Corpus studies in conference interpreting

Research into conference interpreting has taken advantage of corpus methods since the early developments of the corpus-based approach. Overviews of major projects in corpus-based interpreting studies clearly show that interpreting corpora have been increasing in number and size over the last three decades, covering a variety of language combinations along with multiple modes and settings. Overall, conference interpreting corpora range from small data sets used for qualitative “manual” analysis to larger, machine-readable corpora, some of which are also accessible online. The systematic observations afforded by corpus methods have allowed interpreting scholars to study different features of conference interpreting with respect to source speeches and other Translation modes, combining a variety of methods including statistical testing, comparable and parallel inquiries, and discourse analysis. Some pedagogical applications have also begun to find their way in conference interpreting education, while there is still very limited evidence of the role of corpora in conference interpreters’ professional practice.