Corpus-based study of news translation: challenges and possibilities

Recognizing that disciplinary confines often represent serious hurdles for translation scholars, this article offers a reflection on the boundaries of the subarea of news translation within the discipline of translation studies, focusing on its links with research that employs corpus-aided techniques, in particular critical discourse analysis and corpusassisted discourse studies. Reviewing a number of relevant studies and research projects that use different types of corpora, the discussion explores some of the main difficulties inherent in analysing translated news texts, which are often heavily mediated and edited in various ways; the ensuing key challenges associated with conducting journalistic translation research are examined. The article calls for mutual recognition and cross-fertilization between disciplines that investigate translated news from different, usually complementary, perspectives. In particular, the study of ideology and bias in translated news benefits from composite approaches and multi-faceted research projects that combine methods drawn from different areas: we argue that open and inclusive approaches are vital to uncover new and important insights into news translation.