The use of deictic reference in identifying point of view in Grazia Deleddas Canne al Vento and its translation into

English
Jane Johnson

University of Bologna

Point of view in narrative has been identified in literary stylistics through the use of deixis, modality, transitivity and Free Indirect Discourse. These findings have also been applied to literature in translation (Bosseaux 2007). This article focuses on deictic cues in the narrative structure of Canne al Vento by Grazia Deledda in the original Italian and the English translation, following an earlier study focussing on constructing a particular point of view through mental processes of perception, the translation of which did not always reflect that point of view (Johnson 2010). Data emerging from a corpus-assisted study is examined qualitatively using a systemic-functional model in order to assess to what extent the point of view constructed by these cues in the ST is conveyed in the novel in translation. Keywords: point of view in narrative, deixis, translation equivalence, SFL

1.

Introduction

Studies in literary stylistics (e.g. Uspensky 1973; Fowler 1986; Simpson 1993; Leech & Short 2007 [1981]; etc.) have focussed on the identification of point of view in narrative through an investigation of deixis, modality, transitivity and expression of Free Indirect Discourse (FID). Research focussing on these elements has been applied to investigate both literary (e.g. Halliday 1971) and non-literary texts (e.g. Douthwaite 2007). Related studies of literature in translation (e.g. Bosseaux 2007; Munday 2008) have compared the effectiveness of the translation strategies used in conveying the point of view created by the source text author. Common to these studies has been a focus on the lexical cues signalling modality, transitivity and deixis, including personal pronouns, tense and time adverbs, place adverbs and other locative expressions; and many have employed a systemic-functional model,
Target 23:1 (2011), 6276. doi 10.1075/target.23.1.04joh issn 09241884 / e-issn 15699986 John Benjamins Publishing Company

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the use of which is particularly appropriate in descriptive translation studies since it is based on the hypothesis that small shifts at the lexicogrammatical level might, in certain passages or over the course of a whole translation, shift the higher level framework of the text (Munday 2008: 31), since [i]f a pattern of lexicogrammatical shifts or an inconsistency in the treatment of point of view is identified, this could affect the discourse semantics and alter the larger point of view framework from which a story is told (ibid.). This article adds to the aforementioned studies by investigating the use of deictic cues in constructing point of view in a novel by the nineteenth-century Italian Nobel prize for literature winner, Grazia Deledda, both in the original Italian and in its translation into English. The deictic cues were among a number of elements emerging as key in a wider exploration of Deleddas work using a corpus stylistics approach (see Johnson 2010). A corpus stylistic approach (such as that described in Mahlberg 2009 for example) may be useful in the investigation of point of view in that quantitative data may be generated for a subsequent qualitative analysis of the linguistic cues provided by for example spatial and temporal deixis, personal pronouns and processes. The present study focuses on Deleddas best known work, the novel Canne al Vento (henceforth CV), published in episodes in an Italian journal in 1913 and telling the story of the Pintor sisters, from a noble family that was once wealthy but is now in decline, their nephew Giacinto, and their faithful old servant, Efix, whose soul is tormented by the thought of a sin he committed many years before. The novel was translated as Reeds in the Wind (henceforth RW) (1999: New York, Italica Press) by Martha King, who has also published translations of other works by Deledda. The study follows on from earlier corpus-based research into Deleddas authorial style (Johnson 2009), involving an investigation of key n grams, contiguous words that constitute a phrase, or a pattern of use (Cheng et al 2006: 412), including word forms of the lemmas parere/sembrare [seem or appear] in a corpus of her work (see note 1). The high frequency of these mental processes of perception was found to create a certain type of alignment between the reader and the characters in the narrative and hence contribute to constructing a particular point of view (Simpson 1993). Subsequent qualitative investigation of these items in English translations of Deledda (Johnson 2010) suggested that certain translation choices altered this perceived point of view as expressed in the Source Text (henceforth ST). In particular, where the indirect object pronoun was included in the ST, thus making explicit reference to the characters point of view, it was found that the English translation did not always use an equivalent strategy for rendering the same point of view, so that on various occasions the effect could be described as distancing the narrative from the character by shifting the point of view to that of the narrator, as in Example 1, taken from Deleddas novel La Madre:

