Translation Studies

9. The use of corpora in TS

Krisztina Károly, Spring, 2006

Sources: Olohan, 2004; Tirkkonen-Condit, 2005

The use of corpora in TS research (Olohan, 2004)

Starting point:

translators attempt to produce fluent, transparent texts

readers wish to see translations as though they were originals

Theoretical and methodological approaches

earlier: prescriptive approaches

currently: descriptive focus (describing what translations and translators actually do, what they are like, etc.)

Baker (2001): balancing objectivity and subjectivity conduct credible academic

research recognition of the role of subjectivity in scientific research,growing concern with methodology,rejection of categorizations and idealized constructs,recognition of the complexity inherent in all phenomena,inter-/multidisciplinarity, questioning of normative approaches,attention to human agency,interest in ideology and ethics,respect for qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) methods of research

Chesterman’s (2000) models of translation for translation research:

Comparative: (with corpus methodology!) translation in correlation with STs or other texts interpretive + descriptive hypotheses

Process: the translation process over time (TAP) explanatory hypotheses

Causal: causes and effects of translation (textual, social, cognitive domains) interpretive, descriptive, explanatory, predictive hypotheses

Corpus-linguistic techniques in translation research

Aim:

describe language in use (not production process!)

Stubbs (2001): “what frequently and typically occurs” (p.151)

General requirements in CL (Aarts, 1999): descriptive model

combination of quantitative and qualitative description of data

establish a relation between phenomena that are external to the language system + system-internal phenomena

describe full range of varieties (spontaneous/spoken edited/written)

integrated description of syntactic, lexical, discourse features

Corpus methods in TS:

descriptive study of Ts as they existL as used in the T product (as opposed to contrastive Lics: system-oriented, sense)what is probable and typical in T, and through this, interpreting what is unusualcombination of quantitative and qualitative corpus-based analysis, focusing on lexis, syntax, discoursal featuresapplication of methodology to different types of T (different socio-cultural settings, modes, etc.)

Problem in TS that corpus-based techniques may solve

Lack of consensus regarding the notion of laws/universals

corpus-based studies are useful as they reveal the “regularities of actual behaviour” (Toury)

conformance (or otherwise) to certain norms (that vary across + within cultures and across time).

“If the frequent and typical can be studied, so can the unusual.” (p.20)

Tirkkonen-Condit’s (2005) study

Aim:to compare frequency and uses of the clitic particle kin in translated and original Finnish in 5 genresto test the hypotheses that unique items tend to be underrepresented in translated language

RQ:Do unique items make themselves scarce in translated Finnish?

Tirkkonen-Condit’s study cont.

Unique item

= has no Lic equivalent in other Ls

e.g., kin in Finnish (frequent in both written and spoken Finnish)

Corpus

Corpus of Translated Finnish

5 genres: fiction, children’s fiction, popular fiction, academic prose, popular science

Results

average frequency of kin

- in original Finnish = 6.1 per 1,000 words;

- in translated Finnish = 4.6

great variance by author and by translator

Results cont.

the reason for its under-representation in translated Finnish: an English ST does not manifest any single linguistic element that would function as a stimulus for the translator to pick out kin as a translation equivalent

this research also supports the hypothesis on translation universals according to which translated language tends to be more schematic and to use the Lic resources of the language in a more limited fashion

Results cont.

the influence of genre diminishes in translated Finnishtranslators were also more alike in their use of kin than original writers: the original writers differed more in their use of kin than did translators.

This finding supports the hypothesis on translation universals according to which translated language tends to deviate less from standards and norms than original language.

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