Resumen de From a target population to representative samples of translations and translators
Jitka Zehnalová, Helena Kubátová
This study examines representativeness by compiling a sample of translations for textual analyses and a sample of translators for interviews. The process of achieving representativeness is exem- plified by reporting on each case. The investigation is grounded in ongoing research on the strategies of literary translation from English to Czech that combines comparative text analyses and biographical interviews. The research objective is to generalise the strategies to the level of Czech literary translation norms. It is thus necessary to work with samples that are (1) representative to allow for such a level of generalisation and (2) of sizes that enable feasible analyses and interviews (i.e. the samples are not too extensive). The applied methodology pursues the fulfilment of both conditions through the three following steps: (a) Determination of the target population size and calculation of the sample size through statistical methods, (b) creation of a representative sample through probability sampling, analysis, and description, and (c) purposive sampling to obtain samples of texts and translators that represent the research intent.