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(1) il bicchiere che Paulo prese e accost subito alle labbra: sotto per i denti gli tremavano, e il vino rosseggiante al riflesso del fuoco gli parve sangue. [La Madre, G. Deledda, 1920] glass which Paul took and immediately put to his lips underneath however his teeth shook, and the wine reddish in the light of the fire seemed blood to him [near-literal translation] glass, which Paul accepted and immediately put to his lips; but his teeth shook against the edge of the glass as though the red wine glowing in the light of the fires were not wine, but blood. [The Mother, translated by M. Steegmann, Macmillan, New York 1923]

In the ST in Example 1, the combination of the mental process of perception preceded by the indirect object pronoun in gli parve clearly identifies Paulo as the reflector character, whereas the use of the clausal simile in the published English translation, though evocative, does not identify the source of perception as being the character. However, as has been noted (e.g. Simpson 1993), other elements besides the mental process of perception parere/sembrare may contribute to the construction of point of view. Analysis of the semantic groupings of other key n grams in Deleddas work in comparison with a reference corpus of 19th century Italian literature (see note 2) highlighted several features such as deictic cues including certain spatio-temporal references that have been identified (Simpson 1993: 13) as reflecting a particular perspective and thus may signal the presence in the novel of a certain type of point of view. These features included clusters such as davanti a [in front of], di qua e di l [here and there], as well as clusters containing the word ecco* (see note 3). 2. Investigating ecco in the Source Text In particular, keyword analysis of the Deledda corpus showed ecco* (ecco and other wordforms, see note 4) to be much more frequent overall as well as in certain single texts in this corpus in comparison with the Reference corpus, as may be seen from Table 1. These comparative figures suggest that ecco* is typical of Deledda. More specifically, the separate figures for all sixteen Deledda novels in the corpus show that in all but two novels (La Giustizia 0.24 ptw and Il Vecchio della Montagna 0.09 ptw) there is a higher frequency of ecco* per thousand words than in the Reference corpus. An example in context is illustrated and discussed in Example 2, with reference to the part it appears to play in constructing a certain perspective.

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Table 1. Occurrences of ecco* per thousand words (ptw) in the reference corpus, the Deledda corpus and selected individual novels
Corpus Reference Corpus Deledda Corpus - Canne al Vento - La Madre - Marianna Sirca - Cenere Occurrences of ecco* ptw 0.31 0.81 1.52 1.30 1.24 1.14

(2) Eccolo tutto ai suoi piedi, silenzioso e qua e l scintillante dacque nel crepuscolo, il poderetto che Efix considerava pi suo che delle sue padrone: trentanni di possesso e di lavoro lo han fatto ben suo, e le siepi di fichi dIndia che lo chiudono dallalto in basso, come due muri grigi serpeggianti di scaglione in scaglione dalla collina al fiume, gli sembrano i confini del mondo. [CV] here it is all at his feet here and there silent and sparkling with waters in the twilight the little farm that Efix considered more his than his mistresses thirty years of ownership and work have certainly made it his and the hedges of prickly pears that (en)close it from top to bottom like two grey walls snaking from terrace to terrace from the hill to the river seem to him to be the boundaries of the world [near-literal translation]

This example opens with the deictic + pronoun eccolo [here it is] as unmarked Theme containing a reference to the subject of the main clause, il poderetto [the little farm]. This is described by the narrator from the physical perspective of the character, as indicated in the spatial deictic ai suoi piedi [at his feet]. This is followed by a shift from the narrative past to the Present Perfect in lo han fatto ben suo [have certainly made it his], congruent with FID, with other markers of this being the colloquial elided form of han rather than hanno, as well as the evaluative marker ben. Only the third person pronoun suo [his] restores at least partial control to the narrator, confirming FID rather than Free Direct Discourse (FDD). The characters viewpoint is maintained with the Present tense in chiudono [(en) close], followed by the spatial deictic phrase dallalto in basso [from top to bottom] again seen from the perspective of the character. The narrator makes another direct reference to the characters perception using the Mental process sembrano [seem] in the present tense, though again this is rendered more indirect by the use of the 3rd person indirect object pronoun preceding the verb, indicating the reflector character Efix.

