Introducing Corpus-based Translation Studies (eBook)

Preface 6
Acknowledgments 8
Contents 10
List of Figures 16
List of Tables 18
Chapter 1: Introduction 20
1.1 Introduction 20
1.2 Definition of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 20
1.3 A Brief History of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 22
1.3.1 Corpus-Based Translation Studies: Marriage Between Corpus Linguistics and Descriptive Translation Studies 22
1.3.2 The Dawn of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 24
1.3.3 The Rapid Development of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 28
1.3.3.1 Compilation of Corpora for Translation Studies 28
1.3.3.2 Publication of Articles and Monographs on Corpus-Based Translation Studies 30
Text Selection 35
Annotation 36
Alignment 36
1.3.3.3 Conferences and Workshops on Corpus-Based Translation Studies 37
1.4 Corpus-Based Translation Studies in China: A Critical Review 38
1.4.1 The Publication of Articles on Corpus-Based Translation Studies 39
1.4.1.1 The Compilation of Corpora for Translation Studies 39
1.4.1.2 Corpus-Based Study of Universals of Translation 40
1.4.1.3 Corpus-Based Study of Features of Translations in Relation to Language Pairs 41
1.4.1.4 Corpus-Based Study of Translator Training 41
1.4.2 Funded Research Projects of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 42
1.4.3 Conferences on Corpus-Based Translation Studies 42
1.5 Major Research Areas of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 45
1.6 Overview of the Book 48
References 49
Chapter 2: Compilation of Corpora for Translation Studies 54
2.1 Introduction 54
2.2 Types of Corpora for Translation Studies 55
2.2.1 Parallel Corpora 55
2.2.1.1 Definition of Parallel Corpora 55
2.2.1.2 Types of Parallel Corpora 55
2.2.1.3 Alignment of Texts 56
2.2.1.4 Application of Parallel Corpora 57
2.2.2 Comparable Corpora 60
2.2.2.1 Definition and Types of Comparable Corpora 60
2.2.2.2 The Comparability of Texts 60
2.2.2.3 Application of Comparable Corpora 61
2.2.3 Translational Corpora 62
2.2.4 Interpreting Corpora 63
2.3 The Compilation of Corpora for Translation Studies 64
2.3.1 Corpus Design 64
2.3.1.1 The Purpose of Compiling a Corpus and Types of Corpora 65
2.3.1.2 Corpus Size and Representativeness 66
2.3.1.3 Corpus Processing 68
2.3.2 Text Selection 68
2.3.2.1 The Approaches to Text Selection 69
2.3.2.2 Selecting Texts in Line with Sampling Strategies 70
2.3.3 Text Capture 70
2.3.3.1 Capture of Written Texts 71
2.3.3.2 Capture of Spoken Texts 71
2.3.4 Word Segmentation and Annotation 72
2.3.4.1 Word Segmentation 72
2.3.4.2 Annotation 72
2.3.5 Alignment 73
2.4 Software Tools for Compiling and Using Corpora for Translation Studies 74
2.4.1 EmEditor 74
2.4.1.1 Major Functions of EmEditor 74
2.4.1.2 Using Regular Expressions to Search for and Replace a String 75
2.4.2 ICTCLAS: Chinese Lexical Analysis System 79
2.4.3 ParaConc 80
2.4.3.1 Load Corpus Files 80
2.4.3.2 View Corpus Alignment and Align Texts 80
2.4.3.3 Search in the Aligned Texts 83
2.4.3.4 Highlight Hot Words 85
2.4.3.5 Sort the Concordances 85
2.4.3.6 Save and Print Search Results 86
2.4.3.7 Word Frequency 86
2.4.4 WordSmith 89
2.4.4.1 Concord 89
2.4.4.2 WordList 93
2.4.4.3 KeyWords 95
2.5 Major Corpora for Translation Studies 96
2.5.1 Translational English Corpus 96
2.5.2 The European Parliament Proceeding Parallel Corpus 97
2.5.3 Oslo Multilingual Corpus 97
2.5.4 The Babel Chinese–English Parallel Corpus 98
2.5.5 The General English–Chinese Parallel Corpus 98
2.5.6 The Parallel Corpus of Chinese Legal Documents 99
2.5.7 The English–Chinese Parallel Corpus of Shakespeare’s Plays 100
2.5.8 The English–Chinese Parallel Corpus of Medical Texts 100
2.6 Summary 100
References 101
Chapter 3: Corpus-Based Study of Features of Translation 103
3.1 Introduction 103
3.2 Translation Universals 103
3.2.1 Studies on Universals of Translation During Pre-corpus Period of Translation Studies 104
3.2.2 Corpus-Based Study of Translation Universals 107
3.2.2.1 Explicitation 107
Definition of Explicitation 107
Types of Explicitation 108
Empirical Studies of Explicitation 110
The Causes of Explicitation 113
