Keywords and Ideology in Translated History Texts: A Corpus-based Analysis

This article introduces a corpus-based method for studying the realisation of ideology in translated and non-translated texts. The material comprises Russian-Finnish translations and original (non-translated) Finnish texts on Finnish political history. The analysis is based on a computer application of Firth's concept of keywords - “sociologically important words”. The article focuses on analysing one of the translation-specific keywords - the word ystavyys 'friendship'. The use of this word is analysed in word lists, collocations, word clusters, compounds, and actantial structure of the texts. The results show a clear difference between translations and non-translations in the use of the word ystavyys. The differences are manifest in the use of lexical patterns, such as the word ystavyys frequently collocating with the word ja 'and' or productively building word clusters and compounds in translations, but not in non-translations. The analysis of the keyword ystavyys in larger contexts shows that translat...