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The excerpt discussed here begins the second paragraph of the novel, thus introducing Efix as the storys main reflector character. What sparked off the train of perception from the point of view of Efix is the word ecco*, described as an attualizzatore [actualiser] by Lavinio (1991: 106), who notes that it often seems to be accompanied by shifts in tense and narrative style. My hypothesis is that the predominance of this deictic reference in Deledda may point to its use in the construction of point of view, and given the particularly high frequency in Canne al Vento, it may be that this function plays an important part in this novel. A systematic investigation of the word makes it possible to probe further into how a particular type of point of view is constructed in the novel and provide concrete evidence for the impressions noted in existing literary criticism. Given the common colloquial frequency of ecco*, and indeed since a fundamental part in the conduction of the plot is played by direct speech, as has been noted by Miccinesi (1975), who points out that the dramatic elements of the narration never emerge from a direct statement by the writer (see note 5), an initial hypothesis regarding the high frequency per thousand words (1.52) of ecco* in CV compared both to the Deledda corpus as a whole and to the reference corpus was that there was simply a large proportion of direct speech in interaction with others in the novel. However, closer analysis of the concordances showed that this was not the case. Table 2 summarises the number of occurrences of ecco* in Canne al Vento: As Table 2 shows, ecco* was also found to occur frequently in the narrative structure itself, thus suggesting it had a significant role to play here too (for the sake of comparison, instances of ecco* occurring in the Reference corpus in the narrative structure alone amounted to 0.06 ptw). As we saw in the extract in Example 2, its occurrence in the narrative structure of the ST may signal a deictic shift towards a particular point of view, often accompanying a transition to FID and sometimes even to FDD, as well as a shift in tense from past to present and the use of certain personal pronouns. For the purpose of this study, concordances of the word ecco* where it is not used as direct speech were identified in the ST and carefully read, together with the stretch of text before and after each occurrence, up to where a change in
Table 2. Occurrences of ecco* in the whole text and distributed according to direct speech and narrative structure
ecco* Total no. occurrences Of which: In direct speech In narrative structure Canne al Vento 92 (1.52 ptw) 32 (0.53 ptw) 60 (0.99 ptw)

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perspective could be perceived. Though examination of the concordances showed that ecco* occurred 60 times in the narrative structure of the novel, on some occasions it was repeated sometimes even within the same sentence to create a particular stylistic effect, as in example 3:
(3) Non conosceva n le piante n le erbe; non sapeva che i fiumi straripano in primavera! Ecco la striscia coltivata a ceci, pallidi gi entro le loro bucce puntute: ecco le siepi di gravi pomidoro lungo il solco umido, ecco un campicello che sembra di narcisi ed di patate, ecco le cipolline tremule alla brezza come asfodeli, ecco i cavoli solcati dai bruchi verdi luminosi. [CV] he knew neither plants or herbs he didnt know that rivers overrun their banks in spring here the row planted with chickpeas pale already inside their pointed pods here hedges of heavy tomatoes along the damp furrow here a little field that seems to be narcissus and is potatoes here onions trembling in the breeze like asphodels here cabbages furrowed by luminous green caterpillars [nearliteral translation]

