Corpus-Assisted Translation Teaching: Issues and Challenges

178 Pages·2020·7.362 MB·English

by  Kanglong Liu

Corpora and Intercultural Studies 7
Kanglong Liu
Corpus-Assisted
Translation
Teaching
Issues and Challenges
Corpora and Intercultural Studies
Volume 7
Series Editors
Kaibao Hu, School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University,
Shanghai, China
Hongwei Ding, School of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiao Tong University,
Shanghai, China
This book series publishes original monographs and edited volumes in the
investigationsofdifferenttypesofcorpora(includingtext,speechandvideo)witha
particular focus on intercultural studies. The differences in language use expressed
in comparable corpora can be analyzed from an intercultural perspective. The
emphasis is on excellence and originality in scholarship as well as synergetic
interdisciplinary approaches and multicultural perspectives. Books exploring the
role of the intercultural studies in the research fields of translation, linguistics, and
culture, with a corpus-based approach will be especially welcome. The series
publishes books that deal with emerging issues as well as those that offer an
in-depth examination of underlying issues.
Thetargetaudiencesofthisseriesincludebothscholarsandprofessionalswhoare
interested in issues related to intercultural communication across different cultures
and social groups,whicharereflected by theinvestigation in comparable corpora.
Corpora and Intercultural Studies book series is published in conjunction with
Springer under theauspices of School of Foreign Languages (SFL),Shanghai Jiao
TongUniversity(SJTU).ThefirstserieseditoristheDeanofSFLatSJTU,andthe
book series editorial board consists of leading scholars in the research field of
corpora and intercultural studies in the world.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15588
Kanglong Liu
Corpus-Assisted Translation
Teaching
Issues and Challenges
123
Kanglong Liu
TheHong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung HomKowloon,Hong Kong
ISSN 2510-4802 ISSN 2510-4810 (electronic)
Corpora andIntercultural Studies
ISBN978-981-15-8994-2 ISBN978-981-15-8995-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8995-9
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Acknowledgements
Iamobligedtoanumberofpeoplewhohavehelpedmakethisbookareality.Iam
especially thankfulfor the two chief editors of “Corpora and Intercultural Studies”
series, Prof. Kaibao Hu and Prof. Hongwei Ding, who have been very supportive
and encouraging during the whole process of preparing and writing this book. My
special thanks also go to Prof. Defeng Li, who helped provide funding and above
all his insights for compiling the corpus platform for undertaking this research
project.
Special thanks are also due to my colleagues, friends and family who have
contributeddirectlyandindirectlytothisbook.Dr.DechaoLi,Dr.JianwenLiu,Dr.
Zhenguang Cai, Dr. Tan Jin, Phillip Callahan and Dave Haslett have all helped in
one fashion or another to make this work possible. I am also indebted to Prof.
Gilbert Fong Chee Fun for his encouragement and guidance during my studies at
the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Acknowledgement is hereby gratefully extended to the Hong Kong Translation
Society and Peter Lang for granting the permissions to adapt and reuse part of the
materialscontainedinthearticlesthatIpreviouslypublishedwiththem.Thedetails
are as follows:
Liu, K. 2014. The application of corpora in translation teaching: a critical
review. Translation Quarterly 74: 36–49.
Liu,K.2015.Investigatingcorpus-assistedtranslationteaching:Apilotstudy.In
Conducting research in translation technologies, ed. Pilar, S. G., Olga, T. H., and
Bartolome, M. L., 141–162. New York: Peter Lang.
Lastly, I would also like to thank Hong Kong University Grants Committee for
funding our research project “How do students perform and perceive translation
tasks in corpus-assisted translation settings?” (UGC/FDS15/H11/17) which has
provided me the opportunity to think and rethink the role of corpus in translation
teaching.
v
Contents
1 Introduction and Research Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Research Hypotheses and Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Significance of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 Research Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.5 Ethical Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.6 Organization of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Corpus-Assisted Translation Teaching: An Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Corpus Linguistics: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Corpus Linguistics: A Methodology or a Theory? . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 Corpus Linguistics and Translation Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.4 Corpus Linguistics: Pedagogical Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.4.1 Corpora and Language Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.4.2 Corpora and Translation Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4.3 Translation Competence and Corpus Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.4.4 Issues and Debates in the Use of Corpus in Translation
Teaching. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3 Web-Based Parallel Corpora: Technical Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.2 Web-Based CALL and Web-Based Parallel Corpus Platforms. . . . 39
