Translation Corpus Research Articles

Saudi Learner Translation Corpus: The design and compilation of an English-Arabic learner translation corpus.

This article introduces the Saudi Learner Translation Corpus (SauLTC), an innovative multi-version English-Arabic parallel corpus featuring part-of-speech tagging. We describe the corpus parameters and compilation process and explain how textual processing and sentence alignment are conducted. The participants include 366 student translators, 48 instructors, and 23 alignment verifiers. The corpus provides access to two target versions of every ST to allow the detection of the changes in the translation and revision processes from the initial to the final draft. The translations were collected over three years, yielding 5,160,386 tokens. The metadata of 23 sentence alignment verifiers were added to the analysis as a unique variable to investigate individual differences in the manual verification process. This unidirectional corpus can be used to identify student translators' strategies and errors in translation and analyze the efficacy of instructors' feedback. Furthermore, it is accessible via an application and a website. It provides translation teachers and researchers with a database that can help develop corpus-based and corpus-driven teaching materials.

A Corpus-Assisted Study of Translation Criticism and Translation Quality Assessment

Translation criticism is mainly used to assess the quality and value of translation works, which is different from the traditional descriptive translation research. At present, some researchers often confuse the two, resulting in some corpus-based translation criticism stopping at the descriptive level and hindering the development of translation criticism. In view of this, this paper attempts to clarify the difference between corpus-assisted translation criticism and corpus translation studies, corpus translation criticism, and to explore the research scope of corpus-assisted translation criticism and refine its research design. In addition, the paper explores the development direction of this research paradigm and the limitations due to the constraints of current corpus technology and natural language processing technology. This paper aims to further promote the development of translation criticism in a scientific and systematic direction, so that scholars can more effectively assess translation quality and guide translation practice.

How do students engage with parallel corpora in translation? A multiple case study approach

AbstractWhile emerging research has contributed significantly to our understanding of the efficacy of parallel corpora in translation education, specifically concerning student performance and perception, however, there remains a noticeable gap in the literature regarding the examination of student engagement with parallel corpora during the translation process. To address this research gap, the present study seeks to comprehensively analyse the behavioural, cognitive, and affective engagement of three MA students when utilizing parallel corpora in Chinese–English translation tasks. A multiple case study design was implemented, drawing upon a diverse range of data sources, including screencasts capturing students’ translation processes, the resultant translation outputs, corpus search logs, and in‐depth interviews. The findings of this investigation reveal distinct engagement patterns exhibited by individual students and underscore the intricate interplay of these three dimensions of engagement. Furthermore, student engagement with the parallel corpus significantly influences their translation performance. This research also unveils various factors that impact student engagement patterns, including the perceived affordances of the parallel corpus, students’ self‐perception, and learning motivation.

The extraction method used for English–Chinese machine translation corpus based on bilingual sentence pair coverage

Abstract To improve the effect of corpus extraction in bilingual English–Chinese machine translation (ECMT), this article combines a machine learning algorithm with the ECMT corpus extraction method based on bilingual sentence pair coverage. Aiming at the propagation characteristics of medium- and short-range speeches, and employing multi-band speech waveforms in the troposphere, the actual requirements of remote machine translation are combined with the free-space, 1546, and the dual-path models, respectively, to analyze three typical air-to-ground wave propagation models. A simulation is conducted for both predictions and comparisons. In addition, a radio wave propagation model within the line of sight in the troposphere is established. The results suggest that the improved dual-path model is consistent with the propagation characteristics of radio waves in the troposphere. Moreover, the experiments show that the proposed ECMT corpus extraction method based on bilingual sentence pair coverage can play an important role in more accurate English–Chinese translations.

Revealing the translator's style: A corpus-based study of english translations of Mencius.

