Genre and register in comparable corpora: An English/Spanish contrastive analysis

Tous droits réservés © Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2017 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Document generated on 03/09/2022 2:34 a.m. Meta Journal des traducteurs Translators’ Journal Genre and Register in Comparable Corpora: An English/Spanish Contrastive Analysis Belén López Arroyo and Roda P. Roberts Volume 62, Number 1, April 2017 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1040469ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1040469ar See table of contents Publisher(s) Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal ISSN 0026-0452 (print) 1492-1421 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article López Arroyo, B. & Roberts, R. P. (2017). Genre and Register in Comparable Corpora: An English/Spanish Contrastive Analysis. Meta, 62(1), 114–136. https://doi.org/10.7202/1040469ar Article abstract A multilingual comparable corpus is a corpus containing texts that are collected using the same sampling frame and similar balance and representativeness. According to McEnery and Xiao (2007: 20), presenting proportion, genre, domain, and time constitutes the main criteria when compiling a comparable corpus and these criteria must match in the different languages for the corpus to be considered comparable. The problem is that these criteria do not always guarantee that the different language subcorpora in a comparable corpus match. This study, which analyzes two comparable corpora compiled by the authors, shows that, even when the text selection criteria are refined, genre theory cannot always guarantee enough linguistic similarities between language for specific purposes (LSP) texts in different languages. Genre seems to suffice to establish a good comparable corpus for scientific abstracts. However, the comparable corpus of wine tasting notes is not truly comparable, since the English and Spanish texts differ in register. Meta LXII, 1, 2017 Genre and Register in Comparable Corpora: An English/Spanish Contrastive Analysis belén lópez arroyo Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain [email protected] roda p. roberts University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada [email protected] RÉSUMÉ Un corpus comparable est un corpus multilingue qui contient des textes recueillis en utilisant les mêmes critères tout en reflétant un équilibre et une représentativité similaires. Selon McEnery and Xiao (2007 : 20), la proportion, le genre, le domaine et l’époque constituent les principaux critères de compilation d’un corpus comparable, et ces critères doivent correspondre dans les différentes langues pour que le corpus soit comparable. Malheureusement, ces critères n’assurent pas toujours le caractère comparable des corpus de langues différentes. Notre étude, qui analyse deux corpus comparables compilés par les auteurs, démontre que, même si on raffine les critères de sélection de textes, la théorie des genres ne garantit pas toujours assez de ressemblances linguistiques entre les textes de langues de spécialité dans les langues différentes. Le genre semble suffire pour établir un bon corpus comparable des résumés d’articles scientifiques. Cependant, le corpus comparable de fiches de dégustation de vin n’est pas vraiment comparable, surtout à cause des variations de registre. ABSTRACT A multilingual comparable corpus is a corpus containing texts that are collected using the same sampling frame and similar balance and representativeness. According to McEnery and Xiao (2007: 20), presenting proportion, genre, domain, and time constitutes the main criteria when compiling a comparable corpus and these criteria must match in the different languages for the corpus to be considered comparable. The problem is that these criteria do not always guarantee that the different language subcorpora in a comparable corpus match. This study, which analyzes two comparable corpora compiled by the authors, shows that, even when the text selection criteria are refined, genre theory cannot always guarantee enough linguistic similarities between language for specific purposes (LSP) texts in different languages. Genre seems to suffice to establish a good comparable corpus for scientific abstracts. However, the comparable corpus of wine tasting notes is not truly comparable, since the English and Spanish texts differ in register. RESUMEN Los corpus comparables son corpus multilingües que se construyen usando los mismos criterios de compilación y representatividad. Como afirman McEnery y Xiao (2007: 20), los criterios principales a la hora de compilar un corpus comparable, deben ser proporcionalidad, género, campo de especialidad y año de publicación de las muestras; además, estos autores destacan que se tienen que aplicar estos criterios en las diferentes lenguas o en los diferentes subcorpus que integran el corpus comparable. Sin embargo, el uso de estos criterios no garantiza que los subcorpus de diferentes lenguas sean parejos en términos de comparación. El presente estudio, que analiza dos corpus comparables de dos lenguajes de especialidad diferentes, la enología y la medicina y compilados ad hoc, 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 114 2017-06-06 8:50 PM genre and register in comparable corpora 115 demuestra que, incluso aunque se definan minuciosamente los criterios de compilación, el uso del mismo género no es un criterio de comparación suficientemente válido en diferentes lenguas. El análisis de nuestro corpus demuestra que el concepto de género parece ser válido para establecer una comparación en el caso de los abstracts científicos, pero no ocurre lo mismo en el caso de las fichas de cata ya que los textos incluyen registros diferentes en inglés y en español. MOTS-CLÉS/KEYWORDS/PALABRAS CLAVE langues de spécialité, genre, corpus comparables, traduction, pragmatique language for specific purposes, genre, comparable corpora, translation studies, pragmatics lenguajes de especialdiad, género, corpus comparables, traducción, pragmatica 1. Introduction Corpora are used in linguistics mainly for applied purposes since they are considered valuable resources that allow researchers to describe real utterances of a language in the context in which they are produced. As Aijmer and Altenberg (1996: 12) observe, corpus-based studies are often used for applied purposes such as lexicography, contrastive and translation studies, or language teaching, among others. For cross-linguistic studies, the corpus has to be multilingual, but it can take the form of a parallel corpus or a comparable corpus. A parallel corpus is a translation corpus, consisting of source texts (ST) and their corresponding target texts (TT). A comparable corpus is a multilingual corpus containing texts in two or more languages that are collected using the same sampling frame and presenting similar balance and representativeness (McEnery 2003: 450). The focus of this paper is the comparable corpus, which is considered to be better suited for contrastive analysis and some translation-relevant research than a parallel corpus, since it presents texts originally written in the languages covered and thus allows researchers to obtain empirical findings that are not affected by the influence of the source language on the target texts. For a comparable corpus to produce reliable results, it must contain texts in the two languages that are very similar on different levels. However, as the EAGLES group (Expert Advisory Group on Language Engineering Standards) stated in 1996, “There is as yet no agreement on the nature of the similarity,” (1996: 12), and this is still true to a large extent today.1 The question being examined here is what precisely makes a corpus comparable and what can take away from comparability. This question was addressed to some extent by McEnery and Xiao (2007: 20), who stated that comparable corpora are to include “the same proportions of the texts of the same genres in the same domains in a range of different languages in the same period.” In other words, according to these authors, proportion, genre, domain, and time constitute the main criteria when compiling a comparable corpus and must match in the different languages for the corpus to be considered comparable. The problem is that these external criteria do not always guarantee that the different language subcorpora in a comparable corpus match, because the same genre may be used to address a different audience or may show different features in its construction in different languages. In fact, the same genre, when compared interlinguistically, may show differences in content or in style, making it difficult to draw valid contrastive conclusions. The present study aims to show that genre, one of the main criteria used to set up a comparable corpus, is not always enough to guarantee the required similarities 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 115 2017-06-06 8:50 PM 116 Meta, LXII, 1, 2017 between texts in certain specific domains, even when it is supplemented by other criteria. What seems to undermine the comparability of some comparable corpora seems to be register variation. 2. Theoretical Concepts Given our hypothesis that genre is not enough to guarantee corpus comparability and that register variation is often responsible for a lack of comparability between corpora, this study is based not only on theoretical concepts from corpus linguistics, such as McEnery and Xiao’s design criteria presented above (2007), but also on concepts drawn from genre theory, register theory and discourse analysis. In keeping with Swales, we see genre as a group of texts which share a set of communicative purposes and are recognized as having legitimacy within a discourse community (1990: 58). Lee (2001: 46) specifies that such a grouping of texts is culturally defined: genres are cultural constructs, socially constituted, functional categories of texts. Allen (1989) notes that “for most of its 2,000 years, genre study has been primarily nominological and typological in function. That is to say, it has taken as its principal task the division of the world of literature into types and the naming of those types – much as the botanist divides the realm of flora into varieties of plants” (1989: 44). The classification and hierarchical taxonomy of genres is not a neutral and objective procedure. There are no undisputed ‘maps’ of the system of genres within any medium. Furthermore, there is often considerable theoretical disagreement about the definition of specific genres: “A genre is ultimately an abstract conception rather than something that exists empirically in the world” (Feuer 1992: 144). One theorist’s genre may be another’s sub-genre or even super-genre. Defining genres may not initially seem particularly problematic but it is a theoretical minefield. Specific genres tend to be easy to recognize intuitively but difficult (if not impossible) to define. Particular features which are characteristic of a genre are not normally unique to it; it is their relative prominence, combination and functions which are distinctive (Neale 1980: 22-23). And there are differences within a genre. Neale declares that “genres are instances of repetition and difference” (1980: 48). The issue of difference also highlights the fact that some genres are “looser” – more open-ended in their conventions or more permeable in their boundaries – than others. The connection between genre and register can clearly be seen in Kress’s definition of a genre as “a kind of text that derives its form from the structure of a (frequently repeated) social occasion, with its characteristic participants and their purposes” (Kress 1988: 183). Halliday, who introduced the concept of register into linguistic discourse, made a distinction between dialect and register, calling the former “a variety according to the user” and the latter “a variety according to the use” (Halliday 1978: 35). Halliday also argues that a particular register is determined by three controlling variables: field, tenor and mode. Hence, register is a variety of language which is used in a particular communicative setting. It is “a conventional way of using language that is appropriate in a specific context, which may be identified as situational (as in church), occupational (as among lawyers) or topical (as talking about language)” (Yule 2007: 210-211). 