Corpus stylistics in translation-oriented text analysis. Approaching the work of Denton Welch from a functionalist perspective

Abstract

This article is an effort towards interpreting the findings of a corpus-based stylistic analysis of the short narrative “Sickert at St Peter’s” (1942), written by the English writer and painter Denton Welch (1915–1948), within the larger framework for translation-oriented text analysis presented by Christiane Nord in Textanalyse und Übersetzen (2009). The aim is to explore both the theoretical possibilities andthe practical applications of a corpus-based approach to the lexical analysis phase of Nord’s model from a literary translation perspective, in which style and word choice play a critical role. Once the statistical findings of the corpus-based analysis are presented, the 25 highest-ranking keywords in the text are analyzed in context. Translation briefs and literary translation in general are discussed, and a global pre-translational strategy for translating “Sickert at St Peter’s” is presented. By way of conclusion, it is argued that the method described promotes valuable insights for literary interpretation and serves as a practical aid in developing a pre-translational strategy for translating individual texts.