Corpus-based Interpreting Studies: Past, Present and Future Developments of a (Wired) Cottage Industry

Abstract

Drawing on Miriam Shlesinger’s seminal paper on the creation and use of corpora in Interpreting Studies research, which she referred to as an offshoot of corpus-based translation studies (CTS) (Shlesinger 1998), and on Setton’s chapter presenting an overview and prospects of Corpus-based Interpreting Studies (CIS) (Setton 2011), this chapter takes stock of nearly two decades of CIS and looks at the extent to which this offshoot has flourished in three areas of interpreting, namely research, education, and professional practice. Although considerable progress has been made in dealing with many of the challenges involved in corpus development, each area has reached a different degree of maturity with respect to CIS. Corpora are increasingly used in research, not only to look at simultaneous conference interpreting, but also to investigate other modes and settings, including consecutive interpreting and dialogue interpreting. This applies to both electronic, machine-readable corpora and more traditional datasets that are analyzed manually. On the other hand, their exploitation in interpreter education is still limited, while professional practice has yet to discover the potential of corpora. A better understanding of the reasons behind these discrepancies may be helpful to inform future directions of CIS and narrow the gap between research and (educational and professional) practice. Finally, the features of Web 2.0 are considered in order to discuss possible solutions to some of the methodological obstacles in the creation and use of interpreting corpora.