Corpus-Based Research Methodologies in Translation Studies: Issues, Applications, and Prospects

The adoption of corpus-based research methodologies in translation studies has prevailed persistently, from which substantial findings have been drawn both internationally and in China. This paper examines this trend by reviewing representative corpus-based research in translation studies, with particular focus on translator style touching translating Chinese classics and on Chinese-foreign language contexts for Chinese and international publications respectively. The findings indicate that the methodologies have incorporated a quantitative perspective, featuring statistical presentation of data, into traditional qualitative analysis, resultantly enhancing the objectivity and credibility of pertinent research. Despite the advantage, certain limitations remain, including restricted multimodal and multilingual capacity, the lack of data consideration and large-scale standardized bilingual corpora, and an overemphasis on quantification, etc. Therefore, this paper contributes by underscoring corpus-based methodologies as reliable and versatile tools able to strengthen translation studies and highlighting the benefits of interdisciplinary innovation and competitiveness in digital humanities for future relevant research.