The use of corpora as translation resources: A study based on a survey of Spanish professional translators

The aim of this paper is to describe the use that professional translators make of corpora as translation resources. First, we briefly review the literature on translation practitioners’ use of corpora in the contexts of both translation training and professional translation. Then we present our survey-based study, analyse the uptake of corpora among Spanish translators and describe the use of this kind of translation resource. The results show that even if corpora are not as frequently used as other kinds of resources, such as dictionaries, there are professional translators who do use corpora, in a variety of ways, in their work. Additionally, non-users do not seem entirely sceptical about corpora. Against that backdrop, translator trainers are invited to continue to report on how corpora can be used as translation resources.

This paper is part of the research project ‘GRE11-11 COMENEGO (Corpus Multilingüe de Economía y Negocios): adecuación de recursos textuales para la práctica de la traducción de textos especializados / Multilingual Corpus of Business and Economics: adaptation of textual resources to the practice of specialised translation’, supported by the Office of the Vice President for Research, Development and Innovation of the University of Alicante.