'morning, Russell

Take a look at this recent post for reference,

http://www.proz.com/kudoz/3622906

Cheers,
Barbara

from theEncyclopædia Britannica literature

in manuscript tradition, a blending whereby a single manuscript contains readings originating from different sources or different lines of tradition. In literature, contamination refers to a blending of legends or stories that results in new combinations of incident or in modifications of plot.

Moreover not rare 'linguist contamination', that means actuallly being exposed and therefore influenced from other languages.


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Note added at 16 hrs (2010-01-09 12:45:34 GMT)
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CONTAMINATION - Dear English speaking colleagues you are very democratic!!

I try not to have a 'normative' approach, repeating myself that every speaker has indeed his own competence and linguistic intelligence. But 'linguistic competence' and linguistic sensitivity to the (figurative) meanings of words are shaped very much by individuals' cultural environment and upbringing.

In our case, as you justifiably said, 'contamination' is clearly a word that is loosing its neutral connotation (definitively no amelioration in sight) and is more and more going through a pejoration process. Probably this is because, everyday we are reading unfortunatly on the Press about the miserable conditions of our planet and the pollution's backlashes on future generations.

But as a matter of fact, as stated in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, this word still has a neutral connotation in the field of Arts, Literature and -I add- Linguistics (even if, and here we are again, sometimes purists use it as synonym for corruption).

What struck me is the deep linguistic 'democracy' of you, British colleagues. You defintely deem more important final users than the text and the author itself.
This is a huge diference in mentality. I believe that most Italian translators would think: this is a text of Arts and requires 'humanistic competence', readers have to know it. Therefore we use 'contamination' in its positive subsense. Perhaps they would insert a note explaining it or they would precede 'contamination' with a positive adjective turning the word into an unquestonably positive term.

In a nutshell, and our language history is a very good example for it, Italians are used to have more a normative approach than the English speakers.

Hope to meet you all soon!

Kindest Regards

Francesca