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 116 2017-06-06 8:50 PM A recent framework for register analysis has been proposed by Biber and Conrad (2009), central to which is the generally shared view that lexico-grammatical features of registers are situationally determined and functionally motivated. In other words, their approach foregrounds the impact of extralinguistic factors on language choices. Regarding the situational characteristics of registers, the two analysts draw on previous frameworks (Hymes 1974; Biber 1988), and propose the following set of seven variables determining language use: participants, relations among participants, channel, production circumstances, setting, communicative purposes, topic (Biber and Conrad 2009: 40-47). While Biber and Conrad make a distinction between register and style, diatypic variation as outlined above is generally termed register by Halliday (1978) and style by Crystal and Davy (1969). Like Halliday (1978) and Crystal and Davy (1969), we do not make a distinction between register and style. For us, register is the level and style of writing which is dictated by the situation one is in. Register covers the lexico-grammatical and discoursal-semantic patterns associated with situations (as linguistic patterns) (Lee 2001). Each genre may invoke more than one register. Finally, the texts that comprise a genre need to be analyzed and Swales’ Move- Step model for research articles (1990) provides us with a framework for text analysis. Swales’ description of the constituent parts (moves and steps) of the research article is detailed and comprehensive. He modifies Hill, Soppelsa, and West’s diagram of the overall organization of the research paper, to which he refers as “the IMRD structure,”2 and to underscore the additions he makes to the IMRD structure, he calls his model the “Create a Research Space (CARS) model” (1990: 140). These concepts will underlie our study of corpus comparability. 3. Abstracts and Wine Tasting Notes as Metatexts of the Study In the present paper we will analyze two different genres, produced in two different communicative situations but written by and addressed to the same type of interlocutors, at least in principle: experts. Experts constitute a discourse community, i.e., a group of users characterized by six defining features: (1) “an agreed set of common public goals,” (2) “mechanisms of intercommunication among its members,” (3) “mechanisms to provide information and feedback,” (4) “one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims,” (5) “specific lexis,” and (6) a reasonable number of members with “a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise” (Swales 1990: 25-26). Experts in a specialized field are supposed to comply with all these conditions, and to be able to produce the specific genre(s) of their field as part of the discoursal expertise that can be expected from them. The two genres which interest us in the present study are abstracts and wine tasting notes. They have been selected because they are both highly structured genres and are of limited scope, factors which allowed us to set up English and Spanish corpora of reasonable size and similar structure for each genre and then to analyze the level of comparability of the English/Spanish corpus for each genre. While abstracts and wine tasting notes are two distinct genres despite some similarities, the analysis of comparable corpora of these two genres allows us to better determine what precisely makes a corpus comparable and what can take away from comparability. Moreover, since we believe that register variation may be responsible genre and register in comparable corpora 117 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 117 2017-06-06 8:50 PM 118 Meta, LXII, 1, 2017 for differences between two apparently similar language corpora, we have heeded Biber and Conrad’s words cited below: “effective register analyses are always comparative. It is impossible to know what is distinctive about a particular register without comparing it to others” (2009: 36). 3.1. Abstracts Abstracts constitute a secondary genre functioning as independent discourse as well as advance indicators of the content and structure of longer texts, the scientific Research Papers (RP) from which they derive. Nord (1997: 54) defines abstracts as a complementary or secondary genre based on primary texts, Research Papers (RP), which may have a metatextual function. On the other hand, an abstract is defined by ISO 214-1976 (E), as an “abbreviated, accurate representation of the contents of a document, without added interpretation or criticism and without distinction as to who wrote the abstract”; that is to say, according to this definition, an abstract is merely a shortened version of a fully elaborated text, derived from the latter by condensing its relevant information. This concept is supported by Sager et al. (1980: 318) who affirm that specialized language abstracts were developed for additional economy in order to select information or concentrate on limited groups or purposes, making the message more specific for a subgroup of readers of the whole text. Abstracts are often classified on the basis of content, purpose and structure as well as authorship. Russell (1988: 4), among others, distinguishes two standard types of abstracts with two different functions: descriptive and informative abstracts. The former summarize the scope of the text, but do not contain extensive data and are not designed to replace the source text (ST), whereas the latter give more detailed information on the content of the article, replacing, in some cases, the ST. Since informative abstracts can replace the ST, they have to be divided into the same sections as RPs, following the IMRD pattern3 referred to in section 2 above. In other words, informative abstracts contain information on purpose, scope, methods, results and conclusions or recommendations, just as RPs do. Medical journal editorial committees typically direct contributors to write informative abstracts, in order to have a “report in miniature” (Jordan 1991: 507), that is to say, in order to have a condensed version of the content and structure of the primary text. As Ventola says (1994: 333), abstracts “have become a tool of mastering and managing the ever increasing information flow in the scientific community” since they direct medical readers to RPs of potential clinical research value and help journals to select contributions. In this sense, the writers of abstracts and the audience or readers they address share the same level of expertise in a particular field. Sometimes, an informative abstract is the only piece of writing that is read by the target audience (Martyn and Slater 1964: 212). This is because there are now so many research journals that experts do not have time to read all the RPs they contain. Thus, these abstracts have become a key to the content of the whole text. The importance of abstracts is further heightened by the fact that several journals now only publish abstracts (and not full texts) (Martyn and Slater 1964: 212-235). In such cases, informative abstracts, the only pieces of published writing, serve to direct readers to articles of potential value. 