Despite the fact that principal analysis tools are widely used by research workers in the Fieldss of linguistics and interlingual rendition surveies, they seem to be neglected by rehearsing transcribers. Michael Wilkinson looks at the grounds for this and provides a glance at how transcribers can work these tools, particularly when interpreting specialized texts into a foreign linguistic communication.

Q1 ) Are you a rehearsing transcriber?

Q2 ) Are you familiar with corpus analysis tools?

Q3 ) Do you utilize corpus analysis tools in your work?

I would guess a conjecture that amongst those of you who answered “ yes ” to Q1, the bulk answered “ no ” to Q2 and Q3. I would besides guess a conjecture that if interlingual rendition surveies research workers were asked the same inquiries, the proportion of “ yes ” replies would be comparatively high.

Corpus analysis tools have for many old ages been widely used by research workers to analyze electronic principals of original and translated text, and the consequences of this research have shed valuable visible radiation on both the interlingual rendition merchandise and the interlingual rendition procedure. An first-class overview of corpus-based interlingual rendition research is provided by Olohan ( 2004 ) .

Corpus analysis tools allow you to entree, show and look into the information contained within a principal – a big aggregation of texts, normally in apparent text format – in a assortment of ways. Corpus analysis bundles frequently comprise a assortment of tools. Probably the most utile of these from the transcriber ‘s point of position is the concordancer, which will happen all the happenings of a hunt word, or hunt form, and expose them in the Centre of your screen, together with a span of co-text to the left and right, as shown in Figure 1. The show shown in Figure 1 is known as a Key Word in Context ( KWIC ) .

Figure 1: Some of the 36 harmony lines generated by WordSmith Tools for the hunt form

panorama* utilizing a 670,000-word principal of tourer booklet texts

You can pull strings the KWIC rapidly and easy in assorted ways: for illustration in Figure 1 the words instantly predating the hunt word have been sorted in alphabetical order in order to look for suited adjectives to utilize with view ( s ) . By double-clicking on a line, you can see it in its full context, as in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Display demoing a harmony line in Fuller context

Translators on a regular basis consult printed or online “ parallel ” texts in the mark linguistic communication in order, for illustration, to seek for nomenclature or expression for idiomatic wording. However you can confer with big measures of text far more quickly and consistently if you use corpus analysis tools.

So why is n’t the usage of these tools more widespread amongst transcribers? First, until late corpus analysis tools have non been really user-friendly from the transcriber ‘s point of position. Although these tools have been around for several decennaries, they have been designed chiefly with lingual research workers, computational linguists, lexicologists and linguistic communication instructors in head. However the latest versions of principal analysis bundles such as WordSmith Tools ( Scott, 2004 ) and MonoConc Pro ( Barlow, 2002 ) include concordancers that, though non tailor-made for the transcriber, are reasonably user-friendly and can be effectual interlingual rendition AIDSs.

A 2nd ground for your deficiency of consciousness about principal analysis tools is that there was small or no reference of them when you were being trained as a linguistic communication service supplier. You may hold heard about them in go throughing on CATT classs, or you may hold been introduced to them during a class on principal linguistics, where the focal point was on the utilizations of these tools as research AIDSs. But they were n’t integrated into your interlingual rendition classs, so you did n’t rehearse utilizing them as interlingual rendition AIDSs.

However in recent old ages a turning figure of research workers and trainers ( e.g. Bowker & A ; Pearson, 2002 ) have drawn attending to the fact that electronic text principal can be a powerful performance-enhancing resource. Consequently there have been legion recommendations to incorporate the usage of principal into transcriber instruction ( e.g. Zanettin, 2002 ; Maia, 2003 ; Varantola, 2003 ) .

Students at Savonlinna School of Translation Studies are today strongly encouraged to do usage of principals in their interlingual rendition classs, peculiarly when interpreting into the foreign linguistic communication. Students in Savonlinna have entree to assorted principals, including a 670,000 word principal of English linguistic communication tourer booklets that they consult with WordSmith Tools when interpreting Finnish touristry texts into English. They use this principal to, for illustration, obtain information about collocates, particularly adjective-noun collocations, as illustrated in Figure 1.

In add-on, pupils use the principal to corroborate intuitive determinations and to verify or reject determinations based on other tools such as lexicons. For illustration, a pupil seeking a interlingual rendition equivalent for poreallas in a bilingual lexicon would be offered the undermentioned interlingual rendition campaigners: Jacuzzi / jacuzzi, swirl pool, whirlpool bath, vortex. Searching the Tourism Corpus for these footings generates 25 hits for Jacuzzi and 26 hits for jacuzzi ( see Figure 3a ) ; no hits for swirl pool ; and 20 hits for vortex, including 4 hits for whirlpool bath ( see Figure 3b ) . However vortex, though widely used in North American booklets, seems to be seldom used in British booklets, whereas Jacuzzi / jacuzzi is widely used on both sides of the Atlantic. All of this information helps the transcriber to take an appropriate interlingual rendition equivalent. Furthermore, while perusing the harmony lines, and looking at some of them in context, pupils frequently get valuable cognition of mark linguistic communication forms and larn how use new looks.

Figure 3a: Some of the harmony lines generated by WordSmith Tools for the hunt threading jacuzzi/whirlpool/swirl pool

Figure 3b: Some of the harmony lines generated by WordSmith Tools for the hunt threading jacuzzi/whirlpool/swirl pool

Another ground that principal analysis tools are non yet widely used amongst transcribers is that in order to utilize a principal analysis tool you need a principal! A figure of multi-million-word general linguistic communication principal, such as the British National Corpus, are commercially-available, and are treasure troves for research workers. However transcribers of non-literary texts benefit most of all in their work from principals of specialised linguistic communication, and there is a serious deficiency of these on the market. So you need to roll up your ain principal, and this can be done for illustration by downloading stuff from the web.

Furthermore, if you are working as an in-house transcriber for a company engaged in a particular sector, you may be able to collaborate with other transcribers and pool texts to make a joint principal. It is besides likely that you receive many of your committees in electronic format. For illustration, if you are interpreting from Finnish to English and frailty versa, it is extremely likely that you will bit by bit roll up a big figure of reliable beginning texts in both English and Finnish in Word format. In this instance, it is really easy to make principals of your beginning texts by re-saving them in field text format. For on-line tips on roll uping principal for usage as interlingual rendition resources see Wilkinson ( 2006 ) .

If you regularly translate texts belonging to one or several special-fields, constructing up target-language principals in those Fieldss may good, in the long-run, enable you to heighten the quality of your work and increase your productiveness.

This article has hopefully given you a brief glance of the potency of the principal analysis tool as a interlingual rendition assistance. For a more sweeping view of the ways in which specialized principals can be exploited, including more illustrations of hunt schemes, see Wilkinson ( 2005a, 2005b ) . For a closer expression at WordSmith Tools, visit Mike Scott ‘s web site at hypertext transfer protocol: //www.lexically.net/wordsmith/ and read his “ measure by measure usher ” .