Academic interests
I work at the intersections of translation theory, medical humanities, conceptual history, and corpus linguistics. I am involved in the development of the Sustainability and Health Corpus.
Courses taught
Background
I studied linguistics and literature at KU Leuven (Belgium), and hold a PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies from the University of Manchester (UK). Before joining the University of Oslo, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), and as an assistant professor at Boğaziçi University (Turkey).
Appointments
- Member of the executive council of IATIS, the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (2022-2025).
Awards
- Runner-up, Martha Cheung Award 2023
Publications
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Buts, Jan
(2025).
Thematic Corpus Construction, Representativeness, and Discursive Sustainability.
In Fernández, Sara García; Cáneba, Fátima Gómez & García, Beatriz Guerrero (Ed.),
Traducción y sostenibilidad cultural II.
Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca.
ISSN 9788410910171.
p. 493–500.
doi:
https:/gredos.usal.es/bitstream/handle/10366/164297/10457-1.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y.
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This paper discusses two corpora, the Genealogies of Knowledge Corpus and the Sustainability and Health Corpus. Both are constructed on the basis of topics and concepts, rather than factors such as genre or register. Selection criteria influence the kind of analyses one can apply to a set of language data, and the sort of conclusions one can draw from those analyses. Particularly relevant, in this respect, is the question of representativeness: how do we know that research results are meaningful beyond the data at hand? The contrast between ideal and pragmatic answers to this question is addressed in the paper’s second section. The final part offers reflections on a recent complication. The production of text is increasingly relegated to automated systems. What does this mean for research principles based upon the assumption that the analysis of discourse can tell us something about the social world beyond the text?
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Buts, Jan
(2025).
Reconsidering case study research in translation studies.
Translation in Society.
ISSN 2667-3037.
4(1),
p. 21–39.
doi:
10.1075/tris.24013.but.
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It is common in translation studies (TS) to present research as a case study . Even though the phrase frequently figures in titles, the prominence of the case study label seldom corresponds to an explanation of required characteristics. Concerns regarding the bounding of cases, as well as reflections on the validity of particular interpretations, are often not subjected to explicit methodological reflection. This results in a discipline-internal complication, namely the impossibility of determining what is not a case study, and in a discipline-external lack of communicability: if the case study label is not predictive of an identifiable approach, this diminishes the incentive for researchers from other disciplines to productively engage with insights from TS. The article articulates those issues and concludes with suggestions for an enhanced meta-descriptive apparatus that can support transparent communication about the constitution and circulation of cases within the field and beyond.
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Vandeskog, Hil Ousland & Buts, Jan
(2025).
The momentum of gender and the SDGs: a corpus-assisted study of Norwegian development aid discourse.
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.
12.
doi:
10.1057/s41599-025-04684-4.
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This article analyses a corpus of documents produced by four Norwegian development aid NGOs. The aim is to assess whether the 2015 introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) resulted in salient discursive changes, specifically in usage patterns surrounding the concept of gender. The corpus data consists of 154 texts, with a total of ~900,000 tokens, gathered from funding applications produced between 2010 and 2020. We draw on methodological tools from corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis to carry out an analysis in three stages. First, we take stock of the visibility of references to specific SDGs in the corpus by means of frequency counts. Second, we employ collocation tables to test the hypothesis that the adoption of the SDGs introduces temporal variation in usage patterns pertaining to gender that exceeds variation observed across different types of NGO documents. Third, we draw on collocation networks to examine specific shifts in the discursive function of the phrase gender equality. Overall, we find that while the textual imprint of the SDGs is clearly present in the texts produced after 2015, no extensive transformation regarding the articulations of gender can be noted. In our conclusion, we discuss our findings in the context of the relation between the SDGs and human rights discourse and discuss the implications of the observed relation between intertextuality, conceptual flexibility, and the translational process of norm diffusion.
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Vandeskog, Hilde Ousland; Buts, Jan; Heggen, Kristin & Engebretsen, Eivind
(2025).
The (un)targeted gendered vulnerabilities in Norwegian development aid—a corpus-assisted discourse analysis.
Development Policy Review.
ISSN 0950-6764.
43(1).
doi:
10.1111/dpr.12816.
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Motivation
Gender is a central concept and a buzzword in the development aid discourse. Like many buzzwords, its meaning is malleable. If aid efforts really are to “leave no one behind,” as the Sustainable Development Goals proclaim, we must critically interrogate how the discursive articulation of buzzwords such as gender can both make visible and hide from view vulnerabilities that should be salient for aid programming. In this article, we focus on the extent to which the mobilization of “gender” by Norwegian development aid non-governmental organizations' is able to bring vulnerabilities related to sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression (SOGIE) to the fore.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine a corpus of Norwegian NGO development aid policy and planning documents to analyse whether and how gender is articulated differently across different types of documents, and what this means in terms of which gendered vulnerabilities become visible.
Approach and methods
We draw on methods from corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) to examine a purpose-built corpus of 88 files pulled from framework funding applications submitted by four Norwegian aid NGOs to the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD). We analyse the results drawing on Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory to examine how conceptual translation between policy and programme-level documents opens up space for the concept to be assigned changing meanings.
Findings
While the NGOs at policy level articulate a broad notion of gendered vulnerabilities that include recognition of SOGIE vulnerabilities, this is not translated into practical programme plans. At the programme plan level, gender is articulated as a subject field overwhelmingly concerned with women and firmly attached to a traditional binary sex-gender construct.
