Translation research

Research conducted by members of the Translation Studies group is on the following topic areas:

• Translation and politics
• Translation history
• Translation and Ethnography
• Translation and Advertising
• Corpus analysis for translation
• Translation didactics and translator training.

Translation and politics

Research in translation and politics covers the analysis of political texts in translation, the role of institutional conditions and constraints on translation profiles and the impact of translated texts on political decisions. Current  research is on the relationship between political discourse, translation and mass media and translations of peace initiatives in the Middle East conflict.

Translation history

Translation history research at Aston has a special focus on translation in situations of war, occupation or dictatorship. Current research is on translation into German in the Nazi era and translation and interpreting practices in the Sino-Japanese War.

Translation and advertising

Research in Translation and Advertising considers how the particular appeal of an advertising text is created, seeking to identify key factors in this process in both source and target cultures. Functionalist approaches to translation combine with semiotic enquiry and research in culture-specificity.

Corpora in translation

This research is linked to the use of corpora for translator training. Representative corpora, properly constituted, are an essential tool in the process of translation and can be used to explore specific differences in conventions for a given text type and language pair.

Translation didactics and translator training

Translation didactics and translator training have been of regular interest to the members of the Translation Studies group. In addition to publications, Aston has organised several conferences and workshops  on these topics.