the law of growing standardization – TTs generally display less linguistic

Catalan and TT Spanish. It is easy to see that the lexical and syntactic structures are almost identical: Example A2.1 ST Des de 1912, el Ferrocarril de Sóller uneix les xiutats de Palma i Sóller TT Desde 1912, el Ferrocarril de Sóller une las ciudades de Palma y Sóller [Since 1912, the Railway of Soller joins the towns of Palma and Soller conservant encara el seu caràcter original. conservando su carácter original. preserving still the its character original .] Such a literal translation is not so common when the languages in question are more distant. Or, to put it another way, the term ‘literal’ has tended to be used with a different focus, sometimes to denote a TT which is overly close or influenced by the ST or SL. The result is what is sometimes known as ‘translationese’. To illustrate this, let us consider some typical examples of translated material the English TTs of Arabic STs which seem to defy comprehension. As you read through these TTs, try to identify features of the texts that strike you as odd, and reflect on whether problems of this kind are common in languages you are familiar with. For example, what are we to make of the request for donations in this welfare organization’s publicity leaflet? 12 I n t r o d u c t i o n A SECTION A pejorative general term for the language of translation. It is often used to indicate a stilted form of the TL from calquing ST lexical or syntactic patterning see Duff 1981. Translationese is related to translation universals see Section A Unit 1 since the characteristics mentioned above may be due to common translation phenomena such as interference, explicitation and domestication . In Unit 13, we shall see how an alternative name, translatese, is employed by Spivak to refer to a lifeless form of the TL that homogenizes the different ST authors. Newmark 2003:96 uses another term, ‘trans- latorese’, to mean the automatic choice of the most common ‘dictionary’ translation of a word where, in context, a less frequent alternative would be more appropriate. Concept Box Translationese