Optional Word-Order Shifts in Translation into and from Hungarian

Abstract

The author claims that word-order shifts take place in the course of the translation of almost every sentence of translated texts, regardless of language-pair and direction of translation. Some of these shifts are obligatory, since without them we would not get a grammatically correct TL sentence. Another class of word-order shifts is not obligatory but optional. Optional word-order shifts are performed in order to ensure the cohesion of the TL text. Obligatory word-order shifts which lead to a grammatically correct TL sentence may distort the communicative structure: cohesive ties get loose, unimportant elements get highlighted and important elements are blurred. Many optional word-order changes are performed in order to preserve the communicative structure of the sentences, and thus the cohesion of the text. The present paper will discuss the different types of optional word-order shifts in translation from Hungarian into IE languages and vice versa.