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important basis for the application of corpus-based methodology to the study of translation, since
they will underpin the choice of object of study, i.e. what kind of translation, produced when, by
whom, for what purpose. They thus form the basis of decisions in corpus design and issues of
representativeness, i.e. decisions as to which particular texts might be included in a corpus to be
used to study that particular kind of translation. They are crucial in the analysis and interpretation
of data too, since this requires clarity on the issue of what concept of ‘translation’ is being
described by these data. And, since corpus analysis usually places emphasis not only on what is
observable but also on what is regular, typical and frequent, it relates directly to norms as
discussed by descriptive translation scholars.
Against this backdrop, Mona Baker’s (1995:234) initial suggestions for research using a
comparable corpus (i.e. a corpus of translations in a language and a comparable corpus of non-
translations in that same language) were to capture “patterns which are either restricted to
translated text or which occur with a significantly higher or lower frequency in translated text”
(ibid.:235). She points out that these may be related to a specific linguistic feature in a specific
language, but that we may also find out about “the nature of translated text in general and the
nature of the process of translation itself” (ibid.:236). From this comes Baker’s focus on what
she termed “universals of translation” at that time – in the light of the problematic nature of the
notion ‘universal’, these are now more commonly referred to as features of translation. She
posited a number of features of translation which could be investigated using comparable
corpora (Baker, 1996), for example, that translations may be more explicit on a number of levels
than non-translated texts, and that they may simplify and normalize or standardize in certain
ways.
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