A three-level methodology for descriptive-explanatory Translation Studies

Drawing mainly on Vidal (1998), Tymoczko (2000) and Harvey (forthcoming), Hatim and Mason (1990, 1997) and Mason (2000), the present paper proposes a threefold analytical methodology consisting of: description, ideological explanation, and perlocutionary exploration of texts. In practice, the article examines the speeches uttered in Spanish and English before the European Parliament (EP) on 9th March 1993. The main focus of the study is transitivity shifts and their connection to ideological issues. This corpus has been chosen for various reasons. Amongst them, the paper sets out to test the conclusions reached by prior research (Trosborg 1997a; Koskinen 2000). Three basic questions are posed: 1. Are EP speeches odd, ‘out of place’/þ‘strange’/þ‘unusual’ (in short literal) as Koskinen (2000) maintains? (Descriptive component of analysis); 2. Does translation affect the ideological output of original texts? (Explanatory component of analysis); 3. Which perlocutionary questions may be raised as a result of the previous questions? (Perlocutionary component of analysis).