Corpus Linguistics and Translation Studies最早地理学著作
Implications and Applications
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Abstract
The ri of corpus linguistics has rious implications for any discipline in which language plays a major role. This paper explores the impact that the availability of corpora is likely to have on the study of translation as an empirical phenomenon. It argues that the techniques and methodology developed in the field of corpus linguistics will have a direct impact on the emerging discipline of translation studies, particularly with respect to its theoretical and descriptive branches. The nature of this impact is discusd in some detail and brief reference is made to some of the applications of corpus techniques in the applied branch of the discipline.
1.Introduction
A great deal of our experience of and knowledge about other cultures is mediated through various forms of translation, including written translations, sub-titling, dubbing, and various types of interpreting activities. The most obvious ca in point is perhaps literature. Most of us know writers such as Ibn, Dostoyevsky and Borges only through translated versions of their works. But our reliance on translation does not stop here. Our understanding of political issues, of art, and of various other areas which are central to our lives is no less dependent on translation than our understanding of world literature.
Given that translated texts play such an important role in shaping our experience of life and our view of the world, it is difficult to understand why translation has traditionally been viewed as a cond-rate activity, not worthy of rious academic enquiry, and why translated texts have been regarded as no more than cond-hand and distorted versions of ‘real’ texts. If they are to be studied at all, the cond-hand texts are traditionally analyd with the (233) sole purpo of proving that they inevitably fall short
of reproducing all the glory of the original. A striking proof of the low status accorded to translated texts comes from the young but by now well-established field of corpus linguistics. A recent survey commissioned by the Network of European Reference Corpora, an EEC-funded project, shows that many corpus builders in Europe specifically exclude translated text from their corpora.1金铺钛业 This is presumably done on the grounds that translated texts are not reprentative and that they might distort our view of the ‘real’ language under investigation. It is perhaps justifiable to exclude translated texts which are produced by non-native speakers of the language in question, but what justification can there be for excluding translations produced by native speakers, other than that translated texts per are thought to be somehow inferior or contrived? Biad as it may be, this traditional view of translation implies, in itlf, an acknowledgement of the fact that translational behavior is different from other types of linguistic behavior, quite irrespective of the translator’s mastery of the target language.
如何删除页脚The starting point of this paper is that translated texts record genuine communicative events and as such are neither inferior nor superior to other communicative events in any
language. They are however different, and the nature of this difference needs to be explored and recorded. Moreover, translation should be taken riously by related disciplines such as linguistics, literary theory and cultural and communication studies, not least becau the disciplines can benefit from the results of rearch carried out in the field of translation. At the same time, as a phenomenon which pervades almost every aspect of our lives and shapes our understanding of the world, the study of translation can hardly be relegated to the periphery of other disciplines and sub-disciplines, tho listed above being no exception. What is needed is an academic discipline which takes the phenomenon of translation as its main object of study. For many scholars, this discipline now exists. Some refer to it as the ‘science of translation’, other as ‘translatology’, but the most common term ud today is ‘translation studies’.
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Eco (1976:7) distinguishes between a discipline and a field of study. The first has “its own method and a preci object” (my emphasis). The cond has “a repertoire of interests that is not as yet completely unified”. It could be argued that translation studies is still largely a “field of study” in Eco’s terms. The vast majority of rearch carried out in this, s
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hall we say emerging discipline, is still concerned exclusively with the relationship between specific source and target texts, rather than with the nature of translated text as such. This relationship is generally investigated using notions such as equivalence, (234) correspondence, and shifts of translation, which betray a preoccupation with practical issues such as the training of translators. More important, the central role that the notions assume in the literature points to a general failure on the part of the theoretical branch of the discipline to define its object of study and to account for it. Instead of exploring features of translated texts as our object of study, we are still trying either to justify them or dismiss them by reference to their originals.
It is my belief that the time is now ripe for a major redefinition of the scope and aims of translation studies, and that we are about to witness a turning point in the history of the discipline. I would like to argue that this turning point will come as a direct conquence of access to large corpora of both original and translated texts, and of the development of specific methods and tools for interrogating such corpora in ways which are appropriate to the needs of translation scholars. Large corpora will provide theorists of translation wit
h a unique opportunity to obrve the object of their study and to explore what it is that makes it different from other objects of study, such as language in general or indeed any other kind of cultural interaction. It will also allow us to explore, on a larger scale than was ever possible before, the principles that govern translational behavior and the constraints under which it operates. Therein lie the two goals of any theoretical enquiry: to define its object of study and to account for it.玛格利特
