THEMATIC STRUCTURE IN “O CONTO DA ILHA DESCONHECIDA” AND THE TALE OF THE UNKNOWN ISLAND , BY JOSÉ SARAMAGO

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse the thematic structure of José Saramago’s “O Conto da Ilha Desconhecida”, and its translation into English, “The Tale of the Unknown Island”, in order to compare both texts and explore the structural differences derived from the translation process, through the systemic-functional approach of M. A. K. Halliday (HALLIDAY & MATTHIESSEN, 2004). In order to carry out this analysis, the corpus was annotated using CROSF - Systemic Functional Labeling Code (FEITOSA, 2005, 2006) -, a numeric code designed for annotation and labelling of corpora designed to avoid mistypings and excessive written information. The annotated documents were converted into simple text format (.txt), in order to make it accessible to the Antconc 3.2.4 software, a corpora analysis tool in which the labels were counted. After counting the labels, they were sorted by frequency in two tables compiled in Microsoft Excel, one for each text. The data for each of the texts were later sorted in a comparative table, from which the analysis and discussion of results was carried out. The data show that the translated text, in relation to its original, is more extensive and presents a lower lexical dynamics, that is, it has a reduced number or distinct words. As for the thematic elements according to the metafunction, both texts present similar values, however, the interpersonal themes are more recurrent in the original text. Regarding compliance with the SVO structure - subject-verb-object -, the text in Portuguese made use of marked themes in a greater degree than its translation. Finally, thematized structures are present in greater abundance in the original text, which can be revealing about Saramago’s (1998) writing style.