Based on the self-built English translation corpus of Mencius, this study conducts a lexical, syntactical and textual comparative analysis of Mencius English translations by James Legge (1861), Leonard A.Lyall (1932) and D.C.Lau (1970) through adopting a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and employing Tokenizer, Tree Tagger, WordSmith8.0, AntConc and Readability Analyzer software. By analyzing representative translation examples and the para-text of each translation, this study explores the relationship among the historical background, translator's cultural identity and translation motivation. The results reveal that the translator's style is closely related to the translation strategy determined by the translation purpose rooted in translator's cultural identity in different historical and social backgrounds.The study findings will bring a new perspective for the translator's cultural identity research, contribute to the translator's style study and deepen the understanding of the English translation and overseas dissemination of Mencius with the help of corpus technology.

Charting the Trajectory of Corpus Translation Studies: Exploring Future Avenues for Advancement

Abstract This article delves into the trajectory of corpus translation studies (CTS) over the past two decades, summarizing key areas of existing research and identifying potential gaps and challenges within the field. The review encompasses various research areas, including translation universals, translator style, translation norms, and translation pedagogy. It acknowledges the valuable contributions made in these areas while also highlighting potential areas for improvement, such as the need to incorporate functional aspects in translator style research and align translation training programs with professional requirements. The review introduces (De Sutter, Gert, and Marie-Aude Lefer. 2020. “On the Need for a New Research Agenda for Corpus-Based Translation Studies: A Multi-Methodological, Multifactorial and Interdisciplinary Approach.” Perspectives 28 (1): 1–23) new research agenda for CTS, which advocates for multifactorial designs, methodological pluralism, and interdisciplinarity. This agenda facilitates two analysis modes: one utilizing corpus methods to examine translation products, and the other employing diverse methods to investigate products, processes, participants, and contexts in corpus-assisted translation practices. It is argued that these two analysis modes offer valuable guidance for future corpus-assisted translation studies.

The Effect of Corpus Translation Assistance on Translation Learning Outcomes

The Effect of Corpus Translation Assistance on Translation Learning Outcomes

Cross-Border E-commerce Product Introduction: Needs and Characteristics for Localized Machine Translation

With the development of science and technology and the rise of international trade, cross-border e-commerce platforms play an important role in international trade. While machine translation plays a crucial role in the introduction of goods in cross-border e-commerce, many machine translations have limitations, such as inaccurate descriptions and not conforming to Internet trends and cultural conflicts. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the characteristics of localization translation and apply them to the establishment of a machine translation corpus. By conducting questionnaires, this paper analyses the translation characteristics and user needs of cross-border e-commerce product introductions. The results found that product introduction translation needs to have the following characteristics: accurate description, comprehensive description, vivid description, concise description, and cross-cultural homogeneity. Based on the analysis, this study raises credible and valid suggestions and provides insights into building a machine translation corpus.

The Chekhov Digital project: semantic markup of a parallel corpus of translations of Chekhov's fiction into German

The article discusses the issues of developing the principles of a semantically marked parallel corpus of translations of Chekhov's fiction into German within the framework of the Chekhov Digital project, a digital academic publication of the writer's collected works in TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) format. The parallel corpus project is focused on creating a digital infrastructure for studying the writer's works, allowing researchers to analyze and compare original texts with their translations. Difficulties were identified related to the interpretation of significant elements of the writer's works, the specifics of their translation into German and the semantic markup of translations of fiction, for example, difficulties arose with defining the boundaries and relationships between the elements of semantic markup. Ways to overcome them are proposed, including the use of digital methods and natural language processing technologies. The project uses digital methods and technologies of natural language processing, the standard of digital publication Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). The text markup structure based on the TEI standard makes documents machine-readable, which allows to develop tools for complex semantic information retrieval. The inclusion in the Chekhov Digital project of parallel corpora of translations of A. P. Chekhov's works into different languages makes it possible to expand research tools in the field of translation studies, making it possible to compare texts of translations and originals, detect similarities and differences in vocabulary, grammar, style and cultural references, as well as automate routine research processes, which makes search and analysis much more effective information on large volumes of texts. The results of the project will contribute to the development of the digital humanitarian environment, contributing to the preservation and popularization of the literary heritage of A.P. Chekhov. The creation of a semantically marked parallel corpus of translations will be important for literary critics, linguists and translators, allowing them to study the specifics of translations of Chekhov's works and develop new forms of text analysis and interpretation. The experience gained during the project will be valuable for future research and practical applications, demonstrating the effectiveness of digital technologies in humanitarian research and education.

