Corpus Study: A Descriptive Methodology For Investigating The Style Of A Translator

With the development of descriptive translation studies, a new methodology of corpus study has been introduced to the investigation of translators' style through large-scale linguistic description, cultural explanation and exploration. In this thesis, the author tries to explain how a corpus for translation studies can be established by starting from the control of parameters and variables of the corpus designed for a specific purpose. On the basis of a specific research goal, further investigation will be conducted to analyze the recurring patterns of an individual translator, separating stylistic features which can be attributed to the translator from those which are only a reflection of the stylistic features of the original. A three-level methodology can be applied to corpus study of investigating translator's style, consisting of description, explanation and exploration, which is also the guiding analytical methodology for the general descriptive-explanatory translation study.With the theoretical exploration of the methodology mentioned above, this paper also makes a tentative attempt to give a corpus-based analysis of "the recurring linguistic habits", or rather the style of the translators of Hong Lou Meng-David Hawkes & John Minford and Yang Xianyi (杨宪益) & Gladys Yang. Cultural and ideological explanation of why the individual style of translators is formed will be given to make further exploration into the cognitive processes and mechanisms that contribute to shaping translational behavior.