Glossary entry

Deutsch term or phrase:

Wortgebilde

Englisch translation:

verbal constructions

Added to glossary by monbuckland
Aug 22, 2008 20:50
15 yrs ago
1 viewer *
Deutsch term

Wortgebilde

Deutsch > Englisch Kunst/Literatur Dichtung und Belletristik
This is from a text about the works of Ernst Jandl:
"Jandls Gedichte fordern, stampfen, klingen, singen. Lautgedichte lassen emotionale Landschaften entstehen, Wortkaskaden werden zu Musik und skurrile Wortgebilde verdichten sich zu besonderen Perspektiven."
Change log

Aug 22, 2008 21:03: Kim Metzger changed "Field (specific)" from "Allgemeines/Konversation/Grußworte/Briefe" to "Dichtung und Belletristik"

Proposed translations

+3
11 Min.
Selected

verbal constructions

There are also resonances with the poet's contemporaries in France, such as the rhetorical positioning of questions, pauses, and statements one hears in Philippe Beck's Dernière mode familiale (Flammarion, 2000), or the momentum of repeating verbal constructions that elegantly subsumes the (anti)aesthetic power of proper names and referents in Pierre Alferi's Kub Or (P.O.L., 1994).

http://www.doublechange.com/issue4/wiener-eng.htm


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Note added at 23 mins (2008-08-22 21:13:50 GMT)
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Emily Dickinson
Like Emerson, she holds that beauty, truth and goodness are ultimately one. Little that she wrote seemed conventional: her choice of words, her verbal constructions, even her spelling. Her poetry abounds in telling images. A salient feature of her technique was a severe economy of expression. Her poetic idiom is noted for its laconic brevity, directness and plainest words.
http://xibu.tjfsu.edu.cn/elearning/en/en_01/w_ed/intro.htm

Sá-Carneiro’s poetry, written in Paris, expresses the crisis of a personality inadequate to its own intense feelings; it perhaps hints at the reasons for his suicide in 1916. His Dispersão (1914; “Dispersion”) features exuberant images, an obsession with verbal constructions and metaphors, and experimentation with graphic design and fonts.
http://www.britannica.com
Peer comment(s):

agree Jo Bennett : Yes, "constructions" continues the activity of "entstehen" and "-kaskaden".
12 Stunden
agree Eike Seemann DipTrans : interesting comparison with Dickinson in your second link
13 Stunden
agree Ulrike Kraemer
13 Stunden
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks to all who contributed. I like "verbal imagery" and would have used it in another context. But I think here the "Gebilde" are really the constructions."
+4
9 Min.

word creations

word figures
Peer comment(s):

agree Eike Seemann DipTrans : use of 'skurril' and general context, other key words: 'entstehen', 'Wortkaskaden', etc./ a simple, straightforward solution / not sure about 'word figures', though
12 Stunden
thank you
agree fm1 : word formation, creation of new words (e.g, stirnscheitelunterschwang, männchenmeere, gottelbock)
13 Stunden
thank you
agree Ulrike Kraemer : verbal creations?
13 Stunden
thanks, yes why not
agree Harald Moelzer (medical-translator)
3 Tage 19 Stunden
vielen Dank, Harald.
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+5
28 Min.

verbal images, verbal imagery

Here's another option for you. HTH,
BJ
Peer comment(s):

agree Helen Shiner : This would be my choice.
7 Min.
agree Kim Metzger : And a good option, too. But in poetry you don't really need "verbal." Just imagery would be fine.
9 Min.
agree EC Translate
45 Min.
agree David Hollywood : "verbal images" is super :)
1 Stunde
agree KARIN ISBELL
4 Stunden
neutral Diana Loos : IMO this contradicts the meaning of the word in the context of the sentence: "Wortgebilde" is referring not to the sense but to the construction, as is obvious in the rest of the sentence (Perspektiven). I find Kim's suggestion much more appropriate.
10 Stunden
disagree Eike Seemann DipTrans : with Diana, but IMO Swiss's first suggestion is the most appropriate one so far
11 Stunden
agree Harald Moelzer (medical-translator)
3 Tage 18 Stunden
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16 Stunden

information

the word "Gebilde" refers to unusual form(ation) of the word(s), different from the process of creating them.

Unusual word-"forms/formations" can lean towards the visual but also the aural plane, as for example Jandl's version of the Schützengraben: schtzngrmm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Jandl

Configurations of sounds/of words would be another way to see this:
http://www.beaugrande.com/Intro1981Seven.htm
Yet another way to phrase it maybe: word-constructs.

Although much of a "Wortgebilde" can be understood as having a "verbal (spoken/aural) characteristic" - to me the word "verbal" limits the range of the word-constructs Jandl built (especially regarding his concrete poetry) and doesn't do the term "Wortgebilde" justice.

Terms such as formation, fabrication, composition imply both, the process of creating as well as the result as well as some other meanings which the German "Wortgebilde" really does not (IMO).

word-structure (as "Wortgefüge") is possible, but word-construction again also implies the process.


Peer comment(s):

neutral Eike Seemann DipTrans : 'word structure' and 'formation' would be misleading(specific terms in linguistics);'Gebilde' is about the process,no?;'fabrication' is ok IMO,if a little 'denglish';'information' I don't get at all;'composition'would imply a combination of several words
45 Min.
note the hyphens between word and structure/formation; my entry is meant as additional "information" or comment, thus "titled" information.
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+1
18 Stunden

verbal artifacts

Bisher fand ich SwissTells Antwort am passendsten. Der Begriff "creation" beinhaltet sowohl die Entstehung als auch das Endergebnis. Das liest sich aus einem Gebilde auch heraus. Wunderschön die von fm1 genannten Beispiele der Jandlschen Wortschöpfungen (was als deutsches Wort wieder zu den ***word creations*** von SwissTell hinführt. Ich könnte mich allerdings auch mit den ***verbal artifacts*** anfreunden, würde schon wegen nicht so häufigen Gebrauchs ganz gut zu Jandl passen...

Ich glaub' ich muss jetzt meine Jandl-Bücher rausholen... :)

Example sentence:

Walser is many things: a Paul Klee in words, maker of droll, whimsical, tender, and heartbreaking verbal artifacts; an inspiration to such very different writers as Kafka and W.G. Sebald; an amalgam, as Susan Sontag suggests in her preface to this volume,

Peer comment(s):

agree Eike Seemann DipTrans
1 Stunde
Thanks! :)
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