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 118 2017-06-06 8:50 PM There have been different studies analyzing the differences in the construction of abstracts in English and Spanish (Luzón Marco 2000; López Arroyo 2001, 2004; López Arroyo and Méndez Cendón 2005; Mendiluce Cabrera 2005; Vázquez y del Árbol 2006 among others), most of them focusing on the information distribution of abstracts in the two languages under study. However, the starting point for many of these works was Nwogu’s hallmark study (1997) which deals only with the rhetorical structure of abstracts in English. 3.2. Wine Tasting Notes Wine tasting notes, a genre used in oenology, are standardized texts, used either during professional wine tasting or when new wines are released, to record the different organoleptic features or components of a wine. Silverstein defines them as the “verbal translation” of the “ritual” of wine tasting (2004: 640). While these notes are also written by so-called experts, there are in fact various kinds of wine experts. First there are those who are very experienced in tasting wines but do not necessarily have any experience in making wines or have not studied the chemistry of wine. Another group of experts would be wine scientists, the oenologists – those who are primarily interested in the science of winemaking. In between are individuals in the wine trade – shippers, sellers, sommeliers, wine writers. These differences in writers of wine tasting notes may explain why it is difficult to define and classify this discourse and why there is such a great variety in their writing. Wine tasting notes can be considered as a subsidiary genre of Wine Tasting Technical Sheets since they often form part of the latter and have the same function, one that is relevant for the professional discourse community. A wine tasting note can have an evaluative as well as a descriptive function, where the former is the basis for the latter (Lehrer 2009: 7). Descriptive wine tasting notes are used to describe, in the most objective way possible, the features of a wine, whereas evaluative wine tasting notes classify the features of a particular wine according to the wine tasting steps (what is known as nose, mouth and palate or aroma, taste and texture). These texts, which vary in length between thirty and a hundred words,4 include identifying and technical information. The identifying information commonly includes the name of the winery and of the wine, its denomination of origin (if any), the country of origin, type of grape and year of vintage. The technical information is often structured in sections presenting a description of the wine’s appearance (color, depth, hue, clarity, viscosity and effervescence), its aromas (fragrance, development and intensity), and its taste and texture (flavors, astringency, body, balance, mouthfeel and finish), and often concludes with general statements on its maturity, value or quality. Although there are standardized wine tasting sheets, set up by the discourse community, that include all these aspects, the amount of information tasting notes cover may vary depending on the oenologist or sommelier who is tasting the wine and releasing the note, because the methods of tasting and recording tend to be tailored differently (Clarke and Bakker 2004: 200-201). Tasting notes are found in a great variety of publications from wine journals, wine guides, bottle labels, to websites of wine producers; in short, as Wipf says “wherever wine is, there are tasting notes” (2010: 14). genre and register in comparable corpora 119 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 119 2017-06-06 8:50 PM 120 Meta, LXII, 1, 2017 While wine-tasting notes have attracted the attention of a number of linguists, research on the language of these notes has mainly concentrated on two aspects: the figurative nature of the language of wine, and the subjective/objective dichotomy characterizing this language. The heavy reliance on imagery has been studied extensively by Caballero and Suárez-Toste (2008, 2010), Suárez-Toste (2007), Negro (2012), and Paradis and Eeg-Olofsson (2013) and Rossi (2012). The need to reconcile the inherently subjective quality of wine tasting with the use of more objective descriptors that can be recognized by all members of the wine tasting community has also received considerable attention from researchers such as Lehrer (2009), Gawel (1997) and Lawless (1984). However, little attention has been paid to the register of wine tasting notes, especially from the point of view of two languages. 4. Corpus Compilation Since our purpose was to examine whether the criterion of genre, supplemented by the criteria of proportion, domain, and time, is sufficient to build comparable corpora, as McEnery and Xiao (2007) have suggested, our next step was to compile the corpora, using these general criteria. We built our two specific purpose comparable corpora using two genres (abstracts and wine tasting notes), and a similar number of texts in each language, with the texts focusing on the domains of medicine on the one hand and oenology on the other, and published between 2003 and 2012. In addition to these general criteria, we added the following more specific text selection criteria: - Original texts in English and Spanish.5 - Texts representative of the language used by experts of the discourse communities involved.6 - Texts that were easily available in electronic form. 4.1. Abstracts Corpus The following procedure was followed for the compilation of the abstracts corpus in the two languages under study (English and Spanish). We started our search on