A Corpus-Based Evaluation Approach to Translation Improvement

• Autores: Ghodrat Hassani
• Localización: Meta: Journal des traducteurs = translators' journal, ISSN 0026-0452, Vol. 56, Nº. 2, 2011 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Les corpus et la recherche en terminologie et en traductologie / Corpora and Research in Terminology and Translation Studies), págs. 351-373
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen

  • In professional settings translation evaluation has always been weighed down by the albatross of subjectivity to the detriment of both evaluators as clients and translators as service providers. But perhaps this burden can be lightened, through ongoing evaluator feedback and exchange that foster objectivity among the evaluators while sharpening the professional skills and recognition of the translators. The purpose of this paper is to explore the promising avenues that a corpus-based evaluation approach can possibly offer them. Using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) for evaluation purposes in a professional setting, the approach adopted for this study regards translation evaluation as a means to a worthwhile end, in a nutshell, better translations. This approach also illustrates how the unique features of the corpus can minimize subjectivity in translation evaluation; this in turn leads to translations of superior quality.

    
    
    Plan de l'article
    
    Introduction
    1. Corpora and Translation Studies
    1.1. Types of Corpora
    1.1.1. Parallel Corpora
    1.1.2. Comparable Corpora
    2. Why Electronic Corpora
    2.1. Dictionaries vs electronic corpora
    2.2. Parallel texts vs electronic corpora
    2.3. Subject field experts vs electronic corpora
    2.4. Intuition vs electronic corpora
    3. The Corpus of Contemporary American English
    3.1. Claims and features
    3.2. Modus operandi
    3.3. COCA compared to other corpora
    4. The study
    4.1. Translators' predictions about the types and number of errors
    4.2. Testing translators' progress
    4.2.1. Cross-evaluation of the final translations
    4.2.2. Experts' views on the quality of the translations
    4.2.3 Avoidance of a repeated error
    4.3. Other findings
    5. Conclusion