Exploiting the Incomparability of Comparable Corpora for Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies

2013 ◽  
pp. 321-335
Author(s):  
Stella Neumann ◽  
Silvia Hansen-Schirra
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Comparable Corpora ◽  
Contrastive Linguistics

Using the Europarl corpus for cross-linguistic research

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 23-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Cartoni ◽  
Sandrine Zufferey ◽  
Thomas Meyer
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
European Parliament ◽  
Parallel Corpora ◽  
Comparable Corpora ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Multilingual Corpus

Europarl is a large multilingual corpus containing the minutes of the debates at the European Parliament. This article presents a method to extract different corpora from Europarl: monolingual and multilingual comparable corpora, as well as parallel corpora. Using state-of-the-art measures of homogeneity, we show that these corpora are very similar. In addition, we argue that they present many advantages for research in various fields of linguistics and translation studies, and we also discuss some of their limitations. We conclude by reviewing a number of previous studies that made use of these corpora, emphasizing in each case the possibilities offered by Europarl.

How Comparable Can 'Comparable Corpora' Be?

Target ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Laviosa
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Study ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Comparable Corpora ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Adequate Level ◽  
Problematic Aspect

Abstract The development of a coherent methodology for corpus-based work in translation studies is essential for the evolution of this newfield of research into a fully-fledged paradigm within the discipline. The design of a monolingual, multi-source-language comparable corpus of English as a resource for the systematic study of the nature of translated text can be regarded as an important step towards the development of such a methodology. This paper deals with a crucial and problematic aspect of the design of a monolingual comparable corpus, namely the achievement of an adequate level of comparability between its translational and non-translational components.

scholarly journals Translationese in Japanese Literary Translation

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-118
Author(s):  
Yukari Fukuchi Meldrum
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Literary Translation ◽  
Japanese Language ◽  
The West ◽  
Comparable Corpora ◽  
General Lack ◽  
Preliminary Examination

Translationese in Japanese, despite its distinct characteristics when compared to natural Japanese, has so far been systematically studied by only one researcher (Furuno, 2005). In addition to this general lack of scholarly interest, the translational situations in Japan are not well-known in the West. In this paper, the notions of translationese in Japan are investigated from the perspective of Translation Studies and of Kokugogaku (studies of Japanese language). In addition, this study provides reasons for conducting systematic studies of translationese in Japan, where Translation Studies is still in its initial stages. Finally, the results of a preliminary examination of small comparable corpora using a translation and a non-translation are presented.

scholarly journals Translating English Existential 'there' Sentences into Arabic: A Text-based Analysis

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ-tls for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Irfan Said
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Alternative Construction ◽  
Contrastive Linguistics ◽  
Syntactic Restrictions

English existential 'there' lacks equivalent in many languages, yet it has attracted the attention of linguists working within contrastive linguistics and translation studies. The aim of the present paper is to investigate how translators deal with English 'there' sentences in two translated Arabic texts. The method adopted in the study is a descriptive-analytic one. In Arabic the words 'hunaaka' and 'tammata' are usually used to render English 'there' ; however, the data of the study show that in many cases translators avoid using these two words. The flexibility of word order in Arabic , in addition to the use of full lexical verbs , more frequently than English does in 'there' sentences , help to translate these sentences adequately into Arabic. It is also found that syntactic restrictions are not the only reason for the fact that many 'there' sentences are not translated using 'hunaaka' and ' tammata'; the discourse and stylistic levels, play a role in the translator's decision to use other means. In some cases, the use of 'hunaaka /tammata' is shown to be optional and in other cases to be obligatory, unless an alternative construction is produced. Major translational changes affecting the information structure of the texts, are not found in the target language.

Cross-linguistic register studies

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stella Neumann
Keyword(s):  
Translation Studies ◽  
Register Studies ◽  
Contrastive Linguistics

This paper discusses register as a meaningful unit of contrastive linguistics and translation studies. Drawing on systemic functional register theory, it categorizes different approaches to register-oriented cross-linguistic studies emphasizing either the comparison of contrasted features organized by register or that of registers using features as operationalizations. The approach is exemplified with the help of sample analyses of the English-German CroCo Corpus, a corpus containing originals and translations from eight different registers. In order to account for the systematic contrastive differences in frequencies of compared features, the magnitude of difference between register-specific and register-neutral frequencies is contrasted. The paper finally discusses complex register-specific combinations of indicators and shows how these help to identify translation properties.

scholarly journals Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies Interconnected: The Corpus-based Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noelia Ramón García
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Contrastive Linguistics ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Tertium Comparationis

The relationship between contrastive linguistics (CL) and translation studies (TS) as two disciplines within the field of applied linguistics has been explored in depth by several authors, especially in the 1970s and early 1980s. From the mid-nineties on both these disciplines have experienced a great boom due to the use of computerised language corpora in linguistic analysis. We will argue in this paper that this new corpus-based approach to CL and TS makes it necessary to revise the relationship between them, and look for a new common ground to work on. Our hypothesis is that the use of translation equivalence as a tertium comparationis for a corpus-based contrastive analysis provides essential data for TS in a wide range of aspects. On the other hand, the corpus approach of TS has shed a new light on numerous aspects of CL.

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