Research in Translation Studies

Sugeng HariyantoSource: Jenny Williams, Andrew Chesterman, The Map: A Beginner's Guide to Doing Research in Translation Studies by

1. Areas of Research1.1 Text Analysis and Translation

Source Text Analysis (semantic, syntactic, stylistic)Comparison of TT and ST

- equivalence in various aspects. • The aspects can be derived from certain theories, e.g.

linguistics• Or you could start with a kind of translation problem

(the translation of passive sentences, or dialect, or allusions, for instance), and see how your translators) have solved the problem, what translation strategies they have used.

• Or start with specific strategy.

• Comparison of Translations and Non-translated Texts– This kind of analysis compares

translations into a given language with similar texts originally written in that language.

• Translation with Commentary (annotated translation)– is a form of introspective and retrospective

research where you yourself translate a text and at the same time, write a commentary on your own translation process. This commentary will include some discussion of the translation assignment, an analysis of aspects of the source text, and a reasoned justification of the kinds of solutions you arrived at for particular kinds of translation problems.

1.2 Translation Quality Assessment

• Evaluative assessment of translation work• Approaches

– Source-oriented (equivalence degree of the translation)

– Target oriented (degree of naturalness of the target text by comparing with parallel text)

– Translation effect-oriented on client, general readers, etc. (can it meet the expectation)

1.3 Genre Translation• Drama (person, purpose, process, product)• Poetry (person, purpose, process, product)• Prose Fiction (person, purpose, process,

product)• Religious Texts (person, purpose, process,

product)• Children's Literature • Tourism Texts• Technical Texts• Legal Texts

1.4 Multimedia Translation• Audiovisual texts are primarily

spoken texts - radio/TV programmes, films, DVDs, videos, opera, theatre - which are translated either by revoicing or sur-/subtitling (Luyken 1991).

• Revoicing• subtitling

1.5 Translation and Technology• Evaluating translation software• Software localization • Effects of Technology• Website Translation

1.6 Translation History• When? Where? Who? What? Why? How?• When: specific time• Where: specific place• Who: the initiator, the translator, influencing

parties• What: text to be or not to be translated• Why: why a translation and not-translating is

done.• How: How certain translation affect the history of

translation or target culture.

1.7 Translation Ethics• Ethics held by the translators (what should

be the good service of translation)?• Cultural and ideological factors (power,

emancipation, gender, post colonialism, nationalism, minority, cultural identity, translator’s visibility)

• Codes of Practice (e.g. Code of Practice of Indonesian translators)

1.8 Terminology and Glossaries• How to translate new words?• How the translation of the new words

compared to ones proposed by Balai Bahasa?

1.9 Interpreting• Conference interpreting (usually

simultaneous, in one direction)• Liason interpreting, also known as

dialogue or community inter- preting (usually bi directional)

• Court interpreting (usually bi directional).

• Person, purpose, process, product

1.10 The Translation Process• Workplace Studies (working lives and

conditions of professional translators.) • Protocol Studies (to investigate the

translator's internal decision making process, by using think aloud methods or retrospective Interviews )

1.11 Translator Training• Curriculum Design (What to teach and

how to organize them)• Implementation (content, delivery and

evaluation)• Typical Problem Areas (universal problem,

language specific problems, students; specific problems)

• Professional Dimension (How to introduce the profession into the training program?)

1.12 The Translation Profession• Qualifications for membership/ membership categories• The nature of the certification process (if one exists)• The employment status of the members (freelance,

salaried translators in the private/public sector, part time/full time?) and their specialism (technical, literary etc.)

• The Association's code of ethics• The benefits of membership• The Association's role in translation policy

development at local, regional or national level• The Association's programme of professional

development for members.

2. Type of research• Conceptual research

– To define or clarify concept, e.g. what translation equivalence is, what is its relation to translation quality, etc.

– Can be done by means of library study• Empirical research

– To seek new data or information from observation and experimentation to seek evidence which supports or disconfirms hypothesis or generate new hypothesis.

– Here you need to have sound theoretical framework

Characteristics of empirical research

• Can be general and be particular– What makes a particular translation unique– What are the general features shared by all

translations• Describing and explaining• Predicting, although not 100% correct

(although probabilistic in nature)• Hypothesis, a tentative claim of observed

patterns or regularities

Methodology• Quantitative – to count, compare statistically

– Goal: to make claims about universality, generality of a phenomenon or feature.

– to say about regularities, tendencies, frequencies, distribution, etc.

• Qualitative– More subjective, may require empathy (interview),

imagination (discourse analysis), etc.

Methods• Case study Vs experimental study• Case study material: single translation,

single translator, single publisher, etc.• Can be also “multi-site”• Case study can be:

– Explanatory (why, how)– Descriptive (what)

• Corpus studies– Parallel – Comparable

2. Methodology• Text/linguistic analysis (product)• Think aloud protocol, immediate

retrospective (process)• Interview (process and readers’ reaction)• Questionnaire (to measure readers’

reaction)• Observation• Cloze-test (to measure readability)• Corpus-based analysis (product)

Research questions (examples)• Exploratory research questions:

• What was happening on the translation scene in eighteenth century France?

• I wonder how professional translators actually work today?

• What literature was translated from German to French between 1740 and 1760, by whom, and for which clients?

• What use does a particular sample of professional medical translators make of Internet resources?

Research question examples

• Descriptive research questions• What is this translation like, compared to its original?• How can I describe what the translations by this translator/of this

text type seem to have in common?• How are these translations different from non-translated texts in

the target language?• How has the translator dealt with place names?• What are the relative frequencies of relative and main clauses in

these translations and these comparable non- translated texts?• Why is this translation like this, with so many errors?• Why are there so many more relative clauses in these

translations than I would have expected?• Why was this novel translated and not that one?• How did the general public react to this new translation of the

novel?• Why did people react like that?

Do we need any hypothesis?• Yes, if we want to generalize the findings• No, if we do not want to generalize the

findings.