Genre-specific Features of Translationese? Linguistic Differences between Translated and Non-translated Finnish Children's Literature

Abstract

Large-scale corpus-based research within translation studies is just taking its first steps. The paper begins by discussing some fundamental ideas and concepts underlying descriptive, corpus-based translation studies. These include translationese, translation-specific language, which refers to linguistic features that are either specific to translations or occur with a significantly higher or lower frequency in translations than in target-language originals, and universals of translation, i.e. features which are hypothesized to be common to all translated texts regardless of text type and language pair. The paper reports some research findings based on the children's literature subcorpus of the larger Corpus of Translated Finnish compiled at the Savonlinna School of Translation Studies, University of Joensuu. The aim of the research was to find potential features of translationese in Finnish translations of children's books. The features discussed include complex nonfinite constructions, clause connectives, and keywords. It was discovered that high frequencies of nonfinite constructions, lack of colloquial words, and specific uses of certain conjunctions are qualities which distinguish Finnish translations from non-translations and can hence be considered features of translationese in Finnish children's literature. The findings are also looked at from the perspective of translation universals, which are both supported and contradicted. Finally, the paper touches upon the difficulties caused to computer analysis by Finnish, a synthetic language, and the problems of creating a balanced corpus.