Research into linguistic interference

 
3.1.  Classification according to Thorovský 
In his paper titled “Lexical Linguistic Interference in Translations of Science-
Fiction Literature from English into Czech”, Martin Thorovský inquires into 
lexical interference, as a subtype of linguistic interference. His corpus consists 
of 13 science-fiction books (translations from English into Czech). To clearly 
demonstrate the types of interference according to which he classifies the 
examples from his corpus, his classification is as follows: 
Linguistic Interference: 
1.  interference at the word and collocation level (lexical interference) 
2.  grammatical interference 
3.  syntactic interference 
4.  interference in orthography 
Further subtypes of Lexical Interference: 
1.  surface lexical interference (false friends) 
2.  semantic interference 

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3.  idiomatic interference 
4.  interference in collocation 
5.  cultural interference 
 
Thorovský (2009: 86) mentions that one of the major criterions according to 
which he identifies interferences is that the translation sounds unnatural. This 
claim confirms the previously mentioned argument that expressions or 
sentences which sound clumsy or weird can serve as indicators of interference. 
“This is one of the potential signs signalling the occurrence of interference in 
translation. In many cases, an experienced reader of English literature would be 
able to „see the original behind the lines of the translation‟ because of the trace 
that interference leaves in the TL” (Thorovský 2009: 86).  
Thorovský explores lexical interference and classifies it according to the five 
categories mentioned above. “First, surface lexical interference occurs in those 
cases where the lexical unit of the source language visually, i.e. 
orthographically, resembles a certain lexical unit of the target language, which is 
not its equivalent (at least not in the given case)” (Thorovský 2009: 86). By 
surface lexical interference Thorovský means literal translations of false friends. 
Most of the translations of this type concern words which have a formally similar 
equivalent in Czech but whose meaning is different or inappropriate in the given 
context. For instance, he gives examples of word pairs such as authority – 
*autorita (úřad)
1
, camera – *kamera (fotoaparát), control – *kontrola (ovládání) 
(Thorovský 2009: 87-90). 
                                                 
1
 Examples taken from Thorovský‟s paper: Thorovský, Martin (2009) “Lexical Linguistic 
Interference in Translations of Science-Fiction Literature from English into Czech.” Ostrava 
Journal of English Philology, vol. 1: 86-98.  

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The second type, semantic interference, “is caused by an overlap of 
meanings between the source lexical unit and the target lexical units, which are 
only partial equivalents” (Thorovský 2009: 86). The translator usually relies on 
the first meaning from a dictionary or his/her current knowledge, and fails to 
consider the whole context in which a word appears. To give concrete examples 
of these, Thorovský mentions mistakes which occurred in his corpus and whose 
translations are inappropriate for the given context:  pup/puppy – *štěně (fracek, 
smrad), tripod – *trojnožka (stativ) (Thorovský 2009: 90-91). Thorovský states 
that although trojnožka is not really an error, stativ would be more appropriate. 
Moreover, he adds that “the polysemic character of „false friends‟ means that 
they partially overlap with the second category of interferential mistakes: 
semantic interference” (Thorovský 2009: 91). 
The third class, idiomatic interference, includes incorrect translations of 
idioms “which the translator either did not recognize or misinterpreted as a 
collocation” (Thorovský 2009: 86). In such a case, the translator transfers an 
idiom literally into Czech; for instance, blew the whistle – *zahvízdat na píšťalku 
(prásknout to na koho, bonzovat na koho or, in this context, bít na poplach), It’s 
going to be a walk in the park – *Bude to jen procházka v parku (hračka, 
zvládnout levou zadní, brnkačka), The shit’s really hit the fan now! – *Hovno 
narazilo na větrák! (provalilo se to, prasklo to) (Thorovský 2009: 91-92). 
“Fourth, interference in collocation partially resembles semantic interference, 
but it affects collocations rather than individual words.” (Thorovský 2009: 86). 
The major problem consists in translating literally expressions which collocate in 
English but not in Czech; for example, multi-word expressions which have a 
                                                                                                                                               
* The asterisks indicate examples identified as interferences. The correct translation is in the 
parentheses.  

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single-word equivalent in Czech or collocations which cannot be translated word 
for word. As an example, Thorovský mentions break one’s neck – *zlomit si krk 
(zlomit si vaz), black woman – *černá žena (černoška), raw materials – *hrubé 
materiály (suroviny) and others.  
And the last type is cultural interference which “occurs in those cases where 
the translator is unable to deal with the cultural difference between the source 
language culture and the target language culture. In most cases there is no 
direct equivalent in the target language” (Thorovský 2009: 86). One of the 
examples of this type of interference, mentioned by Thorovský, is [...] in the 
checkout at the 7-Eleven – *[...] při vstupní kontrole v 7-Jedenáct. The problem 
here consists in misunderstanding the cultural specific item. “„7-Eleven‟ is a 
chain of US stores that sell convenience items such as food, drinks, etc. They 
are open from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m.” (Thorovský 2009: 96). Thorovský proposes 
two options how to solve this cultural-specific problem: either, to use some more 
general term (e.g. store), in case that the name of the store is not important for 
the context (e.g. the opening hours do not play a key role in the text), or to add 
some word in front of the term, which will explain the name (e.g. obchodní dům 
7-Eleven, obchoďák 7-Eleven). Another mistake which occurred due to 
misunderstanding was checkout translated as *vstupní kontrola (pokladna). 
Under the type of cultural interferences, Thorovský moreover includes 
miscellaneous types of errors. Thorovský clarifies that most of the mistakes 
included occur when the source text contains a „cultural icon‟ (real historical 
person who is well-known in the source culture but not in the target cultural 
environment), name of an institution, brand name, measures or colours which 
do not have a direct counterpart in Czech. Examples of these are, for instance, 

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