Sound Japanese corpus to help Jiangmen's cultural and tourism industry develop in high-quality

Nowadays, epidemic prevention and control are fully liberalized, the domestic economic situation is good, and the tourism fever climbs. The hit of the TV series "Rampage" made Jiangmen tourism become a popular tourist city for a while. For this reason, it is urgent to improve and supplement the translated foreign propaganda materials of Jiangmen attractions promptly, and at the same time increase its language variety, to help Chinese and foreign cultural exchanges, and then enhance the international influence of Jiangmen attractions. By analyzing the current situation of Japanese corpus translation of domestic attractions, combining with the existing Japanese corpus translation of foreign attractions that can be learned from, using the knowledge learned to try to supplement the Japanese translation materials of Jiangmen attractions, and providing reference opinions for the key issues raised.

The Challenge of Transfering The Cultural Dimension in the Literary Translation ‘’The Old Man and the Sea as example’’

Literary translation has always taken an important place in translation studies and has attracted the interest of researchers and scholars in the field. The cultural element transferfrom one language to another in the narrative domain presents many problems. We try to highlight it through this paper. Based on a corpus of multiple translations of Ernest Hemingway's novel "The Old Man and the Sea" into Arabic. The novel contains many cultural references, especially those spoken by Santiago. Thus, We will try to answer the following questions:- What strategies and techniques exist to transfer religious elements from English to Arabic in the context of literary translation?- What are the most important difficulties and problems facing a literary translator when transferring a literary work into Arabic? With particular emphasis on cultural elements.- Does the translator's background and cultural environment influence his translation choices when dealing with cultural elements?To answer these questions, we will study multiple examples of different translations of the novel: Through the diversity andthe plurality of backgrounds among translators, we try to draw the most important differences between translations and each translator's way of dealing with every cultural element, healing the purpose of adopting one method of translation rather than another.

On the emergence of argument encoding in causatives constructions in Romance

Causative constructions in Romance show complex variation regarding the case of the subject of the non-finite clause (causee) and to its position with respect to the main causative verb and the embedded non-finite verb. It has been argued that the variation reflects the diachronic evolution of the causative construction in Romance and also documents an ongoing process of further development. We present original empirical data from a comparative corpus of Bible translations that provide new insights into diachronic evolution as well as to the synchronic variation. Our comparative approach allows us to generalize over additional semantic and pragmatic parameters for the choice of a particular construction. Our data support the assumption of the extension of ECM from clitic to nominal causee constructions in French, but they do not support this for Italian. For Spanish we see some ECM constructions in the most recent translation only.

THE NEED FOR COMPARABLE CORPORA IN TRANSLATION TEACHING AND LEARNING

The primary objective of this research is to catalyze the scholarly progress of translation teaching and learning within higher education institutions in Albania, specifically in the preparation of students in the field of translation theory and practice. The study aims to contribute significantly to the theory and practice of translation by emphasizing the imperative to develop comparable corpora of English-Albanian texts across diverse text types. Additionally, the research will delve into establishing a typology of translation strategies in Albania. Building upon the pioneering efforts of the researchers in previous work, which involved the translation of English and Albanian texts using linguistic, stylistic, and semantic techniques, this study also pays meticulous attention to the intricate relationship between the translation process and its resulting product. By focusing on the development of comparable corpora, this research presents a valuable opportunity to enhance both the theory and practice of utilizing bilingual corpora in the context of translation teaching, learning, and research. The outcomes of this research endeavor will provide the foundational framework for the future formulation of a streamlined pedagogical typology specifically addressing the use of comparable corpora in teaching and learning translation strategies in the English-Albanian context. This typology, once developed, will further serve as the basis for generating a series of project concepts with the overarching goal of establishing cooperative agreements. These agreements are envisioned to foster collaboration in the future with colleagues from regional and Western universities, as well as with researchers and experts in the field of translation.