In this extract ecco occurs five times in the space of five phrases and the repetition of the word forms a cohesive element rather than adding a fresh perspective each time. These five instances were thus deemed to make up a single block. The 60 occurrences of ecco* automatically extracted were, after closer manual analysis, finally grouped into 52 separate blocks. These blocks were not of standard sizes, but based on a qualitative reading of the text. First of all, spatial and temporal deictic phrases indicating the point of view of the character found in the stretch of text containing ecco* were highlighted (see note 6). Then, any changes in tense, typically involving the change to use of the present tense whereas verb forms in the preceding stretch of text had been in the past tense, were counted and described, as were incidences of shifts in narrative style e.g. to FID or FDD, traced from stylistic indicators as listed in Bosseaux (2007: 6667). These include questions, exclamations, intonation and particles bearing a subjective reference, indicating an argument going on within the characters mind (Bosseaux 2007: 67) (see note 7). The graph in Figure 1 shows the findings for the textual features identified in this study in the co-text of instances of ecco*: As Figure 1 shows, tense change occurs in the vicinity of just over half the blocks of ecco*. Spatial and/or temporal references with a deictic function referring to the perspective of the character are found in 50% of cases. FID is found in just under half the blocks of ecco*. Of course, features also co-occur in the vicinity of ecco*. In fact, one, two or all three of the features were found in 87% of the blocks, which suggests that ecco* does indeed have the function of focalising on a reflector character. What is more, it might also be that the repetition of this marker

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Canne al Vento
60
% blocks of ecco

50 40 30 20 10 0
Tense change Spatial-temporal references FID/FDD

features

Figure 1. Features indicating focalisation on a particular characters point of view in the vicinity of ecco*

so often accompanied by these features eventually acts to alert the reader to a shift in point of view. In contrast, examination of the concordances of ecco* in the reference corpus which did not occur in Direct Speech showed that only 25% contained any of these features and those that did appear were almost exclusively examples of FID/FDD, suggesting that this usage of ecco*, particularly as regards tense change and spatial/ temporal markers, is idiosyncratic to Deledda. In addition, extracts of text from the Deledda corpus showed that the historic present tense is not a constant feature in her work, although generally considered typical of literary Italian. This suggests that Deledda is indeed using the present tense to mark a shift in perspective. 3. Translating point of view: ecco* in the Target Text (TT) The findings described in the previous section suggest that in the great majority of cases the blocks containing ecco* in the ST also contain (a) spatio-temporal references from the point of view of the character; (b) a shift forward in tense; and (c) shifts in narrative style to FID/FDD. Given the significance of these features in constructing point of view it is arguably necessary for the translator to take them into account when translating. The ST (60,500 tokens) and the TT (64,407 tokens) were aligned manually at paragraph level and concordancing software (AntConc 3.2.1, Anthony 2007, and WordSmith Tools 5.0, Scott 2008) was used to query the parallel corpus thus obtained. The translations of ecco* were highlighted in the TT and the translation strategy used for (a), (b) and (c) above, where present, was described. It is important to

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bear in mind that the non-isomorphic representation of deixis in language [can lead] to potential translation issues, but does not prevent a contrastive analysis between languages (Bosseaux 2007: 31). The translations will thus be discussed in terms of the extent to which the point of view constructed by these cues in the ST is conveyed in the TT, taking into account, where necessary, any structural differences between Italian and English. By way of example, let us consider once more the extract in Example 2, this time with the published translation alongside (Example 4).
(4) Eccolo tutto ai suoi piedi, silenzioso e qua e l scintillante dacque nel crepuscolo, il poderetto che Efix considerava pi suo che delle sue padrone: trentanni di possesso e di lavoro lo han fatto ben suo, e le siepi di fichi dIndia che lo chiudono dallalto in basso, come due muri grigi serpeggianti di scaglione in scaglione dalla collina al fiume, gli sembrano i confini del mondo. [CV] here it is all at his feet here and there silent and sparkling with waters in the twilight the little farm that Efix considered more his than his mistresses thirty years of ownership and work have certainly made it his and the hedges of prickly pears that (en)close it from top to bottom like two grey walls snaking from terrace to terrace from the hill to the river seem to him to be the boundaries of the world [near-literal translation] Silently stretching out before him down to the river sparkling in the twilight was the little farm that Efix considers more his than the owners: thirty years of possession and work had certainly made it his, and the two hedgerows of prickly pear that enclose it like two gray walls meandering from terrace to terrace, from the hill to the river, are like the boundaries of the world to him. [RW]

