Corpus-based audiovisual translation studies

Abstract

This chapter describes the development and use of corpora within audiovisual translation (AVT), exploring the methodological, theoretical and descriptive insights that corpora have originated in the field. It shows that corpus-based audiovisual translation studies (CBAVTS) belong to the wider approach of Corpus-based translation studies (CBTS) whose premises and methodological tools they share. There are sound methodological, theoretical and applied reasons to create and exploit corpora of AVT. Corpus-based studies are a powerful approach to explore the dynamics of the process and the nature of the product of AVT both systematically and in-depth. There is, however, ample room for development in the field as less orderly work has been carried out in AVT in comparison to other areas of CBTS. The most common tools for corpus analysis in AVT research are frequency counts, monolingual concordances and bilingual or aligned concordances. Quantitative and qualitative corpus analyses in AVT research can be carried out following both a semasiological and an onomasiological approach.