Date of Award
12-1-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in Second Language Studies
First Advisor
Donald L Dyer
Second Advisor
Julia Bussade
Third Advisor
Maria Fionda
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
The third-person accusative clitics in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) are virtually extinct in spoken language and informal writing, although formal texts and contexts still retain them. Speakers often mark third-person direct objects using the stigmatized full pronouns (syncretic with the nominative forms), null objects, or full noun phrases (NPs), also referred to as lexical NPs. The realization of these forms is not arbitrary; it is influenced by the semantic properties of the referents, particularly animacy (mainly humanness) and specificity. Animate referents [+animate] tend to be realized with overt pronouns, whereas inanimate [–animate] ones tend to be used with null objects. This diachronic change, which is unique to BP among all Romance languages, reflects sociolinguistic factors and schooling. Despite extensive research on clitic loss in spoken BP, little is known about how these changes manifest in written translations, particularly in first-narration texts that emulate orality for young readers. This study investigates how English third-person direct-object pronouns (him, her, it, them) are translated into BP in diary-style books reflecting orality aimed at juvenile readers. It also examines how the referential status of the antecedents (animacy and specificity) influences object realization in BP. This study adopts a corpus-based approach to examine how English third-person direct-object pronouns are rendered in BP translations. A parallel corpus of twelve contemporary juvenile diary-style books was compiled, and all the translations of the English third-person direct-object pronouns were analyzed using numerical and qualitative methods. The findings revealed a preference for clitics and null objects, suggesting that translation practices mirror spoken tendencies while preserving traces of formal variants. The current findings also strongly corroborate previous research, showing that overt pronouns constitute the predominant form of realized direct objects in third-person position when their referents are [+animate, +specific], while the [–animate, +specific] semantic properties of the referents serve as the primary regulators for null objects.
Recommended Citation
Cascione Cerqueira Netto, Marcella, "Third-Person Direct-Object Anaphora in Translation from English Into Brazilian Portuguese: A Corpus-Based Study of Juvenile Texts Reflecting Orality" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3506.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/3506