3.2.2.2 Implicitation 116
Definition and Types of Implicitation 116
Studies of Implicitation 116
The Causes of Implicitation 117
3.2.2.3 Simplification 119
Definition of Simplification 119
Empirical Studies of Simplification 120
The Causes of Simplification 120
3.2.2.4 Normalization 121
Definition of Normalization 121
Empirical Studies of Normalization 121
The Causes of Normalization 122
3.3 Study of Features of Translated Texts in Relation to Language Pairs 123
3.3.1 Study of Lexical Features of Translated Language 124
3.3.2 Study of Syntactic Features of Translated Language 125
3.3.2.1 Overall Syntactic Features 125
3.3.2.2 Features in the Use of Typical Syntactic Structures 126
3.3.3 The Study of Collocation in Translated Language 128
3.3.3.1 Definition of Collocation 128
3.3.3.2 Significance of Studying Collocation in Translated Language 128
3.3.3.3 The Study of Collocation in Translated Language: An Overview 128
3.3.3.4 The Study of Collocation in Translated Language: Methodology and Procedures 129
3.3.4 The Study of Semantic Prosody in Translated Language 132
3.3.4.1 Definition and Types of Semantic Prosody 132
3.3.4.2 Significance of Studying Semantic Prosody for Translation Studies 132
3.3.4.3 Case Study: The Semantic Prosody of Moderators in Interpreted Texts 133
3.3.4.4 Case Study: The Semantic Prosody of the Chinese Syntactic Structure “BEI” Structure 134
3.4 Summary 135
References 136
Chapter 4: Corpus-Based Study of Translator’s Style 140
4.1 Introduction 140
4.2 The Study of Translator’s Style: A Diachronic Review 140
4.2.1 Definition of Translator’s Style 140
4.2.2 Invisibility of Translator’s Style in Traditional Translation Studies 141
4.2.3 The Visibility of Translator’s Style in the Context of Cultural Turn into Translation Studies 141
4.2.4 Descriptive Studies of Translator’s Style: From “Voice” to “Thumbprint” 142
4.2.4.1 Translator’s “Voice” 143
4.2.4.2 Translator’s “Thumbprint” 143
4.3 Corpus-Based Study of Translator’s Style: Status Quo and Methodology 144
4.3.1 An Overview 144
4.3.2 Research Approach and Methodology 146
4.4 A Case Study: Translator’s Style and the Application of BEI Structure in the Chinese Translations of Shakespeare’s Plays 148
4.4.1 Selection of Texts 148
4.4.2 Data Search and Statistics 148
4.4.3 Statistic Analysis and Description of Translator’s Style 149
4.4.4 Reasons for Translator’s Style (1): Cognitive Schema and the Application of BEI Structure 150
4.4.5 Motivations for Translator’s Style (2): Translation Purposes and the Application of BEI Structure 151
4.5 Summary 152
References 152
Chapter 5: Corpus-Based Study of Translational Norms 154
5.1 Introduction 154
5.2 The Definition of Norm and Translational Norm 154
5.3 The Nature of Translational Norms 155
5.4 The Research on Translational Norms: An Overview 156
5.4.1 The Research on Translational Norms Within the Framework of Philology 156
5.4.2 The Research on Translational Norms Within the Framework of Functional Linguistics 157
5.4.3 The Research on Translational Norms Within the Framework of Descriptive Translation Studies 159
5.5 Corpus-Based Study of Translational Norms 164
5.5.1 Corpora in the Research on Translational Norms 164
5.5.2 Corpus-Based Study of Translational Norms: The Status Quo 166
5.5.3 Corpus-Based Study of Translational Norms: Methodology and Procedures 167
5.5.3.1 Basic Approaches to the Research on Translational Norms 167
5.5.3.2 Corpus-Based Study of Translational Norms: Methodology and Procedures 168
5.6 Case Study: Investigating the Operational Norms of the Chinese Translation of English Taboo “Womb” 169
5.7 Summary 171
References 171
Chapter 6: Corpus-Based Study of Translation Practice 174
6.1 Introduction 174
6.2 Corpus-Based Study of Translation Practice: State of the Art 174
6.2.1 Corpora in Identifying Target-Language Equivalents of Source-Language Lexicons 175
6.2.2 Corpora in the Analysis of Correspondence Between Syntactical Structures in the Source and Target Languages 176
6.2.3 Corpus-Based Study of Translation Strategies and Methods 177
6.2.4 Corpus-Based Assessment of Translation Quality 178