Contrasting Relativization in some Naomi Alderman’s Novels and their French Translation from a Syntactic and a Semantic Perspectives

Language in usage is the result of various operations. Linguistic operations are worth studying so as to uncover the subtleties which make languages to be unique in their inner organization. These operations occur within various linguistic units (words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and texts) and can be studied at various levels of linguistic analysis (Dutoit, 2000). Provided the wide range of such operations, the notion of clause operations is therefore the subject of this article; more specifically, this study intends to contrast relativization from a syntactic and semantic point of view based on an English-French translation corpus (extracted from three novels by Naomi Alderman and their French translations). With the aid of the Meaning-Text Theory (MTT), the findings suggest that there are convergent and divergent syntactic properties, shared syntactic processes, and common syntactic functions related to the translational renderings of relative markers. Moreover, the contrastive analysis of relativization from a semantic viewpoint reveals some semantic functions undertaken by relative markers, some correspondence types between relatives of different versions of the corpus, and some translation procedures used by translators while rendering the overall meaning of the source text.

German-to-Basque Translation Analysis of Multiword Expressions in a Learner Translation Corpus

This paper presents the results of the annotation in a learner translation corpus consisting of German source texts and student translations into Basque. The analysis was carried out with the purpose of identifying trainee translators’ strengths and weaknesses when translating multiword expressions, such as compounds, collocations, and idioms. The data comprised eight German source texts and sixty-eight Basque translations from undergraduate students enrolled at the University of the Basque Country. From the total number of annotations (1214), which include not only errors but also cases of interference from the source language and positive outcomes, around 27 % are related to multiword expressions. The results of the translation analysis show that there are variables — such as the use of machine translation systems, the level of specialisation of the source text, the type of multiword expression to be translated or the absence of a literal counterpart in the target language — that may affect the translation of such units and lead to erroneous solutions and/or interference in the outputs produced by the trainee translators. From a pedagogical point of view, these findings will have a direct impact on the translation classes and will be very valuable for designing corpus-based in-class activities

The theory of argument formation: between kinds and properties

Abstract Chierchia (1998) developed a cross-linguistic extension to Carlsons seminal work on bare nouns (BNs), producing the most influential theory of argument formation to date, henceforth the Kinds Approach (KA). The core achievements of the KA included the derivation of the generalized narrow scope behavior of BNs and of the existence of generalized classifier languages. There are cracks in the picture, though. The narrow scope behavior of BNs is more fine-grained than is generally assumed and the KA lacks the flexibility to deal with it (Le Bruyn & Swart 2022). The appeal of the KAs derivation of the existence of generalized classifier languages heavily relied on all nouns in these languages being mass-like, an assumption that has since been abandoned (Chierchia 2010; Jiang 2020). These developments call for a reassessment of the KA and one of its closest competitors: Krifka 2003. Krifka assumes nouns never start life as kinds but as predicates, leading us to qualify his approach as a Properties Approach (PA).We adopt a translation corpus approach and assess the explanatory potential of the KA and the PA by comparing the distribution of BNs and related expressions in (in)definite contexts across six typologically different languages. Our results show that the PA has a distinct advantage over the KA and identify pseudo-incorporation and the way it varies across languages as a primary focus for future research.

The Impact of Corpus-Based Back-Translation Research on Enhancing English Writing Skills in High Schools --The Economist as an Example

Currently, under the background of the new curriculum reform of the college entrance examination, the requirement of students' ability in the practical use of the English language is more and more emphasized, but the students' writing ability has not improved synchronously, and low-level errors and unorthodox expressions are often found in test writing. In order to analyze the inappropriate expressions in students' writing and improve their writing ability, the author introduces "back-translation" in the field of translation as a teaching method. Back-translation training is conducted with a focus on 30 selected students. These students are exposed to moderately challenging statements extracted from foreign magazines, designed to resemble the content found in high school students' test writing. Subsequently, a corpus of these students' translations is compiled for analysis. This analysis involves a comparison of their translated work with the original language used in the foreign magazines. This process serves to evaluate the writing proficiency of the students. Through the comparison with the original language of the foreign journals, this study analyzed the inappropriate aspects of the students' vocabulary to improve the accuracy of vocabulary expression to improve the writing ability and avoid the expression of "Chinese English". The study shows that the bilingual frequent interaction back-translation teaching method can help students understand the differences between Chinese and English expressions, and it can enhance students' subjective initiative in English writing and increase their active vocabulary compared with the mechanized template teaching.

