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 such as

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 corpus
 General corpus
 Comparable corpora
 Parallel corpora
 Learner corpus
 Historical or diachronic corpus
 Monitor corpus
 Specializedcorpus:
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,
 concordance
 collocation.
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