6.3 Corpora and Identification of Target-Language Equivalents of Source-Language Lexicons 178
6.3.1 Application of Corpora in the Translation of Inclusive Terms 179
6.3.1.1 Case Study: The English Translation of “??” in the Chinese Sentence “????????, ?????????, ???????????” 179
6.3.1.2 Case Study: The English Translation of the Chinese Sentence “???????????????” 180
6.3.1.3 Case Study: The Chinese Equivalent of the English Word “Bad” 181
6.3.2 Application of Corpora in Terminology Translation 181
6.3.2.1 Case Study: The English Translation of the Chinese Term “?? ??” 181
6.3.2.2 Case Study: The English Translations of Chinese Terms Comprising the Lexicon “??” 182
6.3.2.3 Case Study: The English Translations of the Chinese Terms Comprising the Lexicon “??” 182
6.4 Corpora and the Research on the Correspondence Between the Source and Target Languages 182
6.4.1 Case Study: A Corpus-Based Study of the Correspondence Between Chinese BA Structure and English Structures 183
6.4.2 Case Study: A Corpus-Based Study of the Correspondence Between English Passive Structure and Chinese Structures 185
6.5 Corpora and Research on Translation Strategies and Methods 187
6.5.1 Case Study: A Corpus-Based Study of the Chinese Translation of Sensitive Words in Shakespeare’s Plays 188
6.5.2 Case Study: A Corpus-Based Study of the Chinese Translation of Attributive Clauses Introduced by “Which” 189
6.5.3 Case Study: A Corpus-Based Study of Translation Strategies and Methods Adopted in the English Translations of Hongloumeng 190
6.6 Comparable Corpora and Assessment of Translation Quality 191
6.7 Summary 192
References 192
Chapter 7: Corpus-Based Study of Translation Teaching 194
7.1 Introduction 194
7.2 Corpus-Based Study of Translation Teaching: The State of the Art 195
7.3 Use of Corpora in Translation Teaching 197
7.4 Corpus-Based Translation Teaching 199
7.4.1 Evolution of Teaching Modes of Translation 199
7.4.2 Corpus-Based Mode of Translation Teaching 200
7.4.2.1 Features of Corpus-Based Mode of Translation Teaching 200
7.4.2.2 The Establishment of Corpus-Based Mode of Translation Teaching 201
7.5 The Role of Corpora in the Compilation of Translation Textbooks 203
7.5.1 Translation Textbooks in China: The State of the Art 203
7.5.2 Application of Corpora in the Compilation of Translation Textbooks 204
7.5.2.1 Corpora and the Analysis of the Difficulty of the Texts to be Translated 205
7.5.2.2 Corpora and the Selection of Translation Examples 205
7.5.2.3 Corpora and Design of Translation Exercises 206
7.6 Summary 207
References 207
Chapter 8: Corpus-Based Interpreting Studies 209
8.1 Introduction 209
8.2 Evolution of Interpreting Studies 210
8.3 Corpus-Based Interpreting Studies 212
8.3.1 Corpus-Based Interpreting Studies: The State of the Art 212
8.3.2 Compilation of an Interpreting Corpus 214
8.3.3 Corpus-Based Study of Linguistic Features of Interpreted Texts 218
8.3.4 Corpus-Based Study of Interpreting Norms 224
8.4 Case Study: Investigation of the Use of “Some” in Chinese–English Conference Interpreting 226
8.4.1 “Some” as Hedge 227
8.4.2 Data 228
8.4.3 Results and Discussions 228
8.4.4 Conclusion 230
8.5 Case Study: Investigation of the Use of the Delexical Verb “Make” in Chinese–English Conference Interpreting 231
8.5.1 “Make” as a Delexical Verb 231
8.5.2 Data 232
8.5.3 Results and Discussions 232
8.5.4 Findings 234
8.6 Summary 235
References 235
Chapter 9: Corpus-Based Translation Studies: Problems and Prospects 238
9.1 Introduction 238
9.2 Implications of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 238
9.2.1 Corpus-Based Translation Studies and Innovation of Research Methodology in Translation Studies 239
9.2.2 Corpus-Based Translation Studies and Broadened Scope of Translation Studies 240
9.3 Problems in Corpus-Based Translation Studies 241
9.3.1 Technological Limitations of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 241
9.3.2 Methodological Limitations of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 243
9.3.3 Limitations of Corpus-Based Translation Studies in Terms of Width and Depth 243
9.4 Prospects of Corpus-Based Translation Studies 244
9.5 Summary 248
References 248
Bibliography 249
Index 254