CORPORA IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

WHAT IS CORPORA?

The word corpus is used to describe a collection of examples of language collected for linguistic study.It can also describe collections of texts stored and accessed electronically. (Hunston, 2002).

WHAT ARE CORPORA USED FOR?

They give information about how a language works.

Exploring corpora can help students to observe nuances of usage and to make comparisons between languages.

Corpora are also used to investigate cultural attitudes expressed through language.

CORPUS ANALYSIS TOOLS

Corpora analysis tools suchas Wordsmith, TextStat and

AntConc. These tools provide users with information on the total number of running words in the corpus, the frequency of words, keywords, concordances, collocations and clusters of words.

USING CORPORA IN TRANSLATION

Comparable corpora allow to compare the use of apparent equivalents

Parallel corpora allow to see how words and phrases have been translated in the past.

General corpora can be used to establish norm of frequency and usage.

TYPES OF CORPORA

A corpus is designed for a particular purpose. Consequently, the type of corpus depends on its purpose:Specialized corpusGeneral corpusComparable corporaParallel corporaLearner corpusHistorical or diachronic corpusMonitor corpus

Specialized corpus: i.e→editorials, academic

articles, lectures, essays. General corpus: is a corpus of texts of many

types, of written or spoken language, or of both.

Comparable corpora: i.e→ newspaper texts, essays, novels,

conversations, etc. They can be used by translators and learners

to identify differences and equivalences in each language.Parallel corpora:

i.e→ EU texts. They can be used by translators and learners

to find potential equivalents in each language, and to investigate differences between languages.

Learner corpus: a collection of texts produced by learners of a language.

Historical or diachronic corpus: a corpus of texts from different periods of time.

Monitor corpus: a corpus used to track current changes in a language.

The use of corpora is not limited to identifying, quantifying and analyzing keywords

Calculating collocation means finding the statystical tendency of words to co-occur, and collocations also emphasize some metaphorical use.

Shed light

Shed tears

Shed blood

Shed pounds

Shed skin

WHAT CAN A CORPUS DO?

Corpus access software is used to rearrange the information which has been stored so that observations of various kinds can be made.

Software packages process data showing: frequency,concordancecollocation.

FREQUENCY

Corpus processing allows comparisons of words in terms of frequency lists.

Grammar words are more frequent than lexical words. Frequency lists can be useful for identifying differences

between the corpora. Comparisons can be made only if the corpora are comparable, i.e. if their length is approximately the same.

CONCORDANCE

The most frequent way to access a corpus is through a concordancing program.

Concordances help to understand how nouns or adjectives are used.

COLLOCATION

Collocation is the tendency of words to co-occur.

The collocates of a given word are those words which often occur in conjunction

Collocation can indicate pairs of lexical items, or the association between a lexical word and its frequent grammatical environment.

COULD YOU TRANSLATE THIS TEXT, PLEASE?

Mardin, tarih meraklılarının ilgisini çekecek bir fotoğraf sergisine ev sahipliği yapıyor. Osmanlı döneminin meşhur fotoğraf stüdyolarında çekilmiş fotoğraflardan oluşan sergide; dervişler, dilenciler, satıcılar, sokaklar ve köy pazarlarının değişmez figürler olarak yer aldığı 100’den fazla eser sergileniyor. Sergi kapsamında Mardinli çocuk ve gençlere yönelik eğitim programları da düzenleniyor.Mardin Valiliği’nin de desteğiyle Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi tarafından açılan “Batı’nın Gözüyle Doğu Fotoğrafları” sergisi, bir yıl boyunca ziyarete açık olacak.

Mardin is playing host to a photography exhibition that’s sure to interest to history buffs. The show, consisting of upwards of 100 photographs shot in the famous Ottoman photography studios of their time, features such stock figures as dervishes, beggars and street vendors as well as street and village market scenes. Educational programs for the children and young people of Mardin are also being organized in conjunction with the exhibition. Hosted by the Sakıp Sabancı Museum with the backing of the Office of the Governor of Mardin Province, “Photographs of The East as Viewed from the West” will be open to visitors all year long.

REFERENCES

http://www.international.ucla.edu/media/files/Using-corpora-in-the-language-learning-classroom--Corpus-linguistics-for-teachers-my-atc.pdf

http://uncavim20.unc.edu.ar/file.php/406/Corpora_in_Translation_Studies._Kenny.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpora_in_Translation_Studies

THANK YOU FOR YOUR VALUABLE PARTICIPATION!

Mecnun GENÇ