Today Translation Studies and Contrastive Linguistics are considered distinct fields of study because of their different research objects and perspectives: Contrastive Linguistics, which started in 1820 with von Humboldt, focuses on differences between languages both in terms of system and usage, whereas Translation Studies, whose (normative) approach has been traced as far back as Antiquity with Cicero and Horace, describes and explains the typical characteristics, and individual and social functions and contexts of translation products and processes. These narrowly-defined fields of research, both of which developed considerably in the latter decades of the last century, still have one basic element in common: translations, which necessarily arise in the context of two different languages (or language varieties) and are therefore useful data types for both domains. Often, and depending on the focus, questions that attend translation are seen as either translation studies questions or as contrastive linguistic ones. At the same time, however, Translation Studies can be informed by Contrastive Linguistics when describing, explaining and predicting linguistic features of translation products and processes (Section 2); and, vice versa, Contrastive Linguistics can be informed by Translation Studies when describing and hypothesizing about different languages, building on translations and their source texts (Section 3).

References

Albrecht, Jörn

2004 “The different branches of descriptive linguistics and translation.” In Übersetzung. Translation. Traduction. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Übersetzungsforschung. An international Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. Encyclopédie internationale de la recherche sur la traduction, Harald Kittel, Armin Paul Frank, Norbert Greiner, Theo Hermans, Werner Koller, José Lambert & Fritz Paul (eds), Vol. I, 243–259. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.

Bernardini, Silvia & Ferraresi, Adriano

2011 “Practice, description and theory come together: ­Normalization or interference in Italian technical translation?” Meta 56 (2): 226–246.  TSB

Bowker, Lynne

1998 “Using specialized monolingual native-language corpora as a translation resource: A pilot study.” Meta 43 (4): 631–651.  TSB

Catford, J.C

1965 A Linguistic Theory of Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chesterman, Andrew

1998 Contrastive Functional Analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  BoP

De Sutter, Gert, Goethals, Patrick, Leuschner, Torsten & Vandepitte, Sonia

2012 “Towards a methodologically more rigorous corpus-based Translation Studies.” Across Languages and Cultures 12: 137–143

Hatim, Basil

1997 Communication Across Cultures: Translation Theory and Contrastive Text Linguistics. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.  BoP

Koller, Werner

1979/2004 Einführung in die Übersetzungswissenschaft. Wiebelsheim: Quelle & Meyer.  BoP

Laviosa, Sara

1998 “The corpus-based approach: A new paradigm in Translation Studies.” Meta 43 (4): 474–479.  TSB

Macken, Lieve, De Clercq, Orphée & Paulussen, Hans

2011 “Dutch parallel corpus: A balanced copyright-cleared parallel corpus.” Meta, 56 (2): 374–390.  TSB

Malmkjær, Kirsten

1999 “Descriptive linguistics and Translation Studies: Interface and differences.” Platform Papers on Translation Studies. https://​lra​.le​.ac​.uk​/jspui​/bitstream​/2381​/10960​/5​/utrecht​.doc%5B1%5D​.pdf [Accessed 23 June 2013].

Mason, Ian

2001 “Translator behaviour and language usage: Some constraints on contrastive ­studies.” Hermes, Journal of Linguistics 26: 65–80.  TSB

Vinay, Jean-Paul & Darbelnet, Jean

1958 Stylistique comparée du français et de ľanglais. Méthode de traduction. Paris: Didier.  TSB

Further reading

Granger, Sylviane

2003 “The corpus approach: A common way forward for Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies ?” In Corpus-based approaches to Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies, Sylviane Granger, Jacques Lerot & Stephanie Petch-Tyson (eds), 17–30. Amsterdam: Rodopi.  TSB

Hansen-Schirra, Silvia, Neumann, Stella & Steiner, Erich

2012 Cross-Linguistic Corpora for the Study of Translations. Insights from the Language Pair English-German. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter.

Johansson, Stig

2007 Seeing through multilingual corpora. On the use of corpora in contrastive ­linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  BoP

Ramon, Noelia Garcia

2002 “Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies interconnected: the corpus-based approach.” Linguistica Antverpiensia New Series 1: 393–406.

Toury, Gideon

1980 “Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies: Towards a tripartite model”. In In Search of a Theory of Translation, 19–34. Tel Aviv: The Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics.  TSB