The use of language corpora as a resource in linguistics and language-related disciplines is now well-established. One of the many fields where the impact of corpora has been growing in recent years is translation, both at a descriptive and a practical level. The papers in this volume, which grew out of presentations at the conference Cult2k (Bertinoro, Italy, 2000), the second in the series Corpus Use and Learning to Translate, are principally concerned with the use of corpora as resources for the translator and as teaching and learning aids in the context of the translation classroom.
This book offers a cross-section of research by some leading scholars in the field, who offer accounts of first-hand experience and theoretical insights into the various ways of building and using appropriate corpora in translation teaching, for the benefit of teachers and learners alike. The various contributions provide a rich source of inspiration for other researchers and practitioners concerned with 'corpora in translator education'.
Contributors include Stig Johansson, Tony McEnery, Kirsten Malmkjær, Jennifer Pearson, Lynne Bowker, Krista Varantola, Belinda Maia and a number of other scholars.
Contents
Corpora in Translator Education: Contents
Corpora in Translator Education: An Introduction, Silvia Bernardini, Dominic
Stewart and Federico Zanettin, pp 1-13
Using parallel texts in the translator training environment, Jennifer
Pearson, pp 15-24
This paper aims to examine whether and how parallel corpora can be used to
inform This paper aims to examine whether and how parallel corpora can be
used to inform specialized translation courses. Comparable corpora have
already found their niche in translator training, and we will argue that
parallel corpora can be used as a complement to comparable corpora because
there will be times when comparable corpora will not suffice. A small
parallel collection of popular science articles translated from English into
French will be used to illustrate the point, and we will look at how
translation students might use resources of this type to help them in
translation.
Corpora and LSP translation, Natalie Kübler, pp 25-42
This paper reports an experimental approach in the training of LSP
translators by introducing digital corpora and corpus manipulation tools. The
use of corpora in LSP translation is nothing new. In specialized translation,
translators also work as terminologists, as they have to make up a list of
the terms of a specific domain, as well as the list of their translations
into the target language. People working in terminology have been using paper
corpora for a long time to look for term candidates and their phraseology.
The great change in the past few years stems from the greater accessibility
of digitized corpora and powerful personal computers. This paper shows how
the use of corpora and corpus query tools can greatly improve and facilitate
the work of translators.
Training translators in terminology and information retrieval using
comparable and parallel corpora, Belinda Maia, pp 43-53
The use of corpora to verify how words are used in context can be
particularly useful in areas of LSP and terminology. The very possibility of
examining terms in texts that deal with the subject matter under discussion
makes it easier for the terminologist - and also the translator - to
understand the concepts behind the terms used. However, whereas one can
follow the advice of Pearson (1998) for monolingual texts in English, it is
less
easy to find comparable or parallel texts which are reliable, of an equal
level of complexity and which offer the same information value. This paper
will look at efforts made to find and use text corpora in English and
Portuguese to further terminology work in various areas, the problems that
arise and how they can, or cannot, be solved.
Translators and disposable corpora, Krista Varantola, pp 55-70
This article will focus on the use of disposable, ad hoc corpora in
translation. The study is based on a workshop experiment using the Web as a
corpus resource. The main emphasis is on the compilation of these corpora and
their analysis tools. A distinction is made between competence and
performance in translation. It is pointed out that disposable corpora can be
structurally simple but nevertheless very useful performance-enhancing tools
in translation. A simple corpus structure does not, however, imply that there
are no design criteria for these corpora. It is claimed that the knowledge of
how to compile corpora and use them is an essential part of modern
translational competence. A tentative list of corpus management skills is
sketched at the end of the article.
Introducing Compara, the Portuguese-English parallel corpus, Ana
Frankenberg-Garcia and Diana Santos, pp 71-87
This paper is an introduction to the Portuguese-English parallel corpus,
Compara. Compara is a machine-searchable and open-ended collection of
Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese source texts and translations. It
was made for people who have never used corpora before as well as for
experienced corpus users. Compara's encoding and alignment criteria allow
users to inspect translators' notes and investigate when and where
translators have chosen to join, separate, delete, add and reorder sentences.
Also, the corpus has been specifically designed to accommodate more than one
translation per source text. Compara is freely accessible on the WWW.
Corpora, translation and multilingual computing, Tony McEnery and Paul Baker,
pp 89-102
In this paper the authors survey current development in the provision of
corpus data for use in the research and practice of translation. While
conceding that much research and development for indigenous European
languages is needed, they argue that non-indigenous minority languages in
Europe are both an important source of domestic translation tasks and are
poorly served with corpora/language processing tools.
Student translation archive and student translation tracking system - Design,
development and application, Lynne Bowker and Peter Bennison, pp 103-117
This paper describes the creation of the Student Translation Archive (STA)
and Student Translation Tracking System (STTS) currently being used to
collect, manage and study texts that have been translated by students. In
addition, it outlines a preliminary methodology for exploiting the STA by
extracting different types of corpora that may be useful or interesting in a
translator training context. Some of the difficulties encountered during the
development of the prototype system are outlined, as well as plans for future
development.
On a pseudo-subversive use of corpora in translator training, Kirsten
Malmkjær, pp 118-134
The use in translation studies of methodologies inspired by corpus
linguistics has proved to be one of the most important gate-openers to
progress in the discipline since Toury's re-thinking of the concept of
equivalence. In this paper, I discuss mainly the use of corpora in translator
education, arguing that, the many advantages to be had by this method
notwithstanding, there are problems. For example, it is not always obvious
which corpus might help a translator solve a specific problem; corpus
evidence might be misleading in
some cases; and offering past linguistic behaviour as a model for the future
flies in the face of the nature of language and may, furthermore, stifle
invention. For these reasons, I argue, it is worth exploring ways of using
corpora which may seem subversive of standard uses, either alone or in
conjunction with more traditional methods of investigation and teaching in
Translation Studies.
Reflections on corpora and their uses in cross-linguistic research, Stig
Johansson, pp 135-144
The paper attempts to set up a framework within which the contributions in
the book can be interpreted and surveys some recent developments in the
compilation and use of corpora for cross-linguistic research and translation
studies. Research questions and applications are considered, and different
models for the building of multilingual corpora are presented, with
particular reference to recent work at the University of Oslo. The paper
stresses that corpora provide openings both for learning and research. Access
to corpora may even help to bring learning and research together. This is an
auspicious time to focus on corpus use and learning to translate.
Notes on Contributors
Federico Zanettin, Silvia Bernardini, Dominic Stewart
Rohkem infot Taylor & Francis e-raamatute kohta