3.3 Construction of HKPCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.3.1 Statistical Facts of HKPCC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.3.2 Annotation Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.3.3 Search Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.3.4 Web-Based GUI Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
vii
viii Contents
3.3.5 Advanced Search Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.3.6 Pedagogical Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4 Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.1 Research Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.1.1 Research Site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.1.2 Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.1.3 Nature of the Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2 Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2.1 Surveys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.2 Translation Experiments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.3 Interview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.3 Data Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.4 Teaching Syllabus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.5 Trustworthiness of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5 Background Survey and Translation Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.1 Background Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.2 C-E Translation Test. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.2.1 TEM4 Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.2.2 Translation Pretest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.2.3 Analysis of C-E Translation Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.2.4 Evaluation of the Translated Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
5.3 E-C Translation Test. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.3.1 TEM4 Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.3.2 Translation Pretest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.3.3 Analysis of E-C Translation Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.3.4 Evaluation of the Translated Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
6 Attitudes of Students Towards Corpus Use in Translation . . . . . . . . 123
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.2 Corpus Use Survey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
6.2.1 Survey Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.2.2 Survey Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.3 Focus Group Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6.3.1 Corpus Content and Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6.3.2 Context as a Major Advantage of Corpora . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.3.3 Corpora as Reference Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Contents ix
6.3.4 Translation Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.3.5 Creativity Versus Conservatism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
7 Conclusions and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
7.1 Revisiting the Research Hypotheses and Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . 139
7.2 Limitations of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
7.3 Implications of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
7.3.1 Implications: Technological Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
7.3.2 Implications: Training Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
7.3.3 Implications: Research Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7.4 Suggestions for Future Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Appendix I: Student Consent Form. .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 151
Appendix II: Background Check Survey .... .... .... .... ..... .... 153
Appendix III: Corpus Use Survey.. .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 155
Appendix IV: Experiment Text for the Pretest.... .... .... ..... .... 157
Appendix V: Experiment Text for C-E Translation Test.... ..... .... 159
Appendix VI: Experiment Text for E-C Translation Test... ..... .... 161
Appendix VII: Focus Group Questions.. .... .... .... .... ..... .... 163
Appendix VIII: The UCREL CLAWS7 Tags Used in this Study .. .... 165
Appendix IX: The ICTCLAS Tags Used in this Study . .... ..... .... 167
Abbreviations and Acronyms
AFP Agence France-Presse
ASP Active Server Page
BNC British National Corpus
CALL Computer-Assisted Language Learning
CAT Computer-Aided Translation
C-E Chinese to English
CLAWS The Constituent Likelihood Automatic Word-tagging System
CTS Corpus-based Translation Studies
DDL Data-Driven Learning
DTS Descriptive Translation Studies
E-C English to Chinese
EFL English as a Foreign Language
ESL English as a Second Language
GUI Graphical User Interface
HKPCC Hong Kong Parallel cum Comparable Corpus
ICTCLAS InstituteofComputingTechnology,ChineseLexicalAnalysisSystem
IT Information Technology
KWIC Key Word In Context
L1 First language
L1-L2 First language to second language
L2 Second language
L2-L1 Second language to first language
LDC Language Data Consortium
LSP Language for Special Purposes
NHEEE National Higher Education Entrance Examination
PC Personal Computer
POS Part Of Speech
SGML Standard Generalized Markup Language
SL Source Language
SPSS Statistical Product and Service Solutions
xi