Université de Montréal - Thèse sous forme numérique

65Another example of insufficient considerations on equivalence selection is thatof Yong and Peng (2007). The authors write that equivalents should be discriminated ona semantic basis, i.e. whether a lexical item in the target language can be considered anequivalent of the source language item depends largely on the extent to which theycorrespond semantically (2007: 129). They also suggest making stylistic and pragmaticcomparisons, but unfortunately no examples illustrating the implementation of suchprocedures are provided.The considerations drawn by Yong and Peng (2007) as well as by Svensén(2009) and, most of all, the few considerations on methodologies for equivalentselection that can be found in the literature lead us to agree with Bergenholtz and Tarp(1995: 110) when they state that ―equivalent selection is usually not discussed‖. Asmentioned in Chapter 1, one of the main objectives of the research is to contribute to thediscussion on equivalent selection. Even though the literature does not discusssystematic methodologies for equivalent selection, a number of clues or criteria foraccomplishing this task can be identified.We have already referred to the factors that Atkins and Rundell (2008) considerrelevant to be taken into account in the establishment of equivalence (semantic content,collocational context, vocabulary type, message and function). They also suggest thatcorpora can be used for finding equivalents. We agree with their statement (Atkins andRundell 2008: 473) and argue for the use of corpora in terminography, particularly interminography developed without the benefit of a wide knowledge on the subject field:Translators start with some good ideas about how to translate words andphrases, but everyone has moments of doubt. Scanning bilingual dictionariesand checking out one‘s intuitions with a native speaker of the language that isnot your own have traditionally been the way to deal with such doubts. Indeed,until quite recently these were the only options open to bilingual dictionaryeditors. Now of course the world has changed, and we can use corpus data towiden our translating horizons.