The identification of norms, i.e. of recurrent patterns of behaviour, is a common concern for Linguistics, Translation Studies, and Television Studies. This paper offers a critical methodological review after applying Corpus Pattern Analysis (CPA), a technique proposed from the field of lexical analysis, to the study of audiovisual translation. The paper illustrates the application of this research technique by presenting a case study pursuing the identification of anomalous collocations in the English spoken dialogue and in the Spanish subtitles of three television series by means of CPA. After illustration, emphasis of the methodological assessment is placed on the discussion of advantages and limitations entailed in the use of CPA for the study of audiovisual translation.