the Internet in broad scientific community databases. However, in a second stage, we restricted our search to medical abstracts7 and consulted more focused search engines such as Medscape, which selects abstracts and research papers based on their scientific validity, importance, originality and contribution to the scientific community, i.e., to medicine. For our English subcorpus, each journal had to meet at least one of the following criteria, over and above the Medscape selection criteria: - Be highly ranked according to the expert opinion of pre-eminent clinicians and researchers. - Be one of the nine English-language international general medical journals whose full-time editors are members of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. - Be included in the 1994 internal JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) journal list. - Have a journal impact factor greater than 2 as ranked by the Institute for Scientific Information’s Journal Citation Reports. 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 120 2017-06-06 8:50 PM - Boast high readership scores as determined by PERQ (Pharmaceutical and Health Care-related Promotion Research). However, all these criteria could not be applied when compiling the Spanish subcorpus. For example, international impact could not be used as a criterion because ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) does not include any Spanish medical journals in its ranking. Nevertheless, Medscape covers two Spanish journals and so we took abstracts from those two journals: Revista Española de Cardiología, the official publication of the Sociedad Española de Cardiología, and Medicina Clínica, an Elsevier publication. By following the compilation method outlined above, we ended up with a comparable corpus of 50 informative abstracts in each language (since these are the type of abstracts demanded by journals): 14,484 words in English and 15,113 words in Spanish. 4.2. Wine Tasting Notes Corpus As in the case of abstracts, we started our search for wine tasting notes on the Internet in broad community databases. However, using the keywords wine tasting note and ficha de cata led to notes that were very varied in style and content, and often unlike the standardized tasting notes mentioned above. This made us realize that there were, in fact, several types of wine tasting notes (see the Analysis section below). So, in a second stage, we restricted our search to more focused websites such as the Denomination of origin websites in Spain that give access to texts written by winery oenologists and the VQA Ontario Appellations of Origin website that groups together all the different Denominations of origin and hence wineries in that Canadian province. As we stated before, although communication regarding the sensory description of wine frequently occurs between people with similar levels of expertise (Gawel 1997: 269), there are many types of writers who produce a great variety of tasting notes with different levels of accuracy and expertise. To avoid disparity in the texts selected for the corpus, we decided to use only those wine tasting notes included in wine tasting technical sheets released by wineries so as to ensure that the writer was an expert and that the audience being addressed also consisted of experts. This methodological adjustment also allowed for more parallelism between the English and Spanish texts and hence for more accurate interlingual comparison of the wine tasting notes. The wine tasting notes corpus includes 750 wine tasting notes in Spanish and 716 wine tasting notes in English, which amounts to 54,545 and 55,339 words respectively. 4.3. Concluding Remarks on Corpus Compilation Both the abstracts and the wine tasting notes corpora were considered comparable because the texts in the two languages belonged to the same genre (abstracts or wine tasting notes), the same fields (Bio science in the case of abstracts and Oenology in the case of wine tasting notes) and the same time period. The corpora were compiled completely by computerized means, although the labeling and rhetorical tagging they went through at a second stage (see section 5 below) had to be coded manually (Flowerdew 2008: 15), since the computer obviously genre and register in comparable corpora 121 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 121 2017-06-06 8:50 PM 128 Meta, LXII, 1, 2017 raspberries, Dimetapp, dark chocolate, mineral notes, and herbs), they often contain language that is more informal or subjective. Let us use Ex. 10 below as an illustration and comment on specific elements of language therein: (10) The palate is incredibly, incredibly dense with rich fruit flavors – Coats the palate while still remaining light on its feet. – Give 1-2 years or decant extensively. – The repetition of incredibly for emphasis is an informal device. The metaphor light on its feet applied to wine adds to the subjectivity of the description; and the use of the imperative, addressing the reader directly, adds to the informality of the note. Our analysis clearly shows that, despite the similarity in genre, there is a difference in register between wine tasting notes in English and Spanish. 7. Conclusion Despite our having followed the same or similar criteria in English and Spanish during the process of compiling our abstracts and wine tasting notes comparable corpora, it is clear that the results are not the same. In the case of abstracts, the Spanish and English texts resemble each other in more ways than not: - They closely follow the order of the rhetorical structure. - The rhetorical structure is marked by headings. - The language is neutral to formal and the tone is objective. All things considered, one can claim that the genre of abstracts, which is similar in English and Spanish, shows little linguistic variation in the two language corpora, having similar register features. In the case of wine tasting notes, however, the Spanish and English texts differ in several respects: - The Spanish texts follow the order of the rhetorical structure more closely than do the English texts. - The Spanish texts mark the rhetorical structure by headings more often than do the English texts. - The language used in Spanish texts is neutral to formal and the tone is generally objective, whereas the language used