Focussing first on spatio-temporal references from the point of view of the character, we can see that the farm is described both in ST and TT from the physical viewpoint of the character with the spatial deictic phrase ai suoi piedi translated in the TT as before him down to the river. The spatial deictic dallalto in basso [from top to bottom] acts in the same way in the ST, but is omitted in the TT. As regards shifts in tense, both ST and TT have a tense shift to the Present, with chiudono, translated as enclose, while there is direct reference to the perception of the character both in the ST and TT with the Mental process sembrano [seem] in the present tense and with the indirect object pronoun preceding the verb to indicate the reflector character Efix, translated in the TT as are liketo him. In Example 4 an additional shift to the present tense considers has been used in the TT to translate the ST past tense considerava. The translator has perhaps

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used this means to provide an explicit signal for the shift in point of view, given that there is no corresponding lexical equivalent for the deictic ecco. Finally, an examination of shifts in narrative style to FID shows that while there is a change in narrative style to FID in the ST with lo han fatto ben suo [have certainly made it his], the TT does not pick up this shift, with only the evaluative marker certainly giving a rather ambiguous hint of FID. It may be seen that most but not all of the elements combining to attribute point of view to Efix in the ST in this example have counterparts in the English translation. Some are omitted, and indeed, [w]e should also not forget that omissions are just as likely to affect the narrative point of view as additions. (Munday 2008: 32). In the translation of this particular extract, therefore, there is slightly more distancing between the characters point of view and that of the narrator, due to the absence of FID and the omission of certain spatial references. This is of course only one example out of a total of 60 occurrences of ecco* in the novel. It is difficult to measure the overall level of loss produced by this particular microstructural shift, a criticism already made by Munday (2008: 66) and Bosseaux (2007: 26), among others, of van Leuven-Zwarts (1989; 1990) model for quantifying macrostructural and microstructural shifts in translation. However a step towards doing so could be to quantify the number of occasions on which TT employs devices with similar functions in TT and TL as those employed in ST, as well as noting whether a marker is included to alert the reader to a switch in perspective, in the same way as ecco* might in the original. It is worth stressing here that, since there is no satisfactory lexical equivalent for ecco in the TL, more weight will have to be carried by alternative means of creating point of view, such as the use of present tense, F(I/D)D and spatio-temporal markers, in order to render the same effect. The graph in Figure 2 shows the quantitative findings for the renderings in Reeds in the Wind of the textual features identified in this study around the instances of ecco* in Canne al Vento, compared with those found in the ST (see note8). Figure 2 shows that the features chosen as indication of character point of view are underrepresented in the TT. More specifically, only 33% of the occurrences of tense change in the ST have been reflected in the TT, and only 38% of the occurrences of FID or FDD. The use of spatio-temporal reference from the characters perspective is also less frequent in the TT than in the ST. Use of F(I/D)D is only slightly less frequent in the TT than the ST. On occasions, the translator has actually made more explicit use of FDD than in the ST, thus bringing the reflector character point of view closer, as in Example 5:

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ST vs TT
% of blocks of ecco*
60 50 40 30 20 10 0
Tense change CV Tense change RW Spatialtemporal references CV Spatialtemporal references RW Free (In)direct Discourse CV Free (In)direct Discourse RW

features

Figure 2. Translated features indicating focalisation on a particular characters point of view in the vicinity of ecco* in Canne al Vento and Reeds in the Wind

(5) E dimmi, tu, cosa venuto a frugare qui quel vagabondo di mio nipote? Efix gli fece una smorfia alle spalle. Ah, ecco perch laveva preso! Perch, vagabondo? Era impiegato. [CV] and tell me what has that vagabond nephew of mine come to mess around in Efix made a face behind his back oh that was why he had taken him why vagabond he was employed [near-literal translation] And tell me, what has that vagabond nephew of mine come to mess around in? Efix grimaced behind his back. Oh, thats why hes taking me! Why, vagabond? He was employed.[RW]

