University of Surrey - Guildford
Registry
  
 

  
 
Registry > Module Catalogue
View Module List by A.O.U. and Level  Alphabetical Module Code List  Alphabetical Module Title List  Alphabetical Old Short Name List  View Menu 
2010/1 Module Catalogue
 Module Code: TRAM179 Module Title: TRANSLATION INTERPRETING AND CORPORA
Module Provider: Language & Translation Studies Short Name: TRAM179
Level: M Module Co-ordinator: BRAUN S Dr (Lang & Trans)
Number of credits: 15 Number of ECTS credits: 7.5
 
Module Availability

Semester 2
Assessment Pattern

Unit(s) of Assessment
Weighting Towards Module Mark (%)
Small-scale research project
50%
Essay of 2,000-2,500 words
50%
Qualifying Condition(s): An average mark of 50% is required to pass the module.

Module Overview

Corpora can be used for the study of different aspects of language, to uncover typical and frequent patterns of language use (collocation), to investigate word meaning, the style of an author and much more. Corpora and corpus-based methods of analysis are also increasingly used in translation and interpreting research, e.g. to uncover what is typical of translated/interpreted texts, as a tool in translation/interpreting practice and as a resource for translator/interpreter training. This module provides an introduction to corpora, corpus-based methods and their uses in Translation and Interpreting.
Prerequisites/Co-requisites

First degree in English, an appropriate language or equivalent.

Module Aims

The module aims to familiarise students with the key concepts and methods of corpus linguistics. It enables students to use different types of corpora and corpus techniques to research aspects of text, translation and interpreting, and to answer research questions in Translation and Interpreting Studies.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
  • use corpus-based methods of analysis
  • demonstrate familiarity with basic principles of corpus design
  • use corpora and corpus tools to extract different types of data
  • relate different types of corpora to the study of different aspects of language, translation and interpreting
  • design a piece of corpus-based research to answer a research question in Translation and Interpreting Studies
Module Content
Outline syllabus:
  • Corpus Linguistics (history, basic assumptions)
  • Types of corpora (monolingual, comparable, parallel corpora; reference corpora, specialised corpora, translation/interpreting corpora)
  • How to 'read' a corpus (basic corpus tools and techniques of corpus investigation)
  • Corpus-based methods of the study of language (qualitative, quantitative etc.)
  • Corpus-based translation research, its potential and limitations
  • Applications of corpus linguistics in Translation and Interpreting Studies (e.g. 'wordwatch', terminology and phraseology, neologisms, style, ideology)
  • Corpora as a tool for the translator/interpreter and as a resource for translator/interpreter training

DIY: building a corpus (corpus design, advantages, problems and pitfalls)
Methods of Teaching/Learning

Classes will consist of a mix of approx. 30% teacher-led input and discussion, and 70% discussion and practical exercises. Students will conduct a small-scale research project, applying one or more corpus-based methods to research a chosen aspect of translation.
The module will normally involve twenty four hours class contact in the Spring semester.

Selected Texts/Journals
Essential Reading
Bowker, L. / Pearson, J. (2002). Working with specialized language: a practical guide to using corpora. London: Routledge.
Olohan, M. (2004). Introducing corpora in Translation Studies. London: Routledge.
 
Recommended reading
Anderman, G. / Rogers, M. (Eds) (2008). Incorporating corpora: The linguist and the translator. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Aston, G. (1998). What corpora for ESP? In M. Pavesi / G. Bernini (Eds), L'apprendimento linguistico all'università: le lingue speciali. Roma: Bulzoni, 205-226.
Online: http://home2.sslmit.unibo.it/~guy/pavesi.htm
Aston, G. (1999). Corpus use and learning to translate. Textus 12, 289-314.
Online: http://home2.sslmit.unibo.it/~guy/textus.htm
Aston, G. (2002). Getting one's teeth into a corpus. In M. Tan (Ed), Corpus studies in language education. Bangkok: IELE Press, 131-144. Online: http://home2.sslmit.unibo.it/~guy/tan.htm
Baker, M. (1995). Corpora in Translation Studies: An overview and some suggestions for future research. Target 7, 223-243.
Biber, D. / Conrad, S. / Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus linguistics: investigating language structure and use. Cambridge: CUP.
Hunston, S. (2002). Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.
Laviosa, S. (Ed) (1998). The corpus-based approach. Special issue of Meta 43(4).
Laviosa, S. (2002). Corpus-based Translation Studies. Theory, findings, applications. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Rodrigo, E.Y. (Ed) (2008). Topics in language resources for translation and localisation. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, concordance and collocation. Oxford: OUP.
 
Background reading
Botley, S. / McEnery, T. / Wilson, A. (Eds) (2000). Multilingual corpora in teaching and research. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Braun, S. / Kohn, K. / Mukherjee, J. (Eds) (2006). Corpus technology and Language pedagogy: New resources, new tools, new methods. Frankfurt: Lang.
McEnery, T. / Wilson, A. (1996). Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
Kennedy, G. (1998). Introduction to Corpus Linguistics. London: Longman.
Stubbs, M. (1996). Text and corpus analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Veronis, J. (Ed) (2000). Parallel text processing. Alignment and use of translation corpora. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Zanettin, F. / Bernardini, S. / Stewart, D. (Eds) (2003). Corpora in translator education. Manchester: St. Jerome.
Last Updated

17 December 2010