Quantitative Methods In Corpus Based Translation Studies

This is a comprehensive guidebook to the quantitative methods needed for Corpus-Based Translation Studies (CBTS). It provides a systematic description of the various statistical tests used in Corpus Linguistics which can be used in translation research. In Part 1, Theoretical Explorations, the interplay between quantitative and qualitative methodologies is explored. Part 2, Essential Corpus Studies, describes how to undertake quantitative studies, with a suitable level of technical and relevant case studies. Part 3, Quantitative Explorations of Literary Translations, looks at translations of classic works by Cao Xueqin, James Joyce and other authors. Finally, Part 4 on Translation Lexis uses a variety of techniques new to translation studies, including multivariate analysis and game theory. This book is aimed at students and researchers of corpus linguistics, translation studies and quantitative linguistics. It will significantly advance current translation studies in terms of methodological innovation and will fill in an important gap in the development of quantitative methods for interdisciplinary translation studies.

In the course of the last 10 years corpus-based studies of translation have given rise to a sizeable and coherent body of research within Pure and Applied Translation Studies. In view of these developments, it is important to assess the state of the art of Corpus-based Translation Studies and attempt to identify some of the main trends that are likely to characterise its expansion. The aim of this volume is to examine and evaluate the main ideas, methods of analysis, findings, and pedagogical applications of this relatively young and promising field of research. Translator trainees and teachers of translation, professional translators, young researchers, and scholars in Translation Studies will find the principles, the methodology, the discoveries, and the practical applications of corpus-based research useful and inspiring. They are useful in as far as they equip translation practitioners with tools and techniques that can truly improve the quality and efficiency of their work. They are inspiring because they reveal facts of the process and product of translation which are new, consistent, and based on solid empirical foundations.

Corpus-based translation studies has become a major paradigm and research methodology and has investigated a wide variety of topics in the last two decades. The contributions to this volume add to the range of corpus-based studies by providing examples of some less explored applications of corpus analysis methods to translation research. They show that the area keeps evolving as it constantly opens up to different frameworks and approaches, from appraisal theory to process-oriented analysis, and encompasses multiple translation settings, including (indirect) literary translation, machine (assisted)-translation and the practical work of professional legal translators. The studies included in the volume also expand the range of application of corpus applications in terms of the tools used to accomplish the research tasks outlined.

Despite the recognition that corpus-based translation research would benefit from the triangulation of corpora, little has been done in the direction of actually employing combined corpus data and methods in the field. This book aims to address this gap by providing a much needed detailed account of corpus triangulation, where different corpora (e.g. parallel, comparable, synchronic, diachronic) and/or different methods of analysis (e.g. qualitative, quantitative) can be used to increase our understanding of the phenomena where translation plays a key role. The book also demonstrates clearly how the proposed methodology can be fruitfully employed to investigate different linguistic features, through its systematic application to empirical data. The first part of the book introduces the innovative framework for corpus triangulation, which is based on a new and comprehensive corpus typology, while the second part applies the methodological framework to two case studies examining the language of translation and the relationship between translation and language change. The book advances current translation studies in terms of methodology innovation and offers a model on which future studies investigating the network of relationships surrounding translated texts can be based.

Corpus-based contrastive and translation research are areas that keep evolving in the digital age, as the range of new corpus resources and tools expands, opening up to different approaches and application contexts. The current book contains a selection of papers which focus on corpora and translation research in the digital age, outlining some recent advances and explorations. After an introductory chapter which outlines language technologies applied to translation and interpreting with a view to identifying challenges and research opportunities, the first part of the book is devoted to current advances in the creation of new parallel corpora for under-researched areas, the development of tools to manage parallel corpora or as an alternative to parallel corpora, and new methodologies to improve existing translation memory systems. The contributions in the second part of the book address a number of cutting-edge linguistic issues in the area of contrastive discourse studies and translation analysis on the basis of comparable and parallel corpora in several languages such as English, German, Swedish, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish, thus showcasing the richness of the linguistic diversity carried out in these recent investigations. Given the multiplicity of topics, methodologies and languages studied in the different chapters, the book will be of interest to a wide audience working in the fields of translation studies, contrastive linguistics and the automatic processing of language.

This is a collection of leading research within corpus-based translation studies (CTS). CTS is now recognized as a major paradigm that has transformed analysis within the discipline of translation studies. It can be defined as the use of corpus linguistic technologies to inform and elucidate the translation process, something that is increasingly accessible through advances in computer technology. The book pulls together a wide range of perspectives from respected authors in the field. All the chapters deal with the implementation of the basic concepts and methodologies, providing the reader with practical tools for their own research. The book addresses key issues in corpus analysis, including online corpora and corpus construction, and covers both translation and interpreting. The authors look at various languages and utilize a variety of approaches, qualitative and quantitative, reflecting the breadth of the field and providing many valuable examples of the methodology at work.

The book addresses different areas of corpus-based translation studies, including corpus-based study of translation features, translator’s style, norms of translation, translation practice, translator training and interpreting. It begins by tracing the development of corpus-based translation studies and introducing the compilation of different types of corpora for translation research. The use of corpora in different research areas is then discussed in detail, and the implications and limitations of corpus-based translation studies are addressed. Featuring the use of figures, tables, illustrations and case studies, as well as discussion of methodological issues, the book offers a practical guide to corpus-based translation. It will be of interest to postgraduate students and professionals who are interested in translation studies, interpreting studies or computer-aided translation.

This book introduces the latest advances in Corpus-Based Translation Studies (CBTS), a thriving subfield of Translation Studies which forms an important part of both translator training and empirical translation research. Largely empirical and exploratory, a distinctive feature of CBTS is the development and exploration of quantitative linguistic data in search of useful patterns of variation and change in translation. With the introduction of textual statistics to Translation Studies, CBTS has geared towards a new research direction that is more systematic in the identification of translation patterns; and more explanatory of any linguistic variations identified in translations. The book traces the advances from the advent of language corpora in translation studies, to the new textual dimensions and shift towards a probability-variation model. Such advances made in CBTS have enabled in-depth analyses of translation by establishing useful links between a translation and the social and cultural context in which the translation is produced, circulated and consumed.