Perhaps to compensate for the lack of a one-to-one lexical correspondent for ecco, the TT often makes use of items typical of colloquial spoken language, as is shown by the translation of ecco with an interjection such as wait, signalling that the translator is aware that there is a different voice talking, as in example 6:
(6) Ma ecco unombra che si muove dietro la siepe, fra gli ontani: un animale deforme, nero, con le gambe dargento: scricchiola sulla sabbia, si ferma. [CV] but theres a shadow moving behind the hedge among the alders its a deformed black animal with silver legs it creaks on the sand it stops [near-literal translation] But wait, behind the hedge among the alder trees a shadow was moving. It was a black, deformed animal with silver legs. It creaked on the sand and then stopped. [RW]

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On other occasions a temporal marker such as now has been used to translate ecco, or a spatial marker down there versus here, as in example 7:
(7) Era notte ancora, ma un brivido di luce passava ad Oriente fra i monti che si aprivano verso il mare: lalba si svegliava laggi. Ed ecco Efix, vinto dal sonno, crede di non poter pi sollevare le palpebre e di sognare [CV] it was still night but a shiver of light passed in the East between the mountains that opened toward the sea dawn was waking down there and suddenly Efix overcome by sleep believes he can no longer lift his eyelids and is dreaming [near-literal translation] It was still night, but a sliver of light came between the mountains to the east that opened toward the sea. Dawn was waking down there. And here Efix, overcome by sleep, believed he could no longer lift his eyelids and was dreaming.[RW]

Besides providing textual cohesion, the use of here and there in the TT also indicates a shift to the perspective of Efix. However the absence of a change in tense to the present in the TT to translate crede [believes] makes that shift less noticeable. The translator has occasionally used a conjunction marking a causative relation such as so to translate ecco, thus explicitating (Vinay and Darbelnet 1958/1995: 342) a logical link that is not made in the ST, as in example 8:
(8) Prendetevi delluva, zio Efix, gli disse il ragazzo, salutandolo pensieroso: se don Predu vi rimanda qui son contento: cos passeremo il tempo a contar le storie. E andate da Grixenda a salutarla. Ed ecco Efix che risale la strada verso il paese. Lalba quasi fredda e le colline bianche sembrano coperte di neve. [CV] take some grapes Zio Efix the boy told him saying good-bye thoughtfully if Don Predu sends you back here Ill be happy because we can pass the time telling stories and go and say hello to Grixenda and heres Efix going back up the road towards the village the dawn is almost cold and the white hills seem covered with snow [near-literal translation] Take some grapes, Zio Efix, the boy told him, saying good-by thoughtfully. If Don Predu sends you back here Ill be glad, because we can pass the time telling stories. Go over to Grixendas. And so Efix went back up the road toward town. The dawn was almost cold and the white hills looked snow covered. [RW]

Where the ST has ecco* alone without other features to mark possible reflector character shifts particularly towards the end of the novel when Efix is dying the TT often translates it with the use of the temporal marker then, as in example

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9, though the frequent occurrence of this item throughout the novel (3.78 ptw) suggests that it has other functions and thus the attribution of Efixs point of view is not marked in English, unlike in the ST.
(9) Ma fu un momento: ecco che si velava anchessa, perdeva forza, ritornava fantasma; ed Efix prov dolore, come fosse Giacinto a morire, non lui. [CV] but it was just a moment and suddenly even this was veiled lost power turned back into a phantom and Efix felt sad as if Giacinto were dying and not he [near-literal translation] But only for a moment. Then even this figure was veiled, lost power, turned back into a phantom; and Efix felt sad, as if Giacinto were dying and not he.[RW]

