Translation Studies

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Translation Studies

• 8. Research methods in Translation Studies
• Krisztina Károly, Spring, 2006
• Sources Károly, 2002 Klaudy, 2003

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8.1. Empirical methods (Klaudy, 2003)

• Translation research in 3 directions
• the product (subject reader)
• the process (subject translator)
• the function (subject reader)

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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

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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

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(2) The questionnaire

• to measure readers' reactions readers, having
  gone through the translation(s), write down their
  intuitive impressions about the text(s) read
• possible areas of use (Klaudys 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

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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) (aimhow 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.

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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 criteria
• possible areas of investigation determining the
  proportion of automatic and non-automatic
  thinking processes editing, etc.

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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)

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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 corpus
• concordancing 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)

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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
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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
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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.

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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 1995229)

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Types of corpora

• Multilingual corpora similar text types in
  several languages
• Bilingual 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 language
• Translation corpora consisting of only
  translations