The status of contrastive data in translation studies

Abstract

In early work in Translation Studies, contrastive data was often used to investigate a translator’s options, either enabling the investigation of translator decision making or in the service of translation pedagogy. The introduction of contrastive corpus data later on facilitated the shift of focus from structural comparisons of language systems to the study of situated texts (cf. Teich 1999, 2003) and relationships between linguistic variation and translational context. Today, contrastive data often inform studies of the characteristics of translated language, also known as ‘translation universals’ research. Some of the latest work in this area investigates the concurrent effects of either discourse or text type characteristics and a potential ‘universal’ or the concurrent and possibly opposing effects of several universals. As more complex results emerge, the need for explanatory hypotheses becomes increasingly urgent. At present, there are essentially two alternative (though not necessarily mutually exclusive) sets of proposals regarding potential causes of the patterns in question. One set of proposals is based on systemic functional linguistics and situates causes in the social realm, while the other set chooses to situate causes for some of these effects within the cognitive realm. Attempts to bridge the two are also beginning to appear. Theory development and hypothesis testing in TS must be integrally linked to assessments regarding the status of various data types. Such assessment efforts are imperative, and one of the most pressing issues at present involves the use of contrastive data. Using Stubbs’s discussion of language aspects as a heuristic, the present paper discusses some of the problems facing cognitive and social frameworks alike.