in English texts is often informal and the tone more subjective. - Overall, there is more variation in the English texts compared to the Spanish texts. Given that both the Spanish and English tasting notes were taken from wine tasting technical sheets, the differences cannot be explained by the origins of the texts, nor by the writers of these texts, who are all oenologists hired by wineries. One explanation for the differences could be that, while Spanish wine tasting technical sheets, and correspondingly the wine tasting notes they contain, are addressed by experts to other experts, English wine tasting technical sheets, and correspondingly the wine tasting notes they contain, are addressed by experts to a broader audience, which includes the wine drinking public. That could explain why the way information is presented and distributed varies in Spanish and English. Another possible explanation could be that the register of wine tasting notes in English is more general than the register of such notes in Spanish. Biber and Conrad (2009: 32-33) point out that registers can be more or less specialized and that general registers will have more 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 128 2017-06-06 8:50 PM variability than more specific registers. Indeed, the English wine tasting notes seem to have subregisters, which are not as apparent in the Spanish wine tasting notes. For example, some of the English texts use informal language and a subjective tone, but not all of them. But the ultimate reason for the differences between the English and Spanish wine tasting corpora seems to be that wine is a cultural phenomenon, as Coutier (1994: 662) pointed out: “Since the fifties the great interest in wine, a beverage with highly symbolic implications, has become a cultural phenomenon which is part of current social and dietary behaviours.” The cultural dimension of wine shows in the different languages and reflects a given linguistic group’s attitude towards wine. One could argue that wine has a long history in countries such as Spain and France, where it is taken very seriously, in contrast to its relatively recent emergence as part of social and dietary behaviours in the English-speaking world. This could account for the differences in register in wine tasting notes in English and Spanish. Our analysis of the abstracts and wine tasting notes corpora shows that the criteria for compilation of a comparable corpus proposed by McEnery and Xiao (genre, proportion, domain and time) work well for certain fields, but not all. Our attempt to attain greater comparability in the wine tasting notes corpus by the addition of specific text selection criteria did not fully resolve the differences between the English and Spanish texts, although they may have increased, to some extent at least, the degree of comparability. Given the cultural factor that seems to intervene in the field of wine, perfect comparability seems impossible, no matter the care taken in the compilation of the corpus. The lack of full comparability in certain corpora has implications, in turn, for translation and translation studies. In order to understand these implications, it is first necessary to identify the role of comparable corpora in translation and translation studies. To begin with, comparable corpora allow the translator or terminologist to establish lexical equivalence for key concepts in a given field, to find equivalent collocations and fixed expressions in two languages, and to determine how each of the two languages structures a given idea. If the comparable corpus is not fully comparable, then the lexical equivalents it might suggest or the language structures it might present will not be completely reliable and will need to be confirmed by other sources. Comparable corpora are also used to examine how different languages are used in a specific field. In this case, the fact that the corpus is not perfectly comparable is not an obstacle, as a translation researcher analyzing a corpus such as our wine tasting notes corpus should be able to identify the differences between the English and Spanish texts, as we have done. Finally, identification of the differences in the use of language in such texts might pave the way for less source text based translation and more target text based translation. Thus, even a comparable corpus that does not seem fully comparable has its uses in translation. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors belong to the ACTRES (Análisis Contrastivo y Traducción Especializada) research group. This paper has been written within the research projects Análisis Contrastivo y traducción inglés-español: aplicaciones III (FFI2013-42994-R), supported financially by Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Análisis contrastivo y traducción inglés-español (ACTRES): Aplicaciones lingüísticas para la internacionalización de la industria de transformación agroalimentaria (LE-227413), supported financially by Junta de Castilla y León and FFI2016-75672-R: “CLANES genre and register in comparable corpora 129 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 129 2017-06-06 8:50 PM 130 Meta, LXII, 1, 2017 Producción textual bilingüe semiautomática inglés-español con lenguajes controlados: parametrización del conocimiento experto para su desarrollo en aplicaciones web 2.0 y 3.0..” NOTES 1. In Creating a Persian-English Comparable Corpus, Hashemi et al. claim: “In this study, we build a Persian-English comparable corpus from two independent news collections: BBC News in English and Hamshahri news in Persian. We use the similarity of the document topics and their publication dates to align the documents in these sets. We tried several alternatives for constructing the comparable corpora and assessed the quality of the corpora using different criteria” (2010: 27). In other words, researchers are still seeking criteria for establishing good comparable corpora. 2. IMRD stands for Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion. 3. The IMRD pattern is the structure RPs and abstracts must adhere to, according to journal requirements. The most striking characteristic of this pattern is that each section contains a unique rhetorical structure, which differs from the others, and readers of RPs and abstracts expect writers to adopt this structure. 