A Study of the Assistive Nature of Artificial Intelligence Technology for Japanese Translation and Interpretation

Abstract Traditional Japanese translation methods have certain disadvantages, and the introduction of artificial intelligence technology into them can enhance the effect of Japanese interpretation and translation. In this paper, the Japanese language data of Twitter and Facebook are used as the basis to construct a Japanese language interpretation and translation corpus, and the GPT-2 model is constructed on the basis of Transformer for Japanese text translation. To optimize the Seq2Seq model for Japanese speech interpretation, the Attention mechanism is introduced to establish a Japanese speech translation model. A Japanese oral and written corpus was used to analyze the validity of the methods mentioned above. The results show that the class/form ratio in the Japanese oral/translated corpus fluctuates between [0.1231, 0.1448], but the survival rate of borrowed words under the scientific category reaches the highest of 54.14%, and the average number of occurrences of each word is between [4.35, 4.95]. Japanese verbal and translated texts had an average sentence length of 40 hours, and their translation accuracy was approximately 74.16%. The quality of translation can be effectively improved, and cultural exchange between China and Japan can be enhanced by integrating AI technology with Japanese interpretation and translation.

Exploring the Impacts of Learner Translator Corpus (LTC) on English Majors L2 Students

As a valuable resource for second language learners, Learner Translator Corpus (LTC) provides English majors with real-life contexts and offers authoritative, professional, and comprehensive translation guidance, thereby facilitating their acquisition of authentic English. This paper aims to provide a detailed introduction to Learner Translator Corpus (LTC), differentiate between LTC and Non-Learner Translator Corpus, draw a parallel between online LTC and local corpus, and elaborate on the usage and functions of Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) corpus and Chinese/English Political Interpreting Corpus (CEPIC) learner translation corpus. Results found that: 1) online corpora better cater to the needs of English majors for efficient knowledge acquisition, while LTC software is suitable for linguistic researchers to aid students in understanding and mastering specific language phenomena; 2) The grammatical errors caused by the influence of interlanguage can be avoided by utilizing LTC; 3) LTC significantly impacts English majors in language learning guidance, improving their language proficiency, and genre and professional language studies. By undertaking these analyses, this paper seeks to enhance English majors’ understanding of corpus-related knowledge and enable them to effectively utilize LTC to address translation challenges.

A Comparative Analysis of Japanese Learners’ Translation Bias Using Neurosemantic Analysis

Abstract In today’s increasingly frequent cultural exchanges between China and Japan, accurate and error-free Japanese translation has become an inevitable choice for cross-cultural communication. In this paper, based on twin neural network and attention mechanism, BiLSTM model is combined with sentence semantic similarity matching algorithm to construct a Japanese translation bias sentence semantic similarity model. The Japanese corpus data were collected and preprocessed by Python technology, and the Japanese translation corpus database was searched and counted using Wordsmith and AntConc tools. For the Japanese learners’ translation bias in the Japanese translation process, a comparative analysis was carried out in several aspects, such as end-of-sentence modal expressions, consecutive translations, and word frequency effects. The study results show that the difference in the frequency distribution of Japanese learners’ modal expressions is only 4.66% compared with that of native speakers of Japanese. Still, the difference between the two is significant at the 1% level, and the difference in the frequency of Japanese learners’ use of the modal expression “yes” is 56 sentences per 10,000 sentences. The frequency of Japanese learners’ use of successive expressions was 30.1 percentage points higher than that of native speakers. The neural semantic analysis method combined with the Japanese translation corpus can clarify the translation bias of Japanese learners in the process of Japanese translation, which can provide a reference for enhancing the translation quality of Japanese learning.