Alisher Navoiy nomidagi Toshkent davlat o‘zbek tili va adabiyoti universiteti

Keywords
: descriptive translation studies, corpus linguistics and translation studies, parallel 
corpora 
The term “Descriptive Translation Studies” was first put forward by James Holmes, a Holland 
scholar. He made a scientific division of translatology and argued that “translatology is divided into two 
branches: pure translation studies and applied translation studies; pure translation studies can be 
subdivided into Descriptive Translation Studies and theoretical translation study”. Descriptive Translation 
Studies includes “(1) product-oriented study; (2) process-oriented study; (3) function-oriented study”. 
James Holmes’ division of translatology has been widely recognized by translation scholars and exerted 
great influence on the celebrated translation scholars such as Even-Zohar, Gideon Toury in Israel and 
Andre Lefevere in America, all of whom set about making a new theoretical exploration under James 
Holmes’ framework. [Hong Lou Meng, 2007] 
In the development of Translation Studies, the move from prescriptive to descriptive approaches 
was of great significance. Moreover, the interdisciplinary nature and flexibility of Translation Studies 
allowed novel research methods and perspectives to be proposed, making it possible to analyze data 
which were inaccessible or impossible to process not such a long time ago. The 1970s marked the 
appearance of a new perspective in Translation Studies, which emphasized the importance of empirical 
evidence in translation research. The key focus of the new branch became the description of existing 
translations, their functions, and the process of translation itself. According to Gideon Toury, empirical 
investigations should enable us to formulate generalizations which would not be limited to individual 
texts, but could be applied to large bodies of translated works. Such empirical findings and their 
formulations could be developed into theories which would contribute to the achievement of the major 
goal of the discipline: “the cumulative findings of descriptive studies should make it possible to formulate 
a series of coherent laws which would state the inherent relations between all the variables found to be 
relevant to translation” [Toury, 1995: 16].
The intersection of Descriptive Translation Studies and corpus linguistics gave rise to a new 
discipline: Corpus-Based Translation Studies (CTS). Corpus linguistics, a branch of linguistics which 
explores language with the help of a collection of texts in electronic format, emerged as a result of huge 
technological advances in computers and computational techniques [Olohan, 2003: 1].
Mona Baker has seen the great potential of applying the analytical tools of corpus linguistics to 
study the products and processes of translation. In her seminal article “Corpus Linguistics and Translation 
Studies: Implications and Applications” (1993), she proposed that the methods of corpus linguistics could 
contribute greatly to the search for the typical features of translated language, the so-called universals of 
translation, i.e., linguistic features typical of translated texts. The quest for the nature and the 
universalities of translated texts became the major focus of Corpus-Based Translation Studies (CTS). 
CTS at the same time marks a turn away from prescriptive approaches to translation toward descriptive 
approaches… focusing on both the process of translation and the product of translation… and takes into 
account the smallest details of the text chosen by the individual translator, as well as the largest cultural 
patterns both internal and external to the text [Tymoczko 1998: 652]. 
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* Ergasheva Guli Ismoil kizi, Doctor of philological sciences, Associate professor of Uzbekistan World Languages 
University 
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* Axmedova Anorxon Nasivali kizi, Independent researcher of Uzbekistan World Languages University 

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