4. While thirty words can be considered very little for a text, it must be remembered that many advertisements presenting verbal language, which are texts, contain even fewer words. Chujo and Masao (2005: 5), in their attempt to understand the role of text size in determining text coverage, use texts that begin at ten words. 5. We tried to ensure that the selected texts were written originally in the language under study primarily on the basis of the author´s name. While we realize that this can sometimes be misleading, we were unable to find a better solution. 6. We aimed at obtaining texts representing the language of experts by going to specialized websites. 7. The domain of medicine was selected because we had ready access to doctors who could serve as consultants, if necessary. REFERENCES Aijmer, Karim and Altenberg, Bengt (1996): Introduction, papers from a symposium on textbased cross-linguistic studies. In: Karim Aijmer, Bengt Altenberg, and Mats Johansson, eds. Lund studies in English 88. Languages in Contrast. Lund: Lund University Press, 11-16. Allen, Robert (1989): Bursting bubbles: “Soap opera” audiences and the limits of genre. 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In: Svĕtla Čmejrková and František Štícha, eds. The Syntax of Sentence and Text. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 283-303. Yule, George (2007): The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wipf, Betina (2010): Wine writing meets MIPVU: Linguistic metaphor identification of tasting notes. Master’s Thesis. Unpublished. Antwerp: VU University. APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: EXAMPLES OF ABSTRACTS IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH English (1) Differential effects of adenosine on focal and macroreentrant atrial tachycardia. INTRODUCTION: The effects of adenosine on atrial tachycardia (AT) remain controversial, and the mechanistic implications of adenosine termination have not been fully established. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the differential effects of adenosine on focal and macroreentrant AT and describe the characteristics of adenosine-sensitive AT. METHODS: Thirty patients received adenosine during AT. Tachycardia origins were identified as focal or macroreentrant during invasive electrophysiologic studies. Responses to adenosine were analyzed and characterized as tachycardia termination, transient suppression, or no effect. RESULTS: Electrophysiologic studies demonstrated a focal origin of tachycardia in 17 patients. Adenosine terminated focal tachycardias in 14 patients (dose 7.3 +/- 4.0 mg) and transiently suppressed the arrhythmias in three others (dose 10.0 +/- 6.9 mg). A macroreentrant mechanism was demonstrated in 13 patients; adenosine terminated only one of these tachycardias and had no effect on the remaining 12 patients (dose 10.2 +/- 2.9 mg). Four 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 132 2017-06-06 8:50 PM classes of adenosine-sensitive AT were identified. Class I consisted of nine patients with tachycardia arising from the crista terminalis; these tachycardias also terminated with verapamil (4/4). Class II consisted of four patients with repetitive monomorphic AT arising from diverse sites in the right atrium; these either slowed or terminated in response to verapamil (2/2). Class III consisted of the three patients with transient suppression and demonstrated electropharmacologic characteristics consistent with an automatic mechanism, including insensitivity to verapamil (2/2). In the one patient with macroreentrant AT that was comprised of decremental atrial tissue, adenosine terminated tachycardia in a zone of decremental slow conduction (Class IV); this tachycardia slowed with verapamil. CONCLUSIONS: Adenosine-sensitive AT is usually focal in origin and arises either from the region of the crista terminalis (inclusive of the sinus node) or from diverse atrial sites with an incessant nonsustained repetitive pattern. Although most forms of macroreentrant AT are insensitive to adenosine, rarely macroreentrant AT with zones of decremental slow conduction can demonstrate adenosine sensitivity. Spanish (1) Introducción y objetivos. Las miocardiopatías (MCP) y las cardiopatías (CP) son causas importantes de muerte súbita (MS). Existe poca información en la literatura sobre el contexto en el que se produce la MS, y proviene de unos pocos centros de referencia. El objetivo del presente trabajo es estudiar las circunstancias de la MS en familias con cardiopatías hereditarias. Métodos. Se registraron 152 casos de MS en un total de 103 familias (media de edad, 43 ± 19 años). Los motivos de inclusión fueron: MS resucitada, 7%; MS reciente, 8%; diagnóstico de MCP o CP en un familiar vivo, 72%. El 13% eran deportistas. Se trazaron ·árboles familiares y se recogieron los detalles sobre las circunstancias del fallecimiento. Se revisaron historias clínicas e informes autópsidos. Resultados. El 18% de las MS ocurrieron durante el ejercicio físico, el 32% en actividades cotidianas y el 37% en reposo/suelo. Hubo una asociación estadística entre el sexo varón y la MS (111 [73%] frente a 41 [27%]; p = 0,03). La MS relacionada con el ejercicio se asocio con la edad joven (p = 0,01). En el grupo de MCP se registro de forma significativa un mayor porcentaje de MS en relación con ejercicio/estrés/actividad cotidiana respecto al grupo de CP (el 61 frente al 41%; p = 0,057). Todos los deportistas eran varones y la mayoría de ellos fallecieron realizando ejercicio (el 50 frente al 11% de los no deportistas; p = 0,0002). El grupo de síndrome de Brugada presentó el porcentaje más elevado de MS en reposo/suelo (47%). En el 33% del total no fue posible identificar claramente el desencadenante. Conclusiones. La MS es frecuente en las cardiopatías hereditarias y supone un número importante de casos. Entre los casos de MS (independientemente del tipo de afección) los varones predominan claramente sobre las mujeres (3:1). La mayoría de las MS ocurrieron realizando ejercicio o una actividad cotidiana en las miocardiopatías y durante el reposo o el suelo en las cardiopatías. El porcentaje de MS relacionadas con el ejercicio (18%) es superior al esperado. APPENDIX 2: EXAMPLES OF WINE TASTING NOTES IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH English (1) 2007 Rulo Syrah Columbia Valley A moderately aromatic wine with pure aromas of blackberry, raspberries, Dimetapp, dark chocolate, mineral notes, and herbs. The palate is incredibly, incredibly dense with rich fruit flavors, almost to the point of being impenetrable. Coats the palate while still remaining light on its feet. Only gets better with more time to breath. Give 1-2 years or decant extensively. 