Translation Studies

8. Research methods in Translation Studies

Krisztina Károly, Spring, 2006

Sources: Károly, 2002; Klaudy, 2003

8.1. Empirical methods (Klaudy, 2003)

Translation research: in 3 directions

the product (subject = reader)

the process (subject = translator)

the function (subject = reader)

Product-oriented methods of data collection (to measure readability):

(1) The cloze test

effective in measuring language proficiency in general and the reading skill in particular

prepared by deleting every nth word from a continuous stretch of text, and the reader has to fill in the missing words

do not only measure how well students understand texts, but they can also show how understandable the text is capable of measuring the readability of translated texts

Problems of cloze tests:

the readability/comprehensibility of a TL text produced as a result of translation cannot be assessed independently, only in comparison or relative to other texts (SL text or other TL texts)it is maybe more beneficial to compare the different translations of the same text with the help of a cloze-test

(2) The questionnaire

to measure readers' reactions: readers, having gone through the translation(s), write down their intuitive impressions about the text(s) readpossible areas of use (Klaudy’s experiments): (a) to judge whether a text was an original Hungarian text or a translation as a part of an experiment to demonstrate the phenomenon of so called “quasi-correctness” in translated Hungarian texts(b) to explore how e.g. explicitation affects readers' perceptions of the translations

Questionnaire cont.types of questions asked in (a) (after having read the texts at usual speed):(1) Do you think the above text is an original text or a translation? (decision)(2) How do you know? (explanation)(3) If you believe it is a translation, how would you rate it? (evaluation)

types questions asked in (b) (aim=how one type of explicitation, addition, affects the readability):(1) First part of the questionnaire (global reading): participants were asked to read the two translations and decide whether they perceived any differences between the two versions, and if so, which translation they considered to be better.(2) Second part (text analysis): they had to find additions in both translations.

Process-oriented method: Introspection (Think-aloud protocols)

to investigate thinking processes during translation (first used by Hans Krings, 1986)asks L learners to speak into a tape recorder and tell everything that comes into their minds while translating; recordings are transcribed (=think aloud protocols) and analysed according to various criteriapossible areas of investigation: determining the proportion of automatic and non-automatic thinking processes; editing, etc.

8.2 Corpus-based research methods

Key concepts (Károly, 2002):corpus: "A corpus is a body of text assembled according to explicit design criteria for a specific purpose." (Atkins & Clear, 1992, p.5)learner corpus: "… computer textual data base of the language produced by foreign language learners." (Leech, 1998, p.xiv)

Key concepts cont.

corpus annotation: "… the practice of adding interpretative (especially linguistic) information to an existing corpus of spoken and/or written language by some kind of coding attached, or interpersed with, the electronic representation of the language material itself." (Leech, 1993, p.275) tagged - untagged corpusconcordancing programs: allow the user to search for specific target words in a corpus, providing exhaustive lists for the occurrences of the word in context (Figure 1) and frequency information (Figure 2) (Biber, Conrad, & Reppen, 1998, p.29)

Figure 1: Sample Key Word in Context (KWIC) concordance listings for deal(Biber, Conrad, & Reppen, 1998, p.27)

and secret plans prepared to deal with the mass sit-down

of companies and put one property deal through each. Mr.

. In particular, a good deal of concern has been

hangs a tale - and a great deal of money. Neville

where his new measures to deal with Britain's

just a matter of working a good deal harder before we really

. "I'm mixed up in a deal involving millions

Figure 2: Frequency list of forms of deal (from the LOB Corpus: 1 million words)(Biber, Conrad, & Reppen, 1998, p.29)

deal ………………………………….. 182

dealing ………………………………. 52

deals …………………………………. 25

dealt ………………………………….. 31

Criteria of corpora (Klaudy, 2003):

(1) It must be a collection of texts that can be read by machine and is thus analysable automatically or semi-automatically.

(2) A corpus may include not only written texts, but also spoken discourse.

(3) A corpus is not the work of a single author, but it is a collection of texts from various sources and on various topics (it does not even have to be a continuous piece of text), the only important thing is that it must be compiled on the basis of pre-established criteria.

Selection criteria for corpus design (Baker, 1995):

(1) general language vs. restricted domain

(2) written vs. spoken language(3) synchronic vs. diachronic(4) typicality in terms of range of sources

(writers/speakers) and genres (e.g. newspaper editorials, radio interviews, fiction, journal articles, court hearings)

(5) geographical limits. e.g., British vs. American English

(6) monolingual vs. bilingual or multilingual” (Baker 1995:229)

Types of corpora

Multilingual corpora: similar text types in several languagesBilingual corpora:-parallel: source text and its translation in

another L (may be bi-directional),-comparable (translated texts): texts

spontaneously produced in two languages in similar circumstances and within the same domains

Monolingual (comparable) corpora: authentic/original texts and translated texts in the same languageTranslation corpora: consisting of only translations

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