The most frequent translations of ecco* are the spatial references here/there, with the proximal marker here slightly less frequent with 8 occurrences and the distal there more frequent with 12. As mentioned above, temporal and causal references have also been used, though the variety of translations used suggests that there is no consistent signal in the TT to mark change in perspective. 4. Conclusions In Canne al Vento, ecco* appears to signal the shift from the narrators point of view to the point of view of the reflector character in a significant number of cases by means of the juxtaposition of various features indicating present tense, FID or FDD, and spatio-temporal references. Comparison of these areas in the TT shows that the translator has often but not always picked up this shift, though showing sensitivity to and awareness of the attribution of point of view elsewhere. Perhaps more consistent use of the present tense could be used to mark it in a clearer fashion since attribution of point of view appears to be an important feature of Canne al Vento. Construction of point of view is realised in complex ways. Some of these are more evident than others and may be picked up through the use of corpus stylistic tools, for example the significance of parere/ sembrare (Johnson 2010) where key clusters were those of the lemmas in combination with the indirect object pronoun, thus distinctly signalling that somebody elses point of view is being cited. However other ways of constructing point of view, such as the combination of ecco* with elements such as change in tense, features typical of FID/FDD and certain spatio-temporal references, are not so obviously noticeable and a careful qualitative analysis is required to pinpoint the salience of this in the ST.

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If the word ecco* itself acts to alert the ST reader to the fact that a new perspective is being brought into play, a lack of consistent translation of the word in the TT or the absence of adequate compensatory measures constitutes a loss in TT as compared to ST. Part of the meaning of ecco has often been rendered by items such as here/there which fulfil the deictic part but the multifunctionality of these words in the text means that their significance may be overlooked in marking the incipit of a particular point of view. Since literary translation requires a description of the dominant structure of every individual work to be translated (Cluysenaar 1976: 49) with a prior stylistic analysis of certain dominant features (ibid.: 41) vital to meaning and perceptual outline, literary translators and particularly translator trainees could benefit during the translation process from proactive awareness-raising in order to pay due consideration to these features during the translation process itself. Corpus stylistic tools are useful in this regard. A final note should be added as regards a possible idiosyncratic usage of ecco* by this author. Though the word featured highly on a keyword list in Deleddas work in general, it is not clear how far its function may be generalised to other novels by the same author. This will be left for future research.

Notes
1. The Deledda corpus included sixteen full-length novels, spanning the authors literary career and consisting of 894,515 words or tokens: Canne al Vento (1913); Cenere (1904); Colombi e Sparvieri (1912); Cosima (1937); Elias Portol (1903); Fior di Sardegna (1892); Il Paese del Vento (1931); Il Vecchio della Montagna (1900); La Chiesa della Solitudine (1936); La Giustizia (1899); La Madre (1920); La Via del Male (1896); LEdera (1908); LIncendio nellOliveto (1918); Marianna Sirca (1915); Nel Deserto (1911). 2. The reference corpus of 19th century Italian literature, consisting of 931,066 tokens, was compiled from literary works forming part of the Italian verismo movement, which Deledda is also considered to represent. The corpus consisted of the following works: Giovanni Verga: Eros (1875), Eva (1873), I Malavoglia (1881), Il Marito di Elena (1882), Storia di una Capinera (1871), Tutte le Novelle, Una Peccatrice (1866); Luigi Capuana: Giacinta (1879); Matilde Serao: Il Romanzo della Fanciulla (1893), Il Ventre di Napoli (1884), La Virt di Checchina (1884); Emilio De Marchi: Arabella (1892), Demetrio Pianelli (1890). 3. The word ecco is glossed in the dictionary as an adverb with four different usages: per indicare, mostrare, annunciare, presentare qc o q.c., per sottolineare un dato di fatto o per introdurre un discorso, con i sign. di vedi, vedi qui, tieni, ascolta, senti e sim. (Zingarelli 1983: 624 i.e. to indicate, show, announce, present somebody or something, emphasize a fact or introduce a topic, with the meanings you see, see here, here you are, listen, etc..), though it is also used as an intensifier in phrases such as quandecco, quando improvvisamente, quando inaspettatamente (ibid.: 624 i.e. when suddenly, when unexpectedly).