Policy implications
Although SOGIE gendered vulnerabilities are increasingly acknowledged in NGO articulations of their priorities and values, this is not reflected in actual programme plans. We argue that this can lead to a misplaced expectation that these concerns are being addressed in the NGOs' activities, obscuring the neglect of SOGIE vulnerabilities in many development aid gender programmes.
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Buts, Jan & Malaymar, Deniz
(2024).
A Look at What is Lost: Combining Bibliographic and Corpus Data to Study Clichés of Translation.
Corpus-based Studies Across the Humanities.
ISSN 2940-1445.
1(1),
p. 1–22.
doi:
10.1515/csh-2023-0015.
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This article presents the results of a corpus-assisted study focused on the expression lost in translation in a corpus of English-language online newspapers (NOW), and in two scholarly bibliographic databases (BITRA and SCOPUS). On the surface, the phrase may seem to indicate negative perceptions of translation practice. However, a study of several hundred occurrences of the cliché paints a more complex picture involving a variety of communicative practices and settings. Many occurrences of the phrase address, for instance, broader issues of cultural and interpersonal misunderstanding. In such cases, the perceived failure to establish a meaningful connection can often be ascribed to the absence of attempts at mediation or transmission, thus signalling recognition that the greatest losses occur not because of, but by lack of translation. In addition, the data indicate that lost in translation’s varied usage patterns can be understood in terms of two competing metaphorical frames, namely one of transportation and one of orientation: in translation, one can lose something, but one can just as well get lost. The implications of both metaphorical mappings are further addressed with reference to the issue of visibility, and to discussions about the proper scope of translation studies research.
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Buts, Jan & Özçelik,, Saliha
(2024).
The translator and the scapegoat: On mimetic desire and intercultural mediation.
Rencontres en Traduction.
2024(1).
doi:
10.35562/encounters-in-translation.201.
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In the summer of 1993, several poets and musicians, many of Alevi descent, were staying at the Madımak hotel in Sivas (Turkey) for a festival. One of the hotel guests was Aziz Nesin, a Turkish author who had controversially announced a translation of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, a book widely condemned for its alleged blasphemy. On July 2, a large crowd marched on the hotel after Friday prayers and set it on fire. Thirty-seven people were killed, and many others wounded. This article discusses the case of Nesin and his connection to what is known as the Sivas massacre. Our study of this event seeks to examine the multilayered relationship between acts of intercultural mediation and outbursts of collective violence. We argue that this relationship can be clarified by drawing on the work of René Girard, whose writings on scapegoating and sacrificial violence survey the multifaceted interaction between human aggression and imitation. We introduce Girard’s work and consider the assumptions behind it in the light of previous work on translation, narrative and conflict. Against this theoretical background, our discussion of the Sivas massacre in relation to the Satanic Verses seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the role of agents of translation as potential catalysts as well as victims of collective violence.
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Buts, Jan; HADLEY, James & ABOOMAR, Mohammad
(2022).
Keyness, Context, and Cultural Specificity in Indirect Translation.
transLogos Translation Studies Journal.
5(5),
p. 1–21.
doi:
10.29228/translogos.40.
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The translation of references specific to a given source culture has long been a
prominent, and often problematic aspect of translation practice and research. In
indirect translation, or the translation of already translated material, linguistic
and cultural differences accumulate, meaning that the omission of cultural
references (CRs) or culture-specific items (CSIs) might be a generally expected
outcome. Yet before such hypotheses can be tested, research methods are needed
that can account for broad patterns across whole texts, and preferably, across
semantic categories, genres, time periods, and languages. A ‘textual’ approach,
focused on the linguistic context in which CRs are likely to occur, should
complement the currently dominant ‘cultural’ approach, which mainly relies on
predefined categories and intuition for the selection of objects of study. This
article illustrates that corpus research, and particularly keyness analysis, can aid
in uncovering recurrent structural patterns and textual functions in which CRs
are expected to pose translation difficulties. In this regard, it focuses on
expressions of enumeration, or lists, and indicators of identification, or voice.
Based on a trilingual (English, French, and Italian) corpus-assisted study of
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and John Cary’s An Essay on the
State of England (1695), the article accentuates the productive complementarity
of numerical operations and context-sensitive readings.
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Buts, Jan; Baker, Mona; Luz, Saturnino & Engebretsen, Eivind
(2021).
Epistemologies of evidence‑based medicine: a plea for corpus‑based conceptual research in the medical humanities.
Medicine, Health care and Philosophy.
ISSN 1386-7423.
doi:
10.1007/s11019-021-10027-2.
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Evidence-based medicine has been the subject of much controversy within and outside the field of medicine, with its detractors characterizing it as reductionist and authoritarian, and its proponents rejecting such characterization as a caricature of the actual practice. At the heart of this controversy is a complex linguistic and social process that cannot be illuminated by appealing to the semantics of the modifier evidence-based. The complexity lies in the nature of evidence as a basic concept that circulates in both expert and non-expert spheres of communication, supports different interpretations in different contexts, and is inherently open to contestation. We outline a new methodology that combines a social epistemological perspective with advanced methods of corpus linguistics and elements of conceptual history to investigate this and other basic concepts that underpin the practice and ethos of modern medicine. The potential of this methodology to offer new insights into controversies such as those surrounding EBM is demonstrated through a case study of the various meanings supported by evidence and based, as attested in a large electronic corpus of online material written by non-experts as well as a variety of experts in different fields, including medicine.
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Published
Feb. 7, 2024 1:42 PM
- Last modified
Aug. 11, 2026 9:34 AM
