughts and perceptions in literature are associated with internal speech, spaces T and P are likely to be integrated into one T/P-space, as indicated by the dotted line. The second non-fi  nite adverbial clause of the sentence describes yet another feeling (read: T/P) of the protagonist, described in the box above M3, which is metaphoric. The double-arrow named 'analogy' shows that there exists such a metaphoric relation between spaces M2 and M3. Since the two adverbial clauses describe properties of the subject, 'he', they both prompt object-connections.

The second interpretation, see fi  gure 3, is analysed as follows. The MS-confi  guration for the main clause and the fi  rst adverbial clause of the sentence is similar to the one described in fi  gure 2. It is only the implementation of the last adverbial clause which differs. Interpreted as a metaphorical interpretation of the agent's action, i.e. the one mentioned by the main clause, which is entertained by an omniscient narrator, the focus is shifted from spaces T and P to the base space, space M', and an object continuity is established between M1 and M3. As indicat  ed by the double-arrow between M2 and M3, this does not imply that the establishment of an analogy relation between these two spaces is excluded.

The Danish translation, the sentence underlined in (5b), allows both interpretations.  However,  there  is  one  feature  which  distinguishes  it from its source, the verb of the fi  rst conjunct, Så slipper han med fødderne og er i luften ['Then he releases with his feet and is in the air']. In con  trast with the English source which explicitly expresses a mental act of the protagonist, the Danish target offers an 'objective' description (or medium-range shot) of his action which, albeit, due to the preceeding discourse may be interpreted as internal speech. The important question, how  ever, is to what extent this difference between the source and target texts  affects  the  overall  interpretation.  To  answer  this  question,  the next sentence in the text also needs to be taken into consideration, i.e. the sentences not underlined in (5a) and (5b). Nevertheless, consider fi  rst fi  gure 4 which demonstrates how the role played by one's existing knowledge of fi  lm can be modelled by MS theory:

Figure 4. The recruitment of fi  lmic frames .

<!-- image -->

The box in the upper right-hand corner of the diagram indicates that a generic frame has been activated. In contrast with a particular fi  lmic frame which contains detailed information, for instance, of a love scene, a generic frame only contains very general information. In this case, the kind of information one would expect with any fi  lm, i.e. that it has a narrator who is associated with the camera (either an omniscient nar  rator or a specifi  c character narrator who also plays a role in the story) and that it belongs to a particular style and genre. Naturally, if the object of analysis had been a particular fi  lm, more detailed fi  lmic frames would have to be part of the analysis, i.e. the MS-confi  guration hypothesised. The box in the upper left-hand corner of the diagram indicates that the gener  ic frame of action scene has been activated. Depending on which ele  ments and relations are established in the individual spaces set up and which connections are established between these spaces, i.e. the MS confi  guration constructed, an action frame is selected which is consistent with the plot/style that can be aligned with it. This action frame, in  turn,  prompts  for  a  particular  picture  sequence.  The  three  spaces below the two boxes are identical to the three main spaces set up in the MS confi  guration diagrammed in fi  gure 3, i.e. (1) the base space in which the main narrator is set up, (2) the fused T/P space in which the pro  tagonist narrator is set up and (3) space M in which the situation described by the source and target sentences is constructed.

The next sentence of the English source text, i.e. His head is tucked, his left leg is clearing the bars , is modelled in fi  gure 5 below.

Figure  5.  Constraints  imposed  by  the  Danish  translation .  The diagram is a compressed version of fi  gures 3 and 4.

<!-- image -->

The elements and relations encoded by the fi  rst clause of the sentence, His head is tucket ,  are  inserted  in  M4  ( a 6 =  the  protagonist, f = 'his head', dotted line = metonymic relation). Those encoded by the second clause, his left leg is clearing the bars , are inserted in M5 ( a 7 = the protagonist, g = 'his left leg', dotted line = metonymic relation, h = 'the bars'). Notice that the diagram both explains why the progressive form is used with the second clause, viz. due to the temporal-hierarchy connec  tion established between M4 and M5, and why the second clause in spite of its in-progress instruction is interpreted as a full action, viz. due to the action connection established between M and M4. At the same time, the viewing arrangement established by F(a) and F(th) is compatible with a particular fi  lmic frame, viz. that of slow-motion.

The  analysis  reveals  that  the  English  sentence  is  consistent  with both interpretations. The Danish translation, on the other hand, seems to block the second interpretation, i.e. the one compatible with a nondiegetic insert. Again, the feature responsible of the inconsistency is a  verb, Han holder hovedet  dukket,  hans  venstre  ben  kommer  over bommene ['He keeps his head tucket, his left leg comes over the bars']. In contrast with the English source sentence which offers an 'objective' de  scription  (or  medium-range  shot)  of  the  protagonist's  action,  the Danish  sentence  seems  to  prompt  for  a  'subjective'  description  (or close-up shot) due to the intentionality expressed by holder ['keeps'].