The use of deictic reference in identifying point of view in Grazia Deleddas Canne al Vento 4. A search for ecco* also yields wordforms combined with the direct object pronoun: eccoci, eccomi, eccoti, eccovi, eccolo, eccola, eccole, eccoli. 5. gli elementi drammatici della narrazione non sono mai frutto di una enunciazione diretta da parte della scrittrice (Miccinesi 1975: 86). 6. Temporal and Spatial markers found in the vicinity of ecco*: adesso, di prima, domani, ai suoi piedi, al di l, attorno, dallalto in basso, davanti, di fronte, di l, in fondo, intorno, intorno a lui, l nel cortiletto, laggi, lass, l, lontana, pi in l, pi su, qua e l, su, su nelle camere di sopra,tramonto come questo 7. A typical shift in narrative style to FID/FDD may be seen in Example 5: Efix gli fece una smorfia alle spalle. Ah, ecco perch laveva preso! 8. It should be stressed that the quantification of examples in the TT referring to tense change, FDD and/or spatio-temporal markers also includes use of the same features included by the translator elsewhere in the block but not as a direct translation. Such a contribution may be seen in Example 4, where the ST has considerava in the past tense whereas the TT has the present tense considers.

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References
Anthony, Laurence. 2007. AntConc 3.2.1 http://www.antlab.sci.waseda.ac.jp/antconc_index. html Bosseaux, Charlotte. 2007. How does it feel? Point of view in translation. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Cheng, William, C. Greaves and M. Warren. 2006. From n-gram to skipgram to concgram. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 11:4. 411433. Cluysenaar, Anne. 1976. Introduction to Literary Stylistics. London: Batsford. Douthwaite, John. 2007. A stylistic view of modality. Garzone, Giuliana and Rita Salvi, eds. Lingue e Linguaggi Specialistici. Roma: CISU Editore, 2007. 107156 Fowler, Roger. 1986. 2nd ed 1996. Linguistic Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halliday, Michael A.K. 1971. Linguistic function and literary style: an inquiry into the language of William Goldings The Inheritors. Chatman, Seymour, ed. Literary Style: A Symposium. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. 330368. Johnson, Jane H.. 2009. Towards an identification of the authorial style of Grazia Deledda: a corpus-assisted study. CeSLiC Occasional Papers, http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/2678/ Johnson, Jane H.. 2010. A corpus-assisted study of parere/sembrare in Grazia Deleddas Canne al Vento and La Madre. Constructing point of view in the Source Texts and their English translations. John Douthwaite and Katie Wales, eds. Stylistics and Co. (unlimited) the range, methods and applications of stylistics, Textus XXIII, 2010, 283302. Lavinio, Cristina. 1991. Narrare unisola. Lingua e stile di scrittori sardi. Roma: Bulzoni Editore. Leech, Geoffrey N. and M. H. Short. 1981, 2nd ed. 2007. Style in Fiction. A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional Prose. Harlow: Pearson Education. Leuven-Zwart, Kitty van. 1989. Translation and Original: Similarities and Dissimilarities, I. Target 1:2. 151182.

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Jane Johnson Leuven-Zwart, Kitty van. 1990. Translation and Original: Similarities and Dissimilarities, II. Target 2:1. 6996. Mahlberg, Michaela. 2009. Corpus stylistics and the Pickwickian watering-pot. Paul Baker, ed. Contemporary Corpus Linguistics. London: Continuum. 2009. 4763. Miccinesi, Mario. 1975. Grazia Deledda. Firenze: La Nuova Italia. Munday, Jeremy. 2008. Style and Ideology in Translation. London: Routledge. Scott, Mike. 2008. WordSmith Tools version 5. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software Simpson, Paul. 1993. Language, Ideology and Point of View. London: Routledge. Uspensky, Boris. 1973. A Poetics of Composition. Berkeley: University of California Press. Vinay, Jean-Paul and Jean Darbelnet. 1995. Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation. Trans. of Vinay and Darbelnet (1958) by Juan C. Sager and MarieJosee Hamel. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Zingarelli, Nicola. 1983. Il Nuovo Zingarelli. Vocabolario della Lingua Italiana. Bologna: Zanichelli.

Authors address
Jane Helen Johnson Researcher in English Language and Translation Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Straniere Moderne Via Cartoleria 5 40124 BOLOGNA Italy janehelen.johnson@unibo.it