Corpus-based translation studies: Where does it come from? Where is it going?

Abstract

The idea of investigating translation and interpreting through corpora was first put forward by Baker (1993). At the time it was envisaged that in this new partnership corpus linguistics would provide the methodology for carrying out empirical investigations while translation theory would identify the areas of enquiry and elaborate operational hypotheses. The two partners would work in harmony mainly for the benefit of the advancement of the descriptive branch of the discipline. Since then the partnership has acquired a clear identity with a specific denomination, corpusbased translation studies (CTS), and has grown strong. Its areas of research are varied, ranging from descriptive to applied studies, and concern many different languages. The state of the art of corpus-based translation studies has been covered elsewhere (Laviosa 2002a). This article (re)examines, in the light of recent developments, what type of relationship holds between CTS and descriptive translation studies (DTS), on the one hand, and CTS and corpus linguistics, on the other. The aim is to try and establish which claims and predictions put forward in the past still hold true and which are the most promising areas of long-term CTS research.