Glozoo: a trilingual (ES/EN/DE) corpus-based glossary for the translation of manipulated zoologisms

Abstract

This study aims to illustrate how the Glozoo glossary of zoologisms can assist trainee translators in one of the most difficult scenarios in the translation of phraseology: when an idiom has undergone any kind of manipulation in the source text, and it lacks a full equivalent in the target language. For the design of this glossary of idioms, which comprises zoologisms in Spanish, English, and German, a corpus-based methodology has been employed. In this regard, the present study examines the main components of Glozoo, as well as the multiple possibilities it offers for the creation of ad hoc phraseological equivalences in those cases in which the manipulation of idioms and the absence of one-to-one cross-linguistic correspondences may hinder the task of translation. Given the importance of conveying the pragmatic, semantic, and discursive load of an idiom accurately in the target text and, concomitantly, transferring the manipulation recreated in the source text, a detailed teaching proposal is presented in which translators are taught a set of strategies to be implemented with the help of the glossary in order to solve these difficulties. The teaching proposal, consisting of a trilingual glossary of idioms and a set