14.5% alcohol. genre and register in comparable corpora 133 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 133 2017-06-06 8:50 PM 134 Meta, LXII, 1, 2017 (2) Wachenheimer Sonnentropfen Riesling Feinherb 2011, Weingut Karl Schaefer – Pfaltz Thankfully the wine is considerably more user-friendly than its label; one of those delightfully more-ish, versatile just-dry Rieslings that sommeliers and wine writers get very excited about yet doesn’t require special connoisseurship to really enjoy. Despite its low 9% ABV – the lick of residual sweetness is kept in check by piercing citric acidity and the iron-rich soils of Pfalz, lower down the Rhine valley ensure this has impressive geological intensity. (3) Lyeth Estate L de Lyeth Merlot Visual Aspect: This 2008 L de Lyeth Merlot is ruby in color with a purplish hue. Nose: Rich with aromas of vanilla, orange spice and red licorice, followed by subtle hints of sandalwood, bright cherries, thyme and herbs de Provence. Palate: This medium-bodied Merlot is soft and plush, with notes of sweet oak, black tea, black pepper and briary fruits. The fine tannins are nicely integrated into the wine, making it approachable upon release. (4) California Rabbit California Chardonnay Nose: Sniff: aromatic, with bright citrus and tropical fruits Palate: Nibble: crisp with generous fruit flavors of nectarine and apple. This wine rounds out nicely with refreshing citrus and a hint of white peach. Spanish (1) TINTO CRIANZA PÉREZ VEROS COSECHA 2008 NotadeCata: Fasevisual: Color rojo cereza sobre fondo malva; sensación muy untuosa en copa. Fasearomática: Notasdefrutadehueso,melocotóndeviñayalbaricoque.Notasdefrutossilvestresconfitados,mermeladademora,arándanos.Ligerofondo especiado con finos recuerdos de canela, nuez moscada y pimienta. Aparecen finos recuerdos de crema de avellanas y de caramelo viuda de solano. Aromáticamente es un vino muy complejo que desarrolla intensidad de aromas a medida que se va oxigenando el vino en la copa. Fasegustativa: En boca mantiene una elevada carga olfativa, la entrada resulta gratamente tánica, intensa y a medida que se pasa por boca se manifiesta la elevada carga glicérica con una sensación de untuosidad. Presenta una buena relación acidez-alcohol-tanino, siendo un vino intenso y equilibrado. (2) Bodegas Arzuaga Tinto Arzuaga Gran Reserva 2001 CATA: COLOR Presenta un color rojo rubí. Además de limpio y brillante. 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 134 2017-06-06 8:50 PM NARIZ Vino rico en aromas, de los cuales destaca una combinación entre trufa negra y frutos silvestres, junto a recuerdos de regaliz negro. Todo esto ensamblado con aromas especiados como el clavo y la canela hacen que sea un vino complejo y llamativo. BOCA Existe un gran equilibrio gustativo y olfativamente. Se trata de un vino untuoso, sedoso y agradable. (3) Esta joyita procedente de la bodega Miguel Sánchez Ayala elaborada con uvas del Pago Balbaína presenta un bonito color oro viejo. La nariz está algo evolucionada, con marcados toques de cereal tostado, los habituales matices punzantes, las sensaciones salinas… Notable profundidad. En boca tiene buen ataque, resulta cremoso, con acidez correcta, recorrido medio, bien perfilado y bastante largo. No se si era la botella, pero lo vi algo cansado… aunque claro, siendo fruto de una saca de Enero 2009, ya han transcurrido más de 3 años… [Cata Navazos: Cuaderno de Cata] (4) Lo primero que llama la atención es la original botella, con nota de cata en la etiqueta. Tanto la bodega como la denominación de sus vinos, le confieren un toque místico y llamativo que seguro consigue atraer el interés en las estanterías. Color amarillo pálido, toque dorado, floral, frutas con hueso, y algo tropical. Se aprecia un toque ácido, y algo amargo al final, bastante original. Bien estructurado, ligero dulzor en el ataque, equilibrado al paladar. Buen descubrimiento, excelente elección del club! APPENDIX 3: KEY TO THE RHETORICAL STRUCTURE OF ABSTRACTS IN THE PRESENT STUDY Introduction: [INTR] i. BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE [INTRbak] ii. Established knowledge in the field [INTRbakEst] iii. Main research problems [INTRbakPro]) iv. INDICATING A GAP [INTRgap] v. Previous studies [INTRgapPrv] vi. Limitation of previous research/studies [INTRgapLim] vii. NEW RESEARCH [INTRnew] viii. Research purpose [INTRnewObj] ix. Main Research procedure [INTRnewPro] Materials and methods: [METH] DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE [METHdat] x. Source of data [METHdatSou]) xi. Data size [METHdatSiz] xii. Criteria for collection [METHdatCrit] EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE [METHproc] Experimental process [METHprocXpm] Research apparatus [METHprocApp] DATA-ANALYSIS PROCEDURE [METHana] Data classification [METHanaCls] Instrument procedure [METHanaProc] Results: [RESU] – CONSISTENT OBSERVATION [RESUobs] Overall observation [RESUobsGen] Specific observation [RESUobsSpe] Accounting of observation made [RESUobsAcc] – NON-CONSISTENT OBSERVATION [RESUnobs] Negative results [RESUnobsNeg] Conclusion: [CONC] genre and register in comparable corpora 135 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 135 2017-06-06 8:50 PM 136 Meta, LXII, 1, 2017 4. SPECIFIC RESEARCH OUTCOME [CONcout] 1. Indicate significance [CONcoutSig] 2. Interpret research results [CONcoutInt] 3. Limitation of present research [CONCoutLim] 5. RESEARCH CONCLUSION [CONCres] 1. Implications [CONCresImp] 2. Further studies [CONCresFth] APPENDIX 4: KEY TO THE RHETORICAL STRUCTURE OF WINE TASTING NOTES IN THE PRESENT STUDY MOVES Steps [IR] Introductory Remarks (-) [AP] Appearance [CH] Color Hue [VI] Viscosity [CL] Clarity [EF] Effervescence [AR] Aroma [FR] Fragrance [IN] Intensity [DV] Development [TA] Taste [FL] Flavours [FI] Finish [AS] Astringency [MF] Mouthfeel [BO] Body [BA] Balance [CR] Concluding remarks 01.Meta 62.1.final.indd 136 2017-06-06 8:50 PM