The Challenges of Designing a Textual Corpus to Develop Translation Students’ Academic Literacy

Abstract

This work discusses the progress of Research Project J031, Alfabetización Académica y
Tipologías Textuales en la Enseñanza del Inglés para la Traducción (2018-2021), whose
aims are the compilation of an English-language authentic-text corpus for the design of
didactic materials to advance translation students’ academic competences in English. The
theoretical-methodological framework of this work, like that of the Project J031, is anchored
in Academic Literacy (AL) studies (largely Bazerman’s Writing Across the Curriculum
movement), Genre Theory, and the conception of teaching English in translator training as
English for Specific Purposes.
A discussion of the findings so far accounts for the benefits of the elaboration of a corpus of
authentic texts for the development of learners’ AL and translation competence; and presents
two elements for the analysis of the corpus: a classification tool and a taxonomy for text
annotation. As preliminary conclusions, it is hoped this work contributes to the enhancement
of students’ translation strategies and to the strengthening of links between theory, practice
and research in AL and translator training.