Youdale - Using computers in the translation of literary style : challenges and opportunities

This volume argues for an innovative interdisciplinary approach to the analysis and translation of literary style, based on a mutually supportive combination of traditional close reading and distant reading, involving corpus-linguistic analysis and text-visualisation. The book contextualises this approach within the broader story of the development of computer-assisted translation including machine translation and the use of CAT tools and elucidates the ways in which the approach can lead to better informed translations than those based on close reading alone. This study represents the first systematic attempt to use corpus linguistics and text-visualisation in the process of translating individual literary texts, as opposed to comparing and analysing already published originals and their translations. Using the case study of his translation into English of Uruguayan author Mario Benedettis 1965 novel Gracas por el Fuego, Youdale showcases how a close and distant reading (CDR) approach enhances the translators ability to detect and measure a variety of stylistic features, ranging from sentence length and structure to lexical richness and repetition, both in the source text and in their own draft translation, thus assisting them with the task of revision. The book reflects on the benefits and limitations of a CDR approach, its scalability and broader applicability in translation studies and related disciplines, making this key reading for translators, postgraduate students and scholars in the fields of literary translation, corpus linguistics, corpus stylistics and narratology.

Roy Youdale teaches undergraduate translation at Bristol University, UK, where he completed his PhD in 2017. He is researching the use of corpus linguistics and text-visualisation in literary translation and has presented his work at the universities of East Anglia and Swansea, and the Link Campus University in Rome.

35 Perspectives on Retranslation

Ideology, Paratexts, Methods

Edited by zlem Berk Albachten and ehnaz Tahir Gralar

36 A (Bio)Semiotic Theory of Translation

The Emergence of Social-Cultural Reality

Kobus Marais

37 A Sociological Approach to Poetry Translation

Modern European Poet-Translators

Jacob S. D. Blakesley

38 Complexity Thinking in Translation Studies

Methodological Considerations

Edited by Kobus Marais and Reine Meylaerts

39 Translating and Interpreting in Korean Contexts

Engaging with Asian and Western Others

Edited Ji-Hae Kang and Judy Wakabayashi

40 Hybrid Englishes and the Challenges of/for Translation

Identity, Mobility and Language Change

Edited by Karen Bennett and Rita Queiroz de Barros

41 Translating the Visual

A Multimodal Perspective

Rachel Weissbrod and Ayelet Kohn

42 Using Computers in the Translation of Literary Style

Challenges and Opportunities

Roy Youdale

For more information about this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Advances-in-Translation-and-Interpreting-Studies/book-series/RTS

Challenges and Opportunities

Roy Youdale

First published 2020

by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2020 Taylor & Francis

The right of Roy Youdale to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN: 978-0-367-14123-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-429-03034-5 (ebk)

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To my partner Graciela and my father Bill, for their unstinting love and support throughout this project

I would like to thank various copyright holders for their permission to include different kinds of material in this book: Guillermo Schavelzon and the Schavelzon Graham Agencia Literaria, S.L., for extracts from Gracias por el Fuego by Mario Benedetti; Professor Jan Christoph Meister and his team at the University of Hamburg for screenshots of the CATMA website; Michal Cukr and the Sketch Engine team for screenshots of the Sketch Engine website; Kostiantyn Kucher and Andreas Kerren at Linnaeus University in Sweden for screenshots of the TextVis Browser website; and Professor Stfan Sinclair and Dr. Geoffrey Rockwell at the University of Alberta for screenshots of the Voyant Tools website.

A number of senior academics have gone out of their way to help and support me in the process of proposing and then writing this book, and I want them to know how grateful I am. Dr. Carol OSullivan, Director of Translation at the University of Bristol, first suggested the idea for the book after steering me patiently through my PhD. Jean Boase-Beier, Professor Emerita of Translation at the University of East Anglia, guided me through the proposal process and read parts of the draft, providing helpful comments. Andrew Rothwell, Professor of French and Translation at Swansea University, and Tom Cheesman, Professor of German also at Swansea University have been more than generous with their time in reading and commenting on parts of the draft manuscript, and also in inviting me to participate in workshops and an international summer school on the theme of the use of computers in literary translation, which have allowed me to present this research to a wider audience.

I would also like to thank staff at Routledge Elysse Preposi, Editor in Linguistics, and Alexandra Simmons, Editorial Assistant for their help and patience in answering all my questions and guiding me through the process of publishing an academic monograph. The author, however, retains full responsibility for all errors and omissions.

BNCBritish National CorpusCALTcomputer-assisted literary translationCATcomputer-aided translationCATMAComputer-Aided Textual Markup and AnalysisCDRclose and distant readingCLcorpus linguisticsCQLcorpus query languageCTScorpus-based translation studiesDTSDescriptive Translation StudiesETNEmerging Translators NetworkMTmachine translationNMTneural machine translationPOSpart of speechSLsource languageSMTstatistical machine translationSTsource textTAUSTranslation Automation Users SocietyTLtarget languageTMXTranslation Memory eXchangeTSTranslation StudiesTTtarget textTTRtype-token ratio