Corpus Based Translation And Interpreting Studies In Chinese Contexts

This edited collection reflects on the development of Chinese corpus-based translation and interpreting studies while emphasising perspectives emerging from a region that has traditionally been given scant consideration in English-language dominated literature. Striking the balance between methodological and theoretical discussion on corpus-based empirical research into Chinese translation and interpreting studies, the chapters additionally introduce and examine a wide variety of case studies. The authors include up-to-date corpus-based research, and place emphasis on new perspectives such as sociology-informed approaches and cognitive translation studies. The book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of translation/interpreting and contrastive linguistics studies, corpus linguistics, and Chinese linguistics.

The book features recent attempts to construct corpora for specific purposes – e.g. multifactorial Dutch (parallel), Geasy Easy Language Corpus (intralingual), HK LegCo interpreting corpus – and showcases sophisticated and innovative corpus analysis methods. It proposes new approaches to address classical themes – i.e. translation pedagogy, translation norms and equivalence, principles of translation – and brings interdisciplinary perspectives – e.g. contrastive linguistics, cognition and metaphor studies – to cast new light. It is a timely reference for the researchers as well as postgraduate students who are interested in the applications of corpus technology to solving translation and interpreting problems.

This book revisits a number of key issues in Chinese Translation Studies. Reflecting on e.g. what Translation Studies researchers have achieved in the past, and the extent to which the central issues have been addressed and what still needs to be done, a group of respected scholars share their expertise in order to identify some tangible directions and potential areas for future research. In addition, the book discusses a number of key themes, e.g. Translation Studies as a discipline and its essential characteristics, the cultural dimension in translator training, paradigms of curriculum design, the reform of assessment for professional qualification, acts and translation shifts, the principle of faithfulness in translation, and interpreter’s cognitive processing routes. The book offers a useful reference guide for a broad readership including graduate students, and shares insiders’ accounts of various current topics and issues in Chinese Translation Studies. Given its scope, it is also a valuable resource for researchers interested in translation studies in the Chinese context.

Cheung, Liu, Moratto, and their contributors examine how corpora can be effectively harnessed to benefit interpreting practice and research in East Asian settings. In comparison to the achievements made in the field of corpus- based translation studies, the use of corpora in interpreting is not comparable in terms of scope, methods, and agenda. One of the predicaments that hampers this line of inquiry is the lack of systematic corpora to document spoken language. This issue is even more pronounced when dealing with East Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which are typologically different from European languages. As language plays a pivotal role in interpreting research, the use of corpora in interpreting within East Asian contexts has its own distinct characteristics as well as methodological constraints and concerns. However, it also generates new insights and findings that can significantly advance this research field. A valuable resource for scholars of scholars focusing on corpus interpreting, particularly those dealing with East Asian languages.

This book investigates a special genre of interpreting in the Chinese context, namely Government Press Conference (GPC) Interpreting. Drawing on the modality system from Systemic Functional Grammar and a corpus of 21 interpreting events, the project explores the regular patterns of modality shifts in Chinese-English GPC interpreting and seeks explanations in the sociocultural context. As a corpus-based project, the book covers qualitative analysis of the sociocultural context, qualitative analysis of the interpersonal effects of modality shifts, and quantitative analysis of modality shifts. This book will contribute to the understanding of the distinctive features of GPC interpreting in China, shed new light on the rendition of modality between Chinese and English in specific contexts, and also inspire new thoughts on the nature of interpreting in general.

This edited thematic collection features latest developments of discourse analysis in translation and interpreting studies. It investigates the process of how cultural and ideological intervention is conducted in translation and interpreting using a wide array of discourse analysis and systemic functional linguistic approaches and drawing on empirical data from the Chinese context. The book is divided into four main sections: I. uncovering positioning and ideology in interpreting and translation, II. linking linguistic approach with socio-cultural interpretation, III. discourse analysis into news translation and IV. analysis of multimodal and intersemiotic discourse in translation. The different approaches to discourse analysis provide a much-needed contribution to the field of translation and interpreting studies. This combination of discourse analysis and corpus analysis demonstrates the interconnectedness of these fields and offers a rich source of conceptual and methodological tools. This book will appeal to scholars and research students in translation and interpreting studies, cross-linguistic discourse analysis and Chinese studies.

This book takes a corpus-based approach, which integrates translation studies and contrastive analysis, to the study of translational language. It presents the world’s first balanced corpus of translational Chinese, which, in combination with a comparable native Chinese corpus, provides a reliable empirical basis for a comprehensive account of the macro-statistic, lexical, and grammatical features of translational Chinese in English-to-Chinese translation – a significant contribution to Descriptive Translation Studies. The research findings based on these two distinctly different languages have important implications for universal translation research on the European tradition.

Rapid advances in computing have enabled the integration of corpora into language teaching and learning, yet in China corpus methods have not yet been widely adopted. Corpus Linguistics in Chinese Contexts aims to advance the state of the art in the use of corpora in applied linguistics and contribute to the expertise in corpus use in China.

This book presents a thoughtful and thorough account of diverse studies on Chinese translation and interpreting (TI). It introduces readers to a plurality of scholarly voices focusing on different aspects of Chinese TI from an interdisciplinary and international perspective. The book brings together eighteen essays by scholars at different stages of their careers with different relationships to translation and interpreting studies. Readers will approach Chinese TI studies from different standpoints, namely socio-historical, literary, policy-related, interpreting, and contemporary translation practice. Given its focus, the book benefits researchers and students who are interested in a global scholarly approach to Chinese TI. The book offers a unique window on topical issues in Chinese TI theory and practice. It is hoped that this book encourages a multilateral, dynamic, and international approach in a scholarly discussion where, more often than not, approaches tend to get dichotomized. This book aims at bringing together international leading scholars with the same passion, that is delving into the theoretical and practical aspects of Chinese TI.

Terminology Translation in Chinese Contexts: Theory and Practice investigates the theory and practice of terminology translation, terminology management, and scholarship within the distinctive milieu of Chinese and explores the complex relationship between terminology translation (micro level) and terminology management (macro level). This book outlines the contemporary challenges of terminology translation and terminology management within Chinese contexts in specialized fields including law, the arts, religion, Chinese medicine, and food products. The volume also examines how the development and application of new technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence have brought about major changes in the language service industry. Technology such as machine translation and computer-assisted translation has spawned new challenges in terminology management practices and has facilitated their evolution in contexts of ever greater internationalization and globalization. This book recontextualizes terminology translation and terminology management with a special focus on English–Chinese translation. It is hoped that the volume will enable and enhance dialogue between Chinese and Western scholars and professionals in the field. All chapters have been written by specialists in the different subfields and have been peer-reviewed by the editors.