Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/csi.5076
Diminutives and Augmentatives in Translation: An Exploratory Systemic-Functional Study of Dubravka Ugrešić's Novel "Baba Yaga Laid an Egg"
Adriana S. Pagano
orcid.org/0000-0002-3150-3503
; Graduate Programme in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Laboratory for Experimentation in Translation, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
*
Irena Stanić Rašin
orcid.org/0000-0001-5547-6186
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
This paper reports on an exploratory cross-linguistic study
of the semantic domain of diminution and augmentation.
Drawing on Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL), it inve-
stigates how meanings of smallness and largeness—realised
through morphological and lexical resources such as dimi-
nutives and augmentatives—operate in narrative discourse.
The study focuses on Dubravka Ugrešić’s Baba Jaga je sni-
jela jaje, more specifically the first part of the novel, which
is characterised by the narrator’s extensive use of expressi-
ons of diminution to depict her mother’s personality and be-
haviour. These include both the narrator’s evaluative stance
and her representation of her mother’s own speech, in which
diminutives and augmentatives serve as linguistic markers
of frailty, both physical and psychological. We compiled a
corpus of 200 sentences retrieved from Part I of the Croati-
an novel and its translations into Spanish, English, Italian,
and Portuguese. Sentences were pasted onto a spreadsheet
for manual alignment and identification of expressions of diminution and augmentation in the original and translated
samples. First, we carried out a context-level analysis of the
original and translated texts. Subsequently, we classified
each instance into two categories: (i) diminutive/augmen-
tative translated as diminutive/augmentative, and (ii) dimi-
nutive/augmentative translated as non-diminutive/non-au-
gmentative. We then computed the frequency of each class
for each language pair (source–target language). Finally, we
analysed the occurrences in terms of typological and registe-
rial constraints and examined the data to identify translation
choices potentially ascribable to the translator’s interpretive
understanding of the source text. Our findings reveal that
each language draws on distinct lexicogrammatical resour-
ces to express diminutive and augmentative meanings, with
translators’ decisions shaping the representation of character
and affect. More broadly, the study demonstrates how an
SFL-based approach can illuminate the interplay between
linguistic system, translation practice, and meaning-making
across typologically diverse languages.
Keywords
systemic-functional linguistics; multilingual studies; translation studies; semantic domain; diminution
Hrčak ID:
349328
URI
Publication date:
14.7.2026.
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