Volcanic experiences: comparing non-corpus-based translations with corpus-based translations in translation training

Corpus-based translations are reported to be particularly effective for both students and professionals. This paper presents a case study with 15 Italian students enrolled in a bachelor program in translation studies. The students performed two tasks. During the first, they had to correct the shortcomings of a target text (in English) on volcano hiking. While correcting, they had to indicate the language tools used to correct the translation mistakes. During the second task, the students compiled and interrogated a corpus, re-assessed the target text and reviewed their own corrections in light of corpus evidence. A final questionnaire was administrated at the end of the second task. The paper findings highlight that corpus analysis can help students make more learned and informed translation decisions. Furthermore, corpora allow to grasp word use in contexts, find collocations or fixed expressions and deliver more fine-grained translation works. Nonetheless, the questionnaire results remarked that students may feel overwhelmed by Internet data and ‘distracted’ by corpus evidence itself.