Cross-linguistic register studies

Abstract

This paper discusses register as a meaningful unit of contrastive linguistics and translation studies. Drawing on systemic functional register theory, it categorizes different approaches to register-oriented cross-linguistic studies emphasizing either the comparison of contrasted features organized by register or that of registers using features as operationalizations. The approach is exemplified with the help of sample analyses of the English-German CroCo Corpus, a corpus containing originals and translations from eight different registers. In order to account for the systematic contrastive differences in frequencies of compared features, the magnitude of difference between register-specific and register-neutral frequencies is contrasted. The paper finally discusses complex register-specific combinations of indicators and shows how these help to identify translation properties.