Translationese

The style of language perceived as characteristic of (bad) translations.

Translationese refers to language in a translation which appears awkward, unnatural, or unidiomatic, especially as a result of the translator attempting to replicate closely the specific features of the source text.

Awkward or ungrammatical translation.

What is Translationese?

• Unnaturalness: Translationese can make translated text sound awkward or unnatural to native speakers of the target language, even if the grammar is technically correct.
• Source Language Influence: It often arises when translators carry over sentence structures, idioms, or word choices from the source language, even if those elements don’t naturally occur in the target language.
• Not Necessarily Bad: While often viewed negatively, translationese can also be a consequence of striving for faithfulness to the source text, or even a deliberate stylistic choice.

Examples of Translationese:

• Literal Translations: Translating idioms or sentence structures word‑for‑word instead of finding idiomatic equivalents in the target language.
• Overly Explicit Language: Using more explicit or detailed phrasing than a native speaker would use.
• Unnatural Word Order: Maintaining the word order of the source language even if it sounds awkward in the target language.
• Use of Uncommon Vocabulary: Employing words that are not commonly used by native speakers in that context.

Why does it happen?

• Fidelity vs. Fluency: Translators often face a trade‑off between maintaining the meaning and style of the source text (fidelity) and producing natural‑sounding text in the target language (fluency).
• Lack of Expertise: Inexperienced translators may struggle to recognize and avoid translationese features.
• Influence of Machine Translation: Some argue that machine translation can perpetuate translationese due to its reliance on statistical models and patterns found in large corpora of translated text.

In essence, translationese is a reminder that translation is not just about finding equivalent words, but about adapting the text to the cultural and linguistic norms of the target language.