COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND PARALLEL TEXTS/CORPORA IN THE CONTEXT OF THESIS WRITING IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

Abstract

One of the main research methods in translation studies is the comparative analysis of the source text (ST) and the target text (TT), namely the analysis of the form and content of the target text in comparison with the form and content of the original text. ST and TT are objective facts that can be observed and analysed. In the process of translation, certain relationships are established between two texts in different languages. Comparing ST and TT allows researchers to reveal the internal mechanism of translation, identify equivalent units, and find changes in form and content that occur when replacing a ST unit with an equivalent translation unit. Comparative analysis of translations makes it possible to determine how typical translation difficulties associated with the specifics of each language are overcome, as well as which elements of the original are lost during translation. As a result, we have a description of translation facts that reveals the real picture of the process. Comparative analysis and using parallel texts/corpora has been, is, and will continue to be a promising method of teaching foreign languages and translation for obvious reasons, as experience shows that those who apply the comparative approach gain deeper insights than those who do without this vital (self-evident) tool of cognition. In our experience, comparative analysis of the source text and the translation, and the use of parallel analysis of texts/corpora, is an effective and obvious means of entering into dialogue with students, learning a lot about the considerations that guide the translation process, draw procedural conclusions from them, and convincingly demonstrate the conditions and reasons for successful, partially successful, and unsuccessful translations. In addition, the essential features, structural and expressive peculiarities of language, its limitations and possibilities are most clearly revealed through translation-induced comparison. It is not surprising that numerous accurate and linguistically sound observations on the stylistic and functional features of language are the result of translation reflection, namely interlingual approximations.