Naturally, the analysis outlined does not in itself constitute conclusive evidence that this is indeed the case. However, what the analysis demonstrates is that the MS framework provided by Fauconnier (1994, 1997) captures how knowledge structures or frames activated in memory participate in the meaning construction triggered by a text and how the text's organisation itself is refl  ected in the MS confi  guration constructed. Moreover, the continuity model proposed by Jacobsen (2004) not only explains how situation integration occurs at the lexical, sentence internal and discourse levels of conceptual organisation, but also offers a solution to how situation continuities established by system 1, 3 and 4 are mapped onto each other. The reason why this is possible is the fact that the model designed for language comprehension is assumed to be perspective-based just like Anderson's (1996) account of continuity edit  ing  in  fi  lm.  Finally,  since  the  conceptual  processes  triggered  by the text are envisioned to be implemented as a perceptual symbol systems (Barsalou 1999), it is also possible to account for the aesthetic experience generated by the text, or its 'reality-like' fl  avour. This is so because the conceptual system devised by Barsalou (1999) relies on the same neural structures in the brain as the perceptual systems.

## 5. Conclusions

The analysis outlined in sections 2-4 demonstrated not only that it is possible  to  model  all  levels  of  organisation  of  a  text  in  a  consistent way,  but  also  their  interaction.  This  fact  underlines  two  descriptive strengths of MS theory, (1) the fl  exibility and (2) and detail of analysis it offers. For instance, as regards the fi  rst, it was noted that one needs not  be  concerned  about  the  specifi  c  content  of  the  fi  lmic  frames  (/ constructions)  when  one  is  modelling  a  linguistic  text,  such  as  the source text DeLillo (1999a: 11-14). As regards the second, the whole point of the exercise was to establish to what extent tense and aspect play a role in the linguistic construction of an action scene, i.e. of a complex 3D simulation involving many shifts in viewpoint and tempo. For  instance,  the  analysis  of  the  two  sentences  of  the  source  text diagrammed in fi  gures 2-5 showed that a very high level of detail can indeed  be  captured  by  the  cognitive  modelling  technique  offered  by Fauconnier (1994, 1997) and Jacobsen (2004). Therefore, the quality criterion stated in the introduction also seems viable. In fact, the type of study presented seems to offer more than that. Since the cognitive modelling technique advocated offers more precise predictions about the actual reception of a text, it might also be possible to subject the results  obtained  thereby  to  experimental  testing,  given  that  Barsalou (1999) and his colleagues manage to devise appropriate experimental tests  for  turning  the  theory  of  perceptual  symbol  systems  into  good science. For instance, it might be possible in the near future to construct brain  studies  which  can  establish  whether  the  high  number  of  3D manipulations stipulated by the model presented in this paper has any validity. If it turns out to be the case, this would constitute evidence not only in support of the claim that system 4 plays an actual role in the text's reception but also in support of the Continuity Principle and its associated pragmatic connectors which are the basis of the theory of aspect proposed in Jacobsen (2004).

## References

- Anderson, Joseph D. 1996: The Reality of Illusion. An Ecological Approach to Cognitive Film Theory . Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.
- Barsalou, Lawrence W. 1999:  Perceptual  Symbol  Systems.  In Behavioral  and  Brain Sciences ,22, 577-609.
- Bordwell, David & Kristin Thompson 2001: Film Art. An Introduction [Sixth Edition]. New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Cutrer, Michelle 1994: Time and Tense in Narratives and Everyday Language. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, San Diego.
- DeLillo, Don 1999a: Underworld . London: Picador.
- -,  1999b: Underverden .  Translated  into  Danish  by  Jørgen  Nielsen.  Copenhagen, Denmark: Centrums Paperbacks.
- Fauconnier, Gilles 1997: Mental Spaces (Second Edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

- -,  1997: Mappings  in  Thought  and  Language .  Cambridge:  Cambridge  University Press.
- Glenberg, Arthur M. 1998: What Memory Is For. In Behavioral and Brain Sciences 20, 1-55.
- Goldstone, Robert L. & Lawrence W. Barsalou 1998: Reuniting Perception and Conception. In Cognition 65, 231-262.
- Halverson, Sandra 2003:  Construal Operations in Translation. Paper presented at the 8 th Inter  national Cognitive Linguistics Conference in Logroño, Spain, 20-24 July.
- Hoeg, Peter 1993: Smilla's Sense of Snow . Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
- Høg, Peter 1993: Frøken Smillas Fornemmelse for Sne . Rosinante Paperbacks. Munksgaard /Rosinante, Copenhagen.
- Jacobsen, Ronald R. 2004: Situation  Description (or Aspectual Underdetermination) in English. The Continuity Principle . Ph.D. Thesis [In preparation]. Aarhus, Denmark: The Aarhus School of Business.
- Langacker,  Ronald  W.  2001:  The  English  Present  Tense.  In English  Language  and Linguistics 5 (2), 251-272.
- Mourelatos, A. P. D. 1981: Events, Processes, and States. In Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 14, Tense and Aspect .  Edited by P. Tedeschi & A. Zaenen